Taking data is easy. Just select the run type, set it up properly and click on the DAQ button (the one named Start in Figure 1). Now, if you want to store the data for further analysis, you have to press the Log Data button. A dialog window will pop up where you can select the name of the output file. When starting the run by clicking start the data will be dumped into the data file.
The following sections describe the different run types
The calibration run has 2 main parameters: the strobe delay and the amplitude of the test pulse. At the moment one can only scan one of those parameters at a time.
The strobe delay sets the delay between the strobe signal that generates the calibration pulse and the clock rising edge of the beetle 128th slot of the pipeline. This allows to reconstruct the pulse shape. The amplitude controls the amplitude of the calibration pulse so that one can get the gain and offset of the characteristic curve of the preamplifier in all the channels. Note that to find the proper value of the gain one has to find the strobe delay where the signa reaches the maximum value.
Figure 2 shows the main parameters that can be set to define the calibration scan. As already mentioned, only the charge (with a fixed delay) or the delay (for a fixed charge) can be scanned at a time. One selects the type of scan with the radio buttons at the last row of the dialog. The value of the fixed variable is set with the first two rows (Delay and Charge), and then the definition of the scan: starting and ending points together with the number of points in the scan.
The number of samples per point specifies the number of events that will be acquired for each calibration pulse amplitude.
Note that there is button (quite hidden) with label Calib. Beetle Comparator. This is clicked when you want to align the threshold spread of the comparotor of the different channels. See section Section 4.9 ― Calibration of the individual channel corrections to the comparator threshold.
Alibava is able to send a pulse that can be used to trigger a laser system. This run mode scans the delay between the pulse sent by alibava and the acquisition so that the system will sample at the maximum of the signal produced by the laser. The parameters of the delay scan for the laser synchronization are set by clicking on the button on the right of the Laser Sync. radio button. A dialog box like the one in Figure 3 will pop-up.
The parameters from, to and step define the time interval that will be scanned and the time step with which the laser delay will be increased. The number of samples per point specifies the number of events that will be acquired for each value of the laser delay.
Laser, source and pedestal runs are very similar modes. However some of the parameters are very specific to the run mode.
For instance, RS mode needs the trigger to be properly configured. This can be done as described in Section 4.4 ― External Trigger configuration.The laser run needs the right delay between the laser strobe and the Beetle trigger, which can be set as described in Section 4.6 ― Laser config.