nGEM detector

The nGEM detector is a portable detector that connects via a private ethernet connection to vendor software running on a laptop. It is often used on INES. Detector group will normally set up the laptop with the vendor software, on ines this is installed to c:\users\ines_mgr\documents\ngem or c:\nGEM-software and a program ngemapp.exe is left running.

Ibex support is via the NGEM IOC, which is installed on the laptop. It could in principle run on the NDX computer and talk to the ngemapp.exe program over the network, but the IOC needs to move files off the laptop to a locally attached USB hard drive after collection ends so it is more convenient to run on the laptop. The IOC connects to localhost port 61000 by default, this would only need to be changed (via a macro) if the IOC was not running on the laptop. This port number is the same as passed to the ngemapp.exe program running in a separate window, it is the "UI Port" of the ngem software. The nGEM detector itself is network based and will be in a local 192.168 local address attached to the laptop, ibex does not need to be aware of this as it talks to the nGEM server program and does not need to directly communicate with the detector hardware.

For a clean setup on laptop (skip relevant steps if previously configured)

• Install EPICS (you can just run install_to_inst.bat in the epics release on kits$ rather than a full installer run)
• run config_env.bat in c:\instrument\apps\epics to create the c:\instrument\settings tree
• now close this cmd window and create a file c:\instrument\settings\config\mypvprefixnc.txt that contains the correct PV prefix but without a trailing : e.g. IN:INES
• now re-run config_env.bat from a cmd window and check MYPVPREFIX is as expected
• Edit c:\instrument\settings\config\NDLTxxx\configurations\globals.txt to define ACF_IH1 so the NX computer can start/stop nGEM via PVs e.g. ACF_IH1=NDXINES
• Create shortcuts on desktop pointing at c:\instrument\apps\epics\gateway\start_gateways.bat and the runIOC.bat for the NGEM ioc directory
• edit copycmd.bat in c:\instrument\apps\epics\support\ngem-bbtx\master\utils to set ARCHIVE location for files to be copied to (this is the USB attached drive)
• put notes on running both shortcuts on reboot and location of copycmd.bat into a README/NOTES file on desktop
• start gateways and nemIOC via shortcuts
• agree to popups to allow firewall access to domain network for carepeater, gateway, ngemioc

The is an nGEM.opi on the NDX, this has just need to be installed as a device screen.

INES has some simple python commands to set the START/STOP pvs for the detector. The detector IOC picks up the run number for ines to add to data files as its prefix is also IN:INES

If the detector is moved to another instrument with the same laptop then:

• edit mypvprefixnc.txt and globals.txt as appropriate
• edit copycmd.bat to set new location for robocopy of data files
• create share/map drive on destination computer for above copycmd.bat if it is not a simple attached USB drive