Study of RS TDC using pulser trigger

During my visit from 05/20/2001 to 05/26/2001 I studied RS TDC using pulser trigger. The signal from pulser trigger was splitted in 16 channels and was sent to 4 time delay modules. Each time delay split each signal into 3 identical copies, so in general one can have 12x16 identical signals to test 6 RS TDC modules. In my studies I used only 32 identical signals to feed 1 RS TDC module and test it performance.

How to run pulser trigger and look on RS TDC data

1. At first you have to turn the apparatus on. Read carefully how to turn apparatus electronics ON/OFF .
2. Compile the code. I used special unp3377.F routine that unpacks information from all RS TDC modules. Official unpacker handles individual detector systems and is not very easy to use for testing purposes. This code books simple Ntuple with information about RS TDC hits. To make online version which books Ntuple while DAQ is writing data to trashcan special Makefile was used. To initialize environment variables you have to run in this order:

   
   bnlku9% setup e949
   bnlku9% setup online
   bnlku9% setup kofia
   

3. Unplug original cables from RS TDC and plug 2 cables from time delays which will deliver 32 identical pulser signals to RS TDC.
4. Start DAQ. As usual run CAMAC all , SSP init using rstdc and set pulser trigger.
5. Start kofia_online.exe and watch it running. You may find useful special script rs_online.sh that set all necessary environment variables, starts kofia_online.exe and process 500 events. It takes about 1 minute to do that.
   Hint: you may want to suspend the run while you replug the cables. Also sometimes the program kofia_online.exe gets stuck, then kill it with Control-C and restart DAQ. It is a significant delay, but I did not find a cure for that.
6. You will produce hbook file rs_test.hbk Rename it into something useful, like rstdc_01.hbk , where 01 is the number of module that you are testing. If you keep this naming scheme you can process it with rs_test.kumac file.

Results of my scan of all the modules are described in here