Re: Control system for Keithley

[Márcio Paduan Donadio <marcio.donadio@lnls.br>]

    Ah, ok. So, probably, you don't know the directory structure of an IOC or even what a st.cmd is. In this case, you need more learning before trying to put an actual IOC to run. There is a lot of stuff to study, yet.

    Firstly, do the exercises in http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/base/R3-14/12-docs/AppDevGuide/node3.html . When it says "inspect files", really do this. You need to know where to find the many IOC files inside an IOC. Probably your Keithley IOC will use the same structure.

    Maybe you will not understand everything now, but the most important things to clarify are:
    - How files and directories are organized.
    - How a st.cmd file calls everything it needs to work.
    - What is the relationship between dbd and db files.
    - How the Makefile file inside Db and src directories are used to configure what your IOC will be made of.
    - How to modify configure/RELEASE to tell your IOC where the EPICS building blocks are located in your system.
    - How to compile an IOC.

    After understanding this, you are not prepared yet to understand all about your Keithley IOC. There is an important piece missing: the Asyn driver, responsible for making your IOC talk to your equipment using serial or GPIB. I recommend you to make it work initially with serial because it is easier to configure and diagnose for communication problems.

    Study the chapter 5 of this document: http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/modules/soft/asyn/R4-7/tutorial.html . Compare its contents with your Keithley IOC to understand how your IOC needs to be configured to access your equipment.

     After getting all this knowledge, I think you will have almost completed the puzzle inside your head. Probably you'll face compilation problems or communication problems. Try to Google it first because, probably, some answers are already available in tech-talk. In the case you can't find a solution, post another question here.

    My last comment: I am assuming that you have both EPICS base and SynApps compiled in your system.

    Don't give up! Learning is life.

    Best regards,

-- 
Márcio Paduan Donadio
Engenheiro de Computação - Software de Operação das Linhas de Luz
Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron – (LNLS)
Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais (CNPEM)
+ 55 (19) 3512-3520 - marcio.donadio@lnls.br
www.lnls.cnpem.br

Em 29-09-2016 02:11, Paramveer Jain escreveu:

Thanks

Yes this is the thing I want to start with.

please let me know how to start the IOC. ?

that is the thing I am not getting yet.

Thank you again

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 7:56 PM, Márcio Paduan Donadio <marcio.donadio@lnls.br> wrote:

        Dear Paramveer,

    So, the final goal will be to control your Keithley equipment using MEDM? Did I understand correctly?

    When you start Keithley IOC, can it connect correctly to the equipment?
   
    Before you try a GUI, I suggest you to read some PVs using caget / camonitor to see if it is tied to what you see on the equipment front screen. Also, it is a good idea to change some parameters with caput to see if the equipment reacts accordingly. Doing so you are sure that your IOC is working and communicating with Keithley.
   
     Next step is to test the same things in your GUI, that will work the same as camonitor and caput. If not, probably the PVs names are configured wrong in the GUI.

    Cheers,

-- 
Márcio Paduan Donadio
Engenheiro de Computação - Software de Operação das Linhas de Luz
Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron – (LNLS)
Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais (CNPEM)
+ 55 (19) 3512-3520 - marcio.donadio@lnls.br
www.lnls.cnpem.br

Em 28-09-2016 10:05, Paramveer Jain escreveu:

Thank you for suggestion,

         The actual problem with me is that there is no physical guidance from any expertise and tech talk is the only way to clear confusions for me.

For now I don't want to design any new IOC but only wants to use the existing one.

I have installed EPICS 3.14.12.5 , MEDM , VDCT for database configuration and having module for Keithley also but unable to relate all these thinks and 

if I have configured database with vdct and designed GUI using medm and connecting my Kethley picoammeter with serial-GPIB cable now whats the next step to establish communication between all these stuffs.

here the point I am stuck.

please help I am very new in EPICS.

thank you.

  

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 6:09 PM, Márcio Paduan Donadio <marcio.donadio@lnls.br> wrote:

         Hello, Paramveer.

     I'd like to add one more question to Ralph Lange ones:
     - When you say you want design control system for Keithley are you
intending to build an IOC or to build an EPICS client system to access
your IOC and do something with it?

     We have IOCs to many types of Keythley in LNLS, but if you want to
build your own to learn how to do it, I suggest you to read this
tutorial and practice the exercises:
http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/base/R3-14/12-docs/AppDevGuide/node3.html .
Mainly about the use of makeBaseApp.pl .

     After that you can study StreamDevice in
http://epics.web.psi.ch/software/streamdevice/doc/ .

     If you want to build an EPICS client to interact with your Keythley
IOC, there are many ways to do so. It will depend on your preference or
the standards used in the lab you work in.

     If you like Python, you can develop scripts using PyEpics, for
example. Here in LNLS we have a Python library that uses PyEpics called
Py4Syn: py4syn.lnls.br. It has already a built-in Keithley 6514 module
you can adapt to your case:
http://py4syn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/epics/epics_keithley_6514.html .

     If you like Java, C/C++, LabVIEW, etc, there will be options for
you, too.

     If you want to build screens for the user you can use CS-Studio,
PyQt, PyDM, caQtDM, and many other possibilities.

     As you can see, there is no easy answer to your question about next
steps. There are lots of ways to go and you need to test some to choose
the one that makes more sense to you.

     Best regards,

--
Márcio Paduan Donadio
Engenheiro de Computação - Software de Operação das Linhas de Luz
Laboratório Nacional de Luz Síncrotron – (LNLS)
Centro Nacional de Pesquisa em Energia e Materiais (CNPEM)
+ 55 (19) 3512-3520 - marcio.donadio@lnls.br
www.lnls.cnpem.br

--

With Regards,

Paramveer Jain

--

With Regards,

Paramveer Jain