[Dsg-hallc_controls] [EXTERNAL] Re: CAEN JLAB - EPICS control

Mon Jan 27 17:17:34 EST 2020

Greetings Alberto,

Thank you for getting back to us so quickly. As you saw in the meeting minutes, GECO 2020 seems to be working well when the EPICS service is disabled and there is no load connected to any of the modules.

A couple of points of clarification:

  *   The first issue, the random parameter changes, has only been noticed when the EPICS service is enabled and no load connected. As of this moment, we have not yet tested any of the modules with the EPICS service enabled and the load connected.
  *   The second issue, the board disconnection, has been observed when there is a load is connected to a module. Additionally, the board that loses connection is not necessarily the board that has the load connected. A couple of times it was just a random board populated in the crate.

So, to the first issue, we would like to use the same EPICS service that you use in order to rule out any issues with our EPICS service.

And to the second issue, the load we are using is 2 MΩ (mega-ohms) on each of the 36 channels. For the board disconnection issue, we were using only GECO 2020 to control and monitor the boards. We are currently running additional tests with the load connected and using only GECO 2020 to control and monitor. I will let you know if we observe similar issues.

Also, are you able to tell us if we have all of the most current firmware versions (for the crate CPU, modules, and HiVoCS)?

I hope this is a little clearer than the report. If you have any additional questions or concerns please do not hesitate to email us.

Warm Regards,

Aaron Brown

________________________________
From: Alberto Lucchesi <a.lucchesi at caen.it>
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2020 9:40 AM
To: Aaron Brown <ambrown at jlab.org>; dsg-hallc controls <dsg-hallc_controls at jlab.org>
Cc: Greg Kibilko <greg at setechsales.com>; Gianni Di Maio <g.dimaio at caen.it>; Nicola Paoli <n.paoli at caen.it>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: CAEN JLAB - EPICS control

Hello Aaron,

I read your report and I'm happy that the new firmware fix the latency issue, we verified it in our setup but we were waiting for your feedback that was the most important.

Obviously I'm sorry that you have other issues, unfortunately we were not able to reproduce in our tests this is the main reason why we already don't fix them

I identified two main issues, the first is the random parameter change, the second is the board disconnection.

If I well understood both issues happens only when a load is connected to a module and probably this is the reason why in our tests we didn't reproduce the issues.

I think we have to use the same load on our (to tell the truth is yours) A7030TN to see the issue, so can you give us details about the load?
I noticed that from your first test (i.e. GECO and board without load) that doesn't have problems and the one that have issues (random parameters)  two, let's say, "variables" are changed, one was adding the load and the second the use of the EPICS service. I would ask you if you could repeat the tests (to see if random setting happens) connecting the load but disabling the EPCIS service. This is very useful for us to understand if the issue is on the firmware boards (because of the load) or in the EPICS service. We'll do the same test here but we need to know details about the load so if you for you is not  a problem to do this test it will speed-up our job.

I wouldn't face the second issue because maybe it is related to the first and in any case I prefer to put our effort to fix one issue at a time.

Best Regards,
Alberto

Il 24/01/2020 15:27, Greg Kibilko ha scritto:
Hello Aaron and Everyone from DSG,

Aaron, thank you again for providing us with the very clear and concise report.  In speaking with CAEN, I think the for efficient way to resolve these issues is to simply put the CAEN engineers and the DSG group on the same page by way of this email.

CAEN has received your notes regarding the status of EPICS client control of the SY4527 mainframes and will provide a very complete response to you via this email string.  We realize how critical this issue is and very much look forward to working together with you to resolve it!

Kind regards,
Greg

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:        CAEN Meeting Minutes
Date:   Tue, 21 Jan 2020 20:38:14 +0000
From:   Aaron Brown <ambrown at jlab.org><mailto:ambrown at jlab.org>
To:     dsg-hallc controls <dsg-hallc_controls at jlab.org><mailto:dsg-hallc_controls at jlab.org>, Greg Kibilko <greg at setechsales.com><mailto:greg at setechsales.com>

Good Afternoon All,

Attached please find the minutes from this afternoon's meeting DSG had with Greg Kibilko.

Best regards,
Aaron Brown

--
Greg Kibilko
SETS - SE Technical Sales, Inc.
112 Tyra Lane
Townville, SC 29689
P: (864) 356-2606
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