Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Abdalla Ahmad via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov> · Wed, 3 Feb 2021 13:40:17 +0000

Hello Mark

Thanks for your feedback.

> I would recommend using the Dante. I wrote that driver recently, and I am using it in production.
I have to start browsing epics-modules repos for interesting stuff :-) 

> but that is so old I would be surprised if there are Windows 10 drivers for it.
The manual states that QM100 server is designed for Win XP/7. Doesn't Bruker provide the drivers?

> When you say "soft x-ray", what energy x-rays are you planning to measure?
Actually I am still not familiar with the physics side of the beamline, but we proposed the suggested setup to the scientific people to see if the DANTE DPP meets the beamline requirements.

Best Regards,
Abdalla.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Rivers <rivers at cars.uchicago.edu> 
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2021 3:11 PM
To: Abdalla Ahmad <Abdalla.Ahmad at sesame.org.jo>
Cc: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: Re: Questions about Bruker QM100 detector

Hi Abdalla,

I would recommend using the Dante.  I wrote that driver recently, and I am using it in production.  The IOC run on Linux or Windows. You need a Windows system to do the initial configuration via USB.

The Canberra QM100 is very old.  It can communicate via a serial port, but that is very slow for reading spectra.  It can also communicate via a high-speed proprietary interface, but that is so old I would be surprised if there are Windows 10 drivers for it.

When you say "soft x-ray", what energy x-rays are you planning to measure?  I am not sure what the noise floor is on either of those electronics for measuring very low-energy x-rays.  What type of detector is it, Si(Li), Si drift diode, Ge, etc.?

Mark

________________________________
From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Abdalla Ahmad via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2021 12:45 AM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov
Subject: Questions about Bruker QM100 detector

Hello Community!

A soft X-ray beamline will be built at SESAME soon and the detector to be used is the Bruker QM100. I know that the MCA module supports this detector, but under windows only, and our standard OS is CentOS for every control system. So my question is, if anyone developed an IOC for this detector under windows, can you please share your experience running the IOC? What was your setup (Windows, compiler, EPICS and modules)? Were there any difficulties in building and running the IOC, data acquisition, etc. or any other issue?

One of our colleagues suggested that we might use the DANTE digital pulse processor from XGLab as a readout system for the QM100, it has an EPICS driver and Ethernet interface so that is another route we can go. Does anyone have experience with this pulse processor?

Best Regards,

Abdalla.

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System