Techne® Thermal Cycler 
Software Update 

With our latest Thermal Cyclers, Techne® has launched an innovative way to allow users to 
update their instrument software to get the latest updates available, free of charge.

Updating your Techne® Thermal Cycler is reasonably painless but does require an amount of 
preparation before you do it the first time.  Just follow the step-by-step guide carefully. If you already have the Techne® Cycler Update program on your PC you can skip STEP 1. 

STEP 1: If you don't already have the Techne® Cycler Update Windows program installed on your computer download and install it now. (Be sure to note the download location on your PC) Once installed the software can be run by clicking the Start button, clicking the Programs item, then clicking on Techne® Cycler Update.

STEP 2: Determine if an update is available for your Thermal cycler. The latest version is shown below.  If the version shown here is higher than on your unit an update is available and should be installed. Click on your model to get the update file (be sure to note the download location on your PC) and run the file when the download is complete. This will place the files (by default) in C:/Techne® /<unit name>. 

STEP 3: Connecting The Cycler to Your PC. You need to connect your cycler to a spare serial port on your PC.  To do this, you must purchase a female-to-female null modem cable. You can purchase the required cable directly from the Techne® Online store by clicking here.

STEP 4: Now you need to make sure that your cycler can talk to the PC:     

1. Run the Techne® Cycler Update program  
2. Switch on your cycler and ensure that it is set to address 1 - how to do this is shown in your user manual.  
3. On Techne® Cycler Update select menu item View/Options and select the serial (COM) port that the unit is connected to.  
4. Close the communications dialog box and press the Scan Units button on the Address tab.  Your unit should be shown on the screen as below:  

STEP 5:   Updating The Unit Software  
With the Techne® Update Software program running, press the Software tab and then click on the Update Software button on that page.  Use the standard “file open” box to browse to the directory that you stored the unit-specific upgrade (default is C:\Techne® \<unit name>) in STEP 2.  The file upgrade.txt will be in this directory – click on it and press the Open button.  
The Techne® Update Software program now needs to interrogate the unit to find out what version is currently loaded.  You will be presented with a request to power up your unit in BootBlock Mode:

BootBlock mode is a special mode that allows the software to be updated and is not the same as the software interface that allows you to run programs.  
How to run the unit in BootBlock mode depends on the make of unit:

TC312  
      

1. Switch off the unit.   

2. Press any two buttons and, keeping the buttons pressed, switch on the unit.  

3. Keep pressing the buttons until MONITOR RUNNING is displayed on the screen.  

4. If you let go of either button before the MONITOR RUNNING is displayed then your unit will start running in normal mode and you will have to repeat the sequence.