Fast Monitoring System - PXI

PXI DAQ Configuration and Channel List

By turning on the PXI system, a LabVIEW-RT program will be automatically executed and a DAQ session will be started. One can also stop a DAQ session and start a new one through EPICS control GUI link.

During the initialization of a DAQ session, a configuration file Channel_Config.ini will be loaded, which defines various DAQ parameters as well as properties of individual channels.

Access Channel_Config.ini

There are two methods to access and modify the file:

Option I. Web-Browser

The easiest way is to edit the file using a web-browser from a Windows machine (MS Silverlight plugin is required)

1. Go to http://halld-pxi.jlab.org
2. Click login on top-right of the page, type in user name 'halld' and password when prompted. Ask Elliott to get the password.
3. Click the Remote File Browser from the left panel
4. Expand the directory tree to open the folder called c:\ni-rt\Solenoid_DAQ
5. Choose Channel_Config.ini in the right panel, then click Edit File ... to open it
6. WARNING! Modify the file content if you know what you are doing, click Save Changes or Cancel to exit the editor.

Option II. FTP

1. Use any ftp client to log on to halld-pxi.jlab.org as halld
2. The configuration file can be found in directory /ni-rt/Solenoid_DAQ

Description of Channel_Config.ini

An example of the Channel_Config.ini is attachedFile:Example Config.ini

Communication with EPICS

Reboot EPICS Service for ROOTFile Recording

1. Log onto gluon01.jlab.org as user halld, ask Elliott for password,
2. Connect to the PXI-EPICS server by typing telnet localhost 26060
3. Hit Ctrl+X to reboot the server, reboot it a couple more times to make sure no error messages coming out,
4. Hit Ctrl+] to exit the server
5. Type 'quit' to exit telnet

How to Run EPICS Control

Start EPICS Control

1. Log onto gluon01.jlab.org using username halld from any Linux terminal, ask Elliott if you do not know the password.
2. Type css & to start the Control System Studio.
3. If PXI control is not already loaded, click File -> Open File in the top left menu, open ~halld/CSS-Workspaces/Default/Hall-D/PXI/PXI_Status.opi.

Use EPICS Control

Make sure that the PXI's heart beat is blinking, and all the EPICS channels are connected

Main Screen

The main screen give you the accesses to PXI control, ROOTFile Recording, strip-charts for CPU usage,magnetic current, field strength, pickup coil signals and buttons to open other strip-charts for sub coil voltages and voltage ratios.

To Start DAQ

1. By default, the PXI-DAQ should be running, if not, hit Start to start the DAQ process, you should see that the status changes from System Standby to Initialize DAQ to DAQ Running

Calculate Offsets

1. Make sure magnet is in a state that the all signals remain zero,
2. Stop running DAQ proccess by hitting Stop,
3. Click zero button to start zeroing process, the status will change from System Standby to Initizalize to Zeroing. After about 1 minute, the zeroing process should automatically stop and System Standby should be shwon then.

Reset Offsets

1. Stop DAQ
2. Click Reset Offset button
3. Start DAQ

Generate Fake Turn-to-Turn Short Alarm

1. The feature only works during a normal DAQ process
2. Click T-2-T Alarm to trigger an alarm
3. Click T-2-T Alarm again to return to disable the fake alarm

Open Strip Charts for Voltage Taps

1. Click Open Sub Coil Chart

Open Strip Charts for Total Voltage and Ratios of Voltages

1. Click Open Voltage Chart button

Start or Stop ROOTFile Recording

1. ROOT Files need to be recorded for offline analysis, start a new ROOTFILE everytime a new ramp up starts from 0 A.
2. Check the status of ROOT File Recording, if it says Idle .. Click to start new file, then click the button, acknowledge the popup message to start a new ROOTFile. The button should then say Writing Data .. Click to stop.
3. Then one need to check the existance of the new file. First log onto gluon01 from a Linux terminal, then type ll -h /local/scratch/PXI_DATA/ROOT/*.root to display the list of availble root list, try to find the file with latest time stamp, also repeat the command a couple of more times make sure the file size is increasing.
4. If ROOT file is not updating, one need to restart the EPICS IOC service for recording.
5. Stop ROOTFile writing by click the button after the current ramps down to 0 A.

How to Analyize ROOT Files

List of ROOT Files

• HallD Elog entry of list of rootfiles
• all the rootfiles are on gluon01.jlab.org in directory /local/scratch/PXI_DATA/ROOT/, there is a symbolic link in the Analyzer directory mentioned later.

Run Analysis Tool

• Log onto gluon01 using username halld.
• Go to directory /home/yqiang/solenoid/Analyzer
• Run ./analyzer

List of button/features in analyzer

• Open: open a rootfile
• Exit: exit the program
• Top Panel: The magnet's current will be shown in the top panel, by zooming in/out the time(X) axis, one will select the range of displays/evaluations shown in the bottom panel
• Bottom Panel: Display of plots, calculations
• Field Delay: Delay time for field probe, default is 0
• Resample Frequency: Show data with different resample frequency, the maximum is 5000 Hz
• Legend: Show legends in plots
• Cal Mean: Calculate mean values of histograms shown in plots, the results will be printed in terminal
• Cal Fit: