bnl

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Beamline Controls with EPICS at NSLS
Zhijian Yin NSLS, BNL EPICS Collaboration
Meeting, SSRF, March 2008
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The Facility

• 2nd Generation LS,
• 2300 user/year,
• X-Ray and UV rings,
• Sources IR-UV-X-Ray
• Total 65 active beamlines
• PRT beamlines
• Facility beamlines
• Currently, 20 facility beamlines

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Beamlines Controls What do we do

• Dictated by science and experimental techniques
• Motion Controls
• Beamline Optics mirrors, monochromator, slits
• End Stations Sample/detector manipulation
• DAQ high level applications scans, data
  collection, detectors
• Other users devices (e.g., temperature control)

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NSLS Beamline Controls Pre EPICS

• Legacy systems mostly CAMAC based
• Non-Uniform PRTs are typically responsible for
  their own control systems
• NSLS has provided ACE program free to beamlines
  
• SPEC software (commercial) was quite popular
• Labview programs in Windows DOS programs
• Limited manpower/budget
• Standardize software (SPEC)

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Beamline Controls EPICS

• What drove us to EPICS was a looming hardware
  crisis in the late 90s
• CAMAC E500 motor controllers, as extensively used
  at NSLS beamlines, discontinued. No replacement.
• Follow APS beamline controls
• VME based, OMS motor boards
• Implemented a beamline control upgrade program
  for Facility Beamlines, at 2-3 beamlines/year
  (Y2K)
• SPEC added EPICS support (EPICS client)
• Currently 20 beamlines in EPICS
• PXRR beamlines controls in EPICS

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Beamline Controls EPICS (Cont)

• SynApps Motion Control, Scalers, sscan, etc
• Serial motors (asyn)
• MCA devices (asyn)
• Detector control (CCD module)
• DXP multielement detectors
• NSLS detectors (Siddons) - Embedded EPICS IOC
• Most EPICS beamlines have SPEC/EPICS/RTEMS
• PX beamlines Python based DAQ program
• TO DO Labview camp (NI EPICS client)

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Beamline Controls EPICS onRTEMS (K.
Feng-Berman, P. Siddons)

• VxWorks expensive
• RTEMS as good, even for real time
• EPICS 3.14, made RTEMS support possible
• Almost all beamline controls in EPICS now runs in
  RTEMS (mvme230x, mvme5500)

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Beamline Controls EPICS forQexafs (I.So,
Siddons)

• Normal EXAFS slow
• Scan mono angle, (E)
• A few minutes per spectrum
• Qexafs
• Continuous scan
• Read detector data and encoder
• Spectrum in seconds
• Measurements of structure change
• Need Real time performance
• EPICS on real time Linux (RTAI)

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Organization Request-Tracker

• Database/email/web
• Tracking user request
• Project documentation
• Help Desk support
• Project Management

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Remote Diagnostics and Operations

• NX or freenx serverSSH tunneling
• Clients free download (nomachine.com)
• Good for beamline staff diagnostics and even user
  remote ops
• General purpose, not tied to EPICS

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Conculding Remarks

• We benefited from EPICS, SynApps tremendously
• Open Source technologies really work well
• Beamline controls works best with collaborations
  with beamline scientists and engineers
• Controls upgrade could make possible new
  techniques
• Important but challenging training of beamline
  scientists and engineers to embrace EPICS
• Many beamlines are ready for NSLS-II in terms of
  beamline controls