This section explains how to find a closest commercial color to that of a color measured of a sample.

Measured color attributes are represented as numerical values in Table screen. Sensegood Spectrophotometer follows Commission Internationale de l'éclairage (International Commission on Illumination) CIE1931, CIE1964 and CIE1976. Hence generated numerical values are in compatible standard color space coordinate format and the values can be fitted directly in any third party tool which follows CIE.

For an example, one such tool is available at: https://www.easyrgb.com/en/match.php#inputFORM Select appropriate data type and provide numerical color data measured by the instrument and press MATCH to find out available closest commercial colors.

Please refer to the assembly and quick start guide to know about possible different configurations that are supported by Sensegood spectrophotometer.

Once the measurement data is reflected in the SensegoodSmart utility; press “Print” menu. This will open up Microsoft® Windows® printing selection screen. You can either select to print or create pdf based on the available software (e.g., PDFCreator) in your operating system.

This section narrates how to save reference to computer and how to download the reference from computer to the instrument. The reference color information is a part of .sego file; hence no separate data input is required.

Step 1: Save desired reference to the computer:
First take the product/surface/color/sample/substrate which you want to consider as a reference. In Sensegood Spectrophotometer, go to Match screen and Press “NEW REFERENCE” to record its color attributes. User can also set the Alarm Limit to establish the permissible tolerance. The instrument keeps the reference data in its RAM, if required, further it can be saved to the memory using “SAVE REFERENCE”. Once the reference is recorded, you must take at least one measurement so that the SensegoodSmart utility can fetch the measurement data including the recorded reference. Once the measurement data reflects in the utility, user can export the same to .sego file. This exported .sego file contains reference color information along with the Alarm Limit. Before exporting to the .sego file, user can also consider mentioning reference specific information in the user data field available in the utility.

Step 2: Send reference to device:
A user can have any number of reference files stored in the computer, specific to different projects or specific to the customers. User can select and import the desired reference file from computer to the SensegoodSmart utility. The imported .sego file has the reference color information and the allowed tolerance – Alarm Limit along with the user data narrating the information about that specific reference. Now press “Send Reference to Device” to download the reference data to the Sensegood Spectrophotometer.

Step 3: Acknowledgement
Once the reference is sent successfully, the instrument should display following message: “Reference saved to the memory”
And the utility should display the following message: “Reference sent to the device successfully.”
Now the instrument is ready to measure the samples and evaluate the amount of percentage match considering set Alarm Limit, by comparing the sample with the downloaded reference. This downloaded reference in the device remains saved in its memory until either new reference is saved using “SAVE REFERENCE” in the instrument or new reference is downloaded to the instrument using the utility.

To summarize, the utility enables users to save multiple references to the computer and load the desired reference into the instrument whenever required for determining the amount of matching with the sample under test.

Turn off the motor in instrument’s settings screen. Now power off the instrument and remove Motor wire jack from socket to electrically disconnect the motor from sensor head.

• The display has resistive touch technology which works with gentle pressure at specific location.
• For smooth functioning of the LCD, user must use provided stylus.
• For touch robustness, icons are configured to work with press and hold.
• Press and hold till you hear a beep or the desired screen shows up. However you won’t hear touch sounds if buzzer is muted.

Used TFT has 6 o’clock viewing angle hence colors in spectral graph are more differentiable when viewing from 6 o’clock angle.

If you have completed any critical procedure like “FACTORY RESET”, Hardware Reset, or “SELF TEST”, or else if you have unintentionally entered in user restricted section which may compromise instrument’s factory calibration, instrument will prompt for restart by displaying a message: “Restart Required!”. Without pressing anywhere on the display, just power off the instrument and then power it on.

Consider implementing following steps:
a. Turn on the motor in instrument’s settings if it is off.
b. Check if any physical object is restricting the motor movement.
c. Measure when no sample / no load kept on the rotating platform. If motor is rotating without sample, ensure that the total load is <1kg for motor to rotate with sample.
d. Check if the motor jack is properly inserted to the socket. Power off the instrument, try removing and reinserting the motor jack. Check after powering it on.
e. Open rotating table / motor enclosure and check wire solder joints with motor terminals, if broken, needs to be soldered by professional.
f. Open four bottom screws of sensor head. Check wire solder joints with motor socket connector, if required, do solder rework without taking out the PCB.
g. If still motor is not rotating then check motor terminals on main PCB itself. If required, do solder rework with the help of professional.

For professional: You should get +5V across motor terminals and across motor socket when a measurement is being taken. You can put instrument into averaging mode with AVG on, or use “SELF TEST” in Settings->Help to continuously rotate the motor. If required, flange coupler can be simply pulled out.

Contact us if the problem is not resolved.

Power off the instrument, unscrew sensor head bottom. Check CON-7 on LED PCB and CON-2 on main PCB. Open connector locks and pull out the cable. Reinsert the cable with proper alignment and then lock the connectors. Power on the instrument and check. Contact us if the problem is not resolved.

This means buzzer is turned off internally. Go to instrument settings and turn on the buzzer.

Go to instrument’s settings screen and turn off the buzzer. This will also stop icon touch sounds.

Pressing on buzzer icon it mutes or un-mutes the buzzer. This setting is saved in instrument’s RAM only and it will be un-muted upon next power on by default. If you want to make it permanently off, turn off the buzzer from instrument’s setting. Now it will stay muted even after restart, till it is un-muted manually from the settings.

Target distance is the height from which you want to measure a sample. The same physical height (in centimetres) needs be provided to the instrument. Navigate to Settings screen -> Target distance.

Set desired physical target distance and set the same in instrument settings. Open any screen depending on the type of data you want to see. Just press “GO” and instrument will take the measurement.

Recommended operation is till 8cm max. However the instrument can be operated beyond physical target distance of 8cm if required, while keeping the maximum target distance of 8cm in software settings, if it is meant to be used for color difference measurements and not for absolute color measurements. For absolute color measurements it is recommended to keep target distance within 0-2 cm range. Most of the time color difference and hence the color consistency is more important rather than the absolute color measurement. Instrument can also be used for color indices determination, like whiteness and yellowness index for larger target distance operations.

Calculation of each index value is standardized and defined with specific illuminant-observer pair. If the selected pair is other than the required for that specific index value calculation, instrument will automatically change it to the required one. For an example, consider D65/10 is already selected by user. When user measures citrus color index, instrument changes the illuminant-observer to C/2 as citrus color index is standardized by USDA with C/2.

If you think that the color data value is out of the desired limit, try different physical target distance positioning. Increase or decrease the physical target distance in steps of 0.5cm while keeping the same target distance in settings, till you get a desired response. Once properly positioned, you should use the same target distance for all your measurements specific to that sample.

In case if you see a message: “INVALID! Move sensor head upwards” when “GO” is pressed, do following:
• Verify if the target distance set in settings is the same as the physical target distance.
• If above point is verified then move sensor head upwards (increase target distance) physically in 0.5 cm steps till the message stops coming after pressing “GO”. In this procedure, don’t change the target distance in settings, just increase the physical sample-to-sensor distance.

• Sensegood spectrophotometer empowers your ergonomics to use any sample holder of your choice such as; tray, bowl or jar depending on the type of your sample and application.
• You can put any solid, liquid, powder or paste in the sample holder and do the analysis.
• Color of the sample holder should be white, black or transparent.
• Sample holder in neutral white color is the most recommended, as it can give comparatively good response even for semi-transparent liquid and paste samples.
• Holder/tray size should be enough to provide the adequate area to the sample to satisfy field-of-view criteria. So that the sensor’s light does not fall outside.
• Sample placed in the tray/holder should be uniform in height. Just make a quick level using your hand and you are ready to measure. You can consider giving a quick compress to the powdery samples to maintain the consistency of measurement process.
• Samples that aren’t opaque need to be folded, wound, or stacked – depending upon the material – so measurements aren’t affected by background colors showing through.
• Samples with directional orientations such as textile samples; must be carefully measured to avoid errors. Consider situating the samples in the same orientation and take measurements. Even taking multiple measurements in averaging mode should be considered.
• Samples with irregular colors need to be measured multiple times. Move and mix the sample between each measurement and average the data.
• For accuracy, maintain the consistency of the sample being filled in the tray. i.e., amount of sample (certain amount will achieve specific height in the tray which will affect the target distance) and arrangement/placement of sample (e.g., cookies).
• For online/in-process measurements, consider installing the sensor where the sample flows more uniformly i.e. sample height roughly remains the same.

In the process of visual color match; there are factors like eye fatigue, aging of the eye, stress, individual’s different expressive perception toward color, and light source that affect the color match decision. Hence, it becomes difficult to make decision of accepting, reprocessing or rejecting the sample based on visual match. And this directly hampers the quality of the final product. While on other hand there are advantages of instrumental color quality control as it provides results with same accuracy, consistency and reliability. It eliminates subjectivity in color assessments, eliminates the variability among different analysts and maximizes precision.

In certain months of the year when the temperature and humidity are high, it is possible that the temperature and humidity levels of the unit can be exceeded, especially in a manufacturing environment. Move the unit to cooler and dryer location; let it settle for some time and retest.

Apart from these, there are factors that affect the instrumental color measurement are: improper sample preparation, external light conditions, sensor maintenance and cleaning, target distance, and sample’s gloss. If set target distance is such that the field of view (FOV) of sensor is larger than the sample surface (light is falling outside of sample surface), the instrument will pick up the unwanted color outside of sample surface.

Extremely glossy surfaces, mirror like finishes and metallic paints (silver, gold) cannot be truly measured due to shiny reflection which leads to dull measured colors. However instrument can truly measure not so glossy surfaces like shiny plastics and automobile colors.

Ideal black is what that does not allow any color to reflect as it absorbs all the colors, something like black hole. If we can ‘see’ a thing in black it certainly means that it is reflecting certain color components. However black has tendency to absorb most of what it gets, the reflected power of color components is typically small. More ever there are shades of black as well. When black is measured using Sensegood spectrophotometer, it represents normalized spectral density for visible wavelengths and hence you may see a peak at certain wavelength where the reflected power is maximum.

Perfect white reflects all the color components in equal proportion. However typical white is not perfect and it has some amount of access chroma, it can be very little yellowish, bluish, pinkish, greenish or in combination. The reflected power of all color components from white is typically high. When measured with Sensegood spectrophotometer, it shows peak at a wavelength where the maximum color power is measured.

If an image is opened in mobile and computer, the colors may look slightly different. Majority of LCD screens of phones and computers have a very limited capacity to represent the sRGB space. To get a decent on-screen color an expensive monitor is required with full or extended sRGB coverage. From a practical point of view, on-screen colors are pretty good to see color "differences" (2 colors side-by-side) as opposite to "absolute" colors. Even high quality color screens cannot replicate "real life" color. A screen is in any case a light source while "real life" colors come from light reflection of physical objects.

Mostly, color measurement is carried out for ensuring the color consistency of a product. Color difference is more important parameter that is considered by industry rather than the absolute color measurement. This is why the color industry (paint, ink, plastic etc.) widely use spectrophotometers for measuring the color differences to know color consistency in their products rather than the absolute color measurement.

There does not exist any physical standard samples for colors. For an example: Meter physical standard is preserved in controlled environment in a dedicated lab in Paris. Everybody in the world refers to this "standard" so there are no discussions about 1 meter length.

For color there is no such standard. The light sources have been standardized in terms of spectral emission by the CIE, but light source is just one component of color. There is no such thing as a "standard" color measure. The measuring instrument and environment generates its own standard.

• In Settings -> Help, Pressing “FACTORY RESET” initiates software factory reset.
• Once pressed, it will display the confirmation screen. Press “YES” to reset.
• Now you will require restarting the instrument.
• This will erase all user settings and reset the instrument to the factory settings.
• Along with the software factory reset, instrument also supports hardware reset for extreme cases. Please refer to the troubleshooting guide before you initiate any reset.

• Correct procedure is to first connect the instrument to computer USB port, turn it on, and then open the utility.
• Try re-connecting USB cable properly both instrument side as well as computer side.
• Check whether you see a COM port in the utility. Open the COM port and then take the measurement.
• If you are facing this issue for the first time installation, make sure that the VCP driver and utility are installed correctly. Refer to the installation guides.
• Check whether you see a COM port in device manger. Refer to installation guides to understand the same. If not,
• Consider uninstalling and removing all related files from the installation folder. Install VCP driver, and then install the utility. Make sure that you restart the computer after every install/ uninstall procedure to reflect the changes for proper functioning.

Once the measurement data is reflected to SensegoodSmart utility, just press “Export” to save it to comma separated (.csv) file or importable measurement data file (.sego). The utility also supports data to be saved in .jpg and .pdf format for sharing and printing.

• Keep instrument off while cleaning it.
• Use clean cloth to wipe of any dust deposit on the LCD.
• The instrument is NOT waterproof, but the exterior may be wiped with a damp cloth.
• Gently clean LEDs and sensor filter glass with industry grade isopropyl alcohol using cotton swab. Make sure that no stain remains otherwise it will hamper the instrument’s measurement performance.
• Blow dry or allow it to dry thoroughly.
• In case of liquid spillage in the motor compartment, immediately turn off power from mains supply and clean it from going into the motor shaft. If it is connected to the computer, immediately disconnect or else possible short circuit may damage the computer. Keep the instrument off or keep motor disconnected until it gets thoroughly dried.

• Instrument can be operated using +5V adapter or power bank or computer USB port.
• Use the provided adapter or any good quality +5V 1–2Amp adapter only.
• Power bank can be used to supply +5V directly without the need of adapter.
• Instrument can be supplied by computer USB port without the need of additional power supply. The same port also works as data communication port. In the instrument, this is enabled by its low average power consumption. It collects and stores energy when illumination and motor is off and releases the stored energy whenever required, avoiding peak supply burden. Algorithm is even optimized using task and schedulers and it is powered by niche electronics.

• First take confirmation from Sensegood about your concerns before you ship your instrument for repair, service or calibration, as many times, on-the-phone diagnosis is all that is required.
• Use the original packaging if possible. Else cover the display and measurement area with density foam. Do not use the duct tape. Painter’s tape is preferred if required, as it will not leave residue on the instrument.
• Enclose a photocopy of the invoice.
• Provide an itemized packing list of all contents of the shipment. • Insure the shipment.

Sensegood offers privileged warranty service to its customers with additional charge. Any kind of instrument fault or failure will be repaired, and the specific part will be replaced with new part if required, further the instrument will be configured and calibrated under this warranty for the period of six months from the purchase of new Sensegood Instrument. It is quite straight forward, no questions asked. Note that customers are responsible for incoming and outgoing freight charges.

• When you have a problem with an instrument or software, or need technical advice concerning a specific application, contact Sensegood for assistance. Please provide us following information. Many times, on-the-phone diagnosis is all that is required.
• The instrument for which you need assistance (Spectrophotometer)
• The serial number of the instrument (mentioned at the instrument’s boot screen)
• If software related query then: computer configuration - the type of processor, operating system and version that you are using, and the brand, if applicable.
• The specific nature of the problem, including the precise description.
• The steps performed prior to the start of the problem.
• Steps already performed to reconcile the problem and/or results of any diagnostic tests.
• The type of product being measured.
• Environmental conditions under which the instrument is normally used (temperature, humidity, dust, fumes, etc.)