Data Acquisition Manual: How to run Neutron Time of Flight Measurements at nELBE (Up to July 2011)

(old version up to June 2010, latest version)

- Transmission Experiment -

The transmission experiment are done with the same electronics setup like the inelastic scattering experiments, with the difference that the electronics for the BaF₂ data is ignored.

To run neutron time of flight measurement you first have to do some preparations:

1.	switch on the electronics
2.	start MBS prompter
	login to RIO7:	telnet rio7 user name: ntofdaq password: ***********
	remove interrupt request settings	vmeconfig -c
	go to working directory	cd ~/mbsrun/ntot/
	start prompter	prm
	intitialize MBS	@start
3.	setup initialisation files (if you want to do some special settings)
	login to urania (in another terminal window)	ssh -X ntofdaq@urania password: ***********
	go to working directory	cd mbsrun/ntot
	open setup_vme_0_short.ini for text editing	xemacs setup_vme_0_short.ini &
	open setup_vme_1_short.ini for text editing	xemacs setup_vme_1_short.ini &
4.	open log files for monitoring
	login to urania (in another terminal window)	ssh -X ntofdaq@urania password: ***********
	go to working directory	cd mbsrun/ntot
	open mbslog.l, mbsprint_vme_0.l and mbsprint_vme_1.l(each in its own terminal window)	tail -f mbslog.l tail -f mbsprint_vme_0.l tail -f mbsprint_vme_1.l
5.	run the automatic setup of the V874B TAPS Modules (only if you want to use the QDC data)
	(see here)
6.	switch on the detectors
	login to fwk24 (HV control PC) turn on the detectors you want to use (cf. cabeling scheme)	rdesktop -g 1240x900 -a 16 -k de fwk24 start isegCANHVControl via desktop shortcut
7.	start the process to take the list mode data
	login to zirkonia go to directory for list mode data files start RFIO dispatcher	ssh -X ntofdaq@zirkonia cd /hdd1/ntofdaq/lmd/ rawDispRFIO
8.	start the OPC client
	login to rio6 go to working directory start OPC readout	telnet rio6 cd mbsrun/ntot ./opc2shm

Now the measurement can be started. This has to be done in the MBS prompter (prm):

1.	open list mode file	open file size=900 -auto -rfiodisk if it is the first file enter: open file zirkonia:filename_.lmd first=1 size=900 -auto -rfiodisk
2.	start acquisition	rio3::sta acq
3.	wait	...
4.	stop acquisition	rio3::stop acq
5.	close list mode file	close file
6.	note down the values of the live and dead time given at the end of mbsprint_vme_0.l

Step 1 and 2 can also be executed with the command @startrun

Step 4 and 5 can also be executed with the command @stoprun

If an error that freezes the data acquisition appears, do the following:

1.	leave MBS prompter	CTRL+C
2.	reset RIOs	resa (2x)
3.	wait until reset is done -> no more network processes with rio3 and rio6 should show up	netstat
4.	restart MBS prompter	prm