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SKF MB4150g5 Disk Chopper Controllers

Dominic Oram edited this page Apr 29, 2020 · 13 revisions

Wiki > The Backend System > Specific Device IOC > Choppers > SKF MB4150g5 Chopper

SKF MB4150g5 Disk Chopper Controllers

These controllers are a development of the MB350g3 previously used on LET for its disk choppers and now repurposed on EMMA for its Fermi. The G5 is an Ethernet device using a MODBUS protocol to communicate, and are generally installed on the instrument private networks. Spare/test controllers may exist on the ISIS network.

Current Installations

There are currently three controllers on LET (original choppers 3 & 4, now 5, and soon to be 1) and five on IMAT (two double-disk choppers and a T0).

Addressing Schema on the instrument's private network

LET - These controllers have been allocated static addresses in the range xxx.xxx.xxx.8x, which is under the control of the Experiment Controls Group. Since installation, the addresses have been in the original range of xxx.xxx.xxx.18x, but problems were encountered when installing two additional controllers (see ticket 5033 for details).

IMAT - These controllers are still in the original range of xxx.xxx.xxx.18x, but it is planned to reallocate them for consistency.

N.B. The address ranges and subnets on the private network haven't formally been divided between the various groups (Experiment Control, Electronics, Detectors) to date. A coordinated effort is required to produce a document, ideally before any further use of the private network is made.

Communications

The controllers use a MODBUS protocol to communicate over Ethernet. Their IOCs use a small subset of the complete command set to provide the minimum functionality required for remote control by the scientists. Due to differences in parameter definitions between SKF and ISIS, some interpretation (and trial and error) was needed to produce this reduced set of commands.

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