Re: EPICS for a small lab - overkill?

[John Dobbins via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

My two cents:

If you are already familiar with EPICS (or have support from people who are) I would say sure. 

If you will be using existing device support, that is another point on the plus side.

If you are learning EPICS , Control System Studio, the Archiver Appliance, the Alarm Server, it might not be worth the time invested.

John Dobbins

Research Support Specialist

Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source

Cornell University

www.chess.cornell.edu

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From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Sean Leavey - STFC UKRI via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2022 3:26 PM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Subject: EPICS for a small lab - overkill?

 

Hi all,

I'm trying to determine the feasibility of using EPICS for simple monitoring of a small clean room facility. We'll need to read out various sensors (particle counters, temperature, etc.) via Modbus over Ethernet and archive the data at low speed (a few times per minute maybe) and also ideally display live data to lab users on a GUI (e.g. MEDM or modern equivalents). We're probably going to have a small number of outputs as well: automated switching of lights, fans, motors, that kind of thing. Maybe some alarms for e.g. triggering a warning light if particle counts get too high. No closed loops.

We could probably just use LabVIEW or similar but I don't like it much and prefer a licence-free and open source solution that can be easily adapted as needed. Plus, I may clone the EPICS setup to a different lab in a different city that we work with, so it would be nice to be able to use a gateway to access and archive their channels as well.

Has anyone used EPICS on such a small scale? Was it more trouble than it was worth compared to turnkey commercial solutions?

Any input would be appreciated!
Sean Leavey
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