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ID Date Authorup Subject
  142   Thu Jan 19 23:26:26 2012 Heejong Kimdrs_exam.cpp for evaluation board version 4

Hello,

I'm using DRS4 evaluation board version4 in Linux (Scientific Linux 5).

Version4 software (drs-4.0.0) was installed without any troubles.

The oscilloscope interfrace program (drsosc) is working fine with version4 software.

But when I tried drs_exam program, it doesn't work as expected.

(500 mV positive (width 50ns)  pulse is connected to Ch#1).

It keeps waiting trigger in the first event.

In the previous version (board/software drs-3.0.0), drs_exam program worked well.

I'm wondering if anybody is using drs_exam with V4 evaluation board.

Any comments/help would be welcomed.

 

Thanks,

Heejong

  144   Fri Jan 20 23:50:39 2012 Heejong Kimdrs_exam.cpp for evaluation board version 4

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Heejong Kim wrote:

Hello,

I'm using DRS4 evaluation board version4 in Linux (Scientific Linux 5).

Version4 software (drs-4.0.0) was installed without any troubles.

The oscilloscope interfrace program (drsosc) is working fine with version4 software.

But when I tried drs_exam program, it doesn't work as expected.

(500 mV positive (width 50ns)  pulse is connected to Ch#1).

It keeps waiting trigger in the first event.

In the previous version (board/software drs-3.0.0), drs_exam program worked well.

I'm wondering if anybody is using drs_exam with V4 evaluation board.

The issue is that the V4 board has new trigger capabilities (such as coincidences between two channels) which require a slightly different configuration. Here it the new code:

 

   /* use following lines to enable hardware trigger on CH1 at 50 mV positive edge */
   if (b->GetBoardType() == 8) {     // Evaluaiton Board V4
      b->EnableTrigger(1, 0);           // enable hardware trigger
      b->SetTriggerSource(1<<0);        // set CH1 as source
   } else {                          // Evaluation Board V3
      b->EnableTrigger(0, 1);           // lemo off, analog trigger on
      b->SetTriggerSource(0);           // use CH1 as source
   }

The complete file is attached. Please try again with the new code. Probably next week I will make a new software release (including a Mac version of all programs) which will contain the new code. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Best regards,
Stefan

 

 

 

Hello Stefan,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

drs_exam is working now after modification as above.

By some trials, I found that external trigger is possible by 'b->EnableTrigger(1,0); b->SetTriggerSource(1<<4);'

Best,

Heejong

 

 

  269   Fri Jul 5 12:46:45 2013 Hermann-Josef MathesMissing methods in drs-4.0.1.tar.gz

Hi,

while trying to create python bindings for the DRS stuff using SWIG 2.0.4, two undefined methods prevent the python interpreter from loading the generated shared library. These methods are:

  • int DRSBoard::SetADCActive(unsigned char)
  • bool ResponseCalibration::Calibrate(unsigned int,unsigned int,float *,float *,float,bool)

Can we safely removed those methods from the DRS header files or (what I have actually done) is it better to fake some empty implementation in the input file to SWIG?

Another minor issue is that the python interpreter always terminates with a SegFault after script termination. I had not yet time to track that down...

Thanks & regards

Hermann-Josef

 

  282   Wed Aug 7 15:05:59 2013 Hermann-Josef MathesRepeated time calibration

Hi,

 

is there any (obvious) reason why it is not possible (or not indended) to repeat the time calibration of a DRS4 eval board several times. I get the shown error message from the 'drscl' tool as well when I try to call the corresponding method in the support library:

mathes@ikauger5:~/src/DRS4> drs-4.0.1/drscl
DRS command line tool, Revision 20430
Type 'help' for a list of available commands.

Found DRS4 board  0 on USB, serial #2362, firmware revision 17662

B0> tcalib
Enter calibration frequency [GHz]: 5
Creating Timing Calibration of Board #2362
[==================================================]
B0> tcalib 5
Creating Timing Calibration of Board #2362
Error performing timing calibration, please check waveforms

 

As I will be in holidays, the answer is not urgent.

Thanks

 -- Hermann-Josef

 

  284   Wed Aug 7 15:20:33 2013 Hermann-Josef MathesRepeated time calibration

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Hermann-Josef Mathes wrote:

Hi,

 

is there any (obvious) reason why it is not possible (or not indended) to repeat the time calibration of a DRS4 eval board several times. I get the shown error message from the 'drscl' tool as well when I try to call the corresponding method in the support library:

mathes@ikauger5:~/src/DRS4> drs-4.0.1/drscl
DRS command line tool, Revision 20430
Type 'help' for a list of available commands.

Found DRS4 board  0 on USB, serial #2362, firmware revision 17662

B0> tcalib
Enter calibration frequency [GHz]: 5
Creating Timing Calibration of Board #2362
[==================================================]
B0> tcalib 5
Creating Timing Calibration of Board #2362
Error performing timing calibration, please check waveforms

 

As I will be in holidays, the answer is not urgent.

Thanks

 -- Hermann-Josef

 

Ups, this is certainly a bug. Try to restart drscl between calibrations. Anyhow the calibration is poor (~20ps), so in a month or two we will have a much better one (~3ps), but that needs a new board (then will be called V5).

/Stefan

 

 Hi Stefan,

thanks for the quick reply, I know that this solution works with drscl but not within my code.

I tried to track it down, but gave up very soon. Seems as if AnalyzeWF() which is called by CalibrateTiming() finds to much zero-crossings when it is called the second time.

Regards

  -- Hermann-Josef

  332   Wed Mar 5 21:54:13 2014 Hermann-Josef MathesSoftware drs-5.0.0 fails to compile (drsosc)

Hi,

the latest software drs-5.0.0.tar.gz fails to compile on my freshly installed SuSE 13.1 whereas the previous 4.0.1 is compiling out-of-the-box.

My system has the wxWidgets 2.8.12 which is probably together with gcc 4.8.1 the reason of the problem. I applied a number of corrections, mainly some sort of proper (?) typecasts, a patch file is attached.

Maybe you could consider to take them into account for the next patch release?

Thanks and best regards

Hermann-Josef

 

Attachment 1: drs-5.patch
diff --git a/src/DOScreen.cpp b/src/DOScreen.cpp
index 0147c29..3f6b665 100644
--- a/src/DOScreen.cpp
+++ b/src/DOScreen.cpp
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ void DOScreen::OnPaint(wxPaintEvent& event)
    
    // Change "Save" button
    if (!m_frame->GetWFfd() && !m_frame->GetWFFile())
-      m_frame->SetSaveBtn("Save", "Save waveforms");
+      m_frame->SetSaveBtn(wxT("Save"), wxT("Save waveforms"));
 }
 
 /*------------------------------------------------------------------*/
@@ -347,7 +347,7 @@ void DOScreen::DrawScopeBottom(wxDC& dc, int board, int x1, int y1, int width, b
    }
    x_start = x_start - 15 - w;
    if (m_frame->GetNSaved()) {
-      wxst.Printf("%d saved", m_frame->GetNSaved());
+      wxst.Printf(wxT("%d saved"), m_frame->GetNSaved());
       dc.GetTextExtent(wxst, &w, &h);
       dc.DrawRoundedRectangle(x_start-20-w, y1+3, w+10, 15, 2);
       dc.DrawText(wxst, x_start-15-w, y1+3);
diff --git a/src/TriggerDialog.cpp b/src/TriggerDialog.cpp
index 7aeb33e..32b41fa 100644
--- a/src/TriggerDialog.cpp
+++ b/src/TriggerDialog.cpp
@@ -26,13 +26,13 @@ TriggerDialog_fb( parent )
    m_cbANDEXT->SetValue((tc & (1<<12))>0);
    
    wxString s;
-   s.Printf("%1.3lf", m_frame->GetTrgLevel(0));
+   s.Printf(wxT("%1.3lf"), m_frame->GetTrgLevel(0));
    m_tbLevel1->SetValue(s);
-   s.Printf("%1.3lf", m_frame->GetTrgLevel(1));
+   s.Printf(wxT("%1.3lf"), m_frame->GetTrgLevel(1));
    m_tbLevel2->SetValue(s);
-   s.Printf("%1.3lf", m_frame->GetTrgLevel(2));
+   s.Printf(wxT("%1.3lf"), m_frame->GetTrgLevel(2));
    m_tbLevel3->SetValue(s);
-   s.Printf("%1.3lf", m_frame->GetTrgLevel(3));
+   s.Printf(wxT("%1.3lf"), m_frame->GetTrgLevel(3));
    m_tbLevel4->SetValue(s);
 }
 
@@ -49,19 +49,19 @@ void TriggerDialog::OnButton( wxCommandEvent& event )
 void TriggerDialog::OnTriggerLevel( wxCommandEvent& event )
 {
    if (event.GetId() == ID_LEVEL1)
-      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(0, atof(m_tbLevel1->GetValue()));
+      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(0, atof(m_tbLevel1->GetValue().mb_str()));
    if (event.GetId() == ID_LEVEL2)
-      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(1, atof(m_tbLevel2->GetValue()));
+      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(1, atof(m_tbLevel2->GetValue().mb_str()));
    if (event.GetId() == ID_LEVEL3)
-      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(2, atof(m_tbLevel3->GetValue()));
+      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(2, atof(m_tbLevel3->GetValue().mb_str()));
    if (event.GetId() == ID_LEVEL4)
-      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(3, atof(m_tbLevel4->GetValue()));
+      m_frame->SetTrgLevel(3, atof(m_tbLevel4->GetValue().mb_str()));
 }
 
 void TriggerDialog::SetTriggerLevel(double level)
 {
    wxString s;
-   s.Printf("%1.3lf", level);
+   s.Printf(wxT("%1.3lf"), level);
    m_tbLevel1->SetValue(s);
    m_tbLevel2->SetValue(s);
    m_tbLevel3->SetValue(s);
  398   Mon Mar 16 16:07:39 2015 Hermann-Josef MathesRunning 2 instances of a DRS DAQ program

Hi,

we want to run two instances of our little DRS DAQ program but obviously the first instance started always claims all DRS boards for itself and the other one exits with an error. The 2 boards used in the example below have the serial number # 2413 and #2414 and are v5 boards.

The first one:

mathes@ikauger5:~/src/DRS4/Cpp> ./drsdaq -b 2413
DRSController: found board with serial number #2413
DRSController: found board with serial number #2414
DRSController: using board with serial number #2413
CalibratedFrequency= 1.00721
====================================
DRS type:            DRS4
Board type:          9
Serial number:       2413
Firmware revision:   21260

...
And the second one:

mathes@ikauger5:~/src/DRS4/Cpp> ./drsdaq -b 2414
musb_open: usb_set_configuration() error -6
musb_open: Found USB device 0x04b4:0x1175 instance 0, but cannot initialize it: please check permissions on "/proc/bus/usb/1/7" and "/dev/bus/usb/1/7"
USB successfully scanned, but no boards found
...


How can our goal be achieved?

Thanks

Hermann-Josef

  681   Tue May 1 02:00:40 2018 Hyunseong KimDRS4 using drs_exam.cpp to save as binary files

Hi, 

I would like to save the waveform in a .dat binary file using drs_exam.cpp.

I know the distributed software allows us to save as binary files with the save button, but I currently need to save multiple runs using a script.

I've seen that drs_exam.cpp can save the waveform as .txt files.

Is there any .cpp file or function that allows us to save the waveforms in binary format (.dat)?

Thank you for your help. 

  636   Fri Nov 3 12:11:14 2017 Håkan WennlöfTriggering using AND

Hi!

I'm using the DRSOsc program, and I have a question that I need a bit clarified;

When triggering using AND between two channels, am I then triggering on rising/falling edge of both channels, or on the actual values?

That is, is it the change in value that it triggers on, or when the actual value goes above a certain threshold?

Using AND, it seems like I get a trigger when one (CH2) is above its trigger value (sometimes quite far above), and the other (CH1) changes to go above its trigger value. This works for my purposes, which is nice, but I just want to be sure I understand why it works. Ideally, I'd like to trigger when one of my channels is above a certain value, and the other has a rising edge above a certain value.

I'm sorry if it's a silly question! I've just noticed that the Keysight oscilloscopes I've used can only do one channel with a rising edge at a time when doing a logic trigger, and I thought the same thing might be going on in the background here (which would be ideal for my purposes).

 

Kind regards,

Håkan Wennlöf

  69   Sun May 2 18:36:14 2010 Ignacio Diéguez EstremeraDRS4 chip model

Hi all,

i'm an electronics engineering student at UCM (Madrid) working on my master's thesis within the CTA collaboration. I'm designing the readout electronics for the telescope's camera, and i'm focusing in using GAPDs instead of PMTs and using the domino chip for the sampling of the signal. I was wondering if there is a spice and/or RF model of the DRS4 chip available. It would be very useful to perform some simulations before deciding to use the chip as the sampling solution for our prototypes.

If the answer is negative, can you give me some advise for modelling the chip in spice? Have you done any simulations?

Thanks in advance,

Ignacio Diéguez Estremera.

  71   Mon May 3 17:06:02 2010 Ignacio Diéguez EstremeraDRS4 chip model

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Ignacio Diéguez Estremera wrote:

Hi all,

i'm an electronics engineering student at UCM (Madrid) working on my master's thesis within the CTA collaboration. I'm designing the readout electronics for the telescope's camera, and i'm focusing in using GAPDs instead of PMTs and using the domino chip for the sampling of the signal. I was wondering if there is a spice and/or RF model of the DRS4 chip available. It would be very useful to perform some simulations before deciding to use the chip as the sampling solution for our prototypes.

If the answer is negative, can you give me some advise for modelling the chip in spice? Have you done any simulations?

Thanks in advance,

Ignacio Diéguez Estremera.

Yes there is a transistor-level spice model, which I used to design the chip, but you won't be happy with it: Given the 500,000+ transistors on the chip, a 100 ns simulation takes a couple of weeks. We tried to make a simplified model just for the analog input using some measured S-parameters, but found that the RF behavior of the chip is almost impossible to describe to better than let's say 50%. In the end you have to fine-tune your analog front-end experimentally, to obtain optimal bandwidth. We are just working on a reference design with gives you 850 MHz bandwidth using an active input buffer.

 Thanks for the information.

I would like to try the huge :-) model. Can you send it to my email address? Since the input signal are pulses of a few nanoseconds at FHWM, the simulation time may be reduced. I will post some feedback in the forum once i give it a try.

Kind regards.

  73   Mon May 3 23:21:55 2010 Ignacio Diéguez EstremeraDRS4 chip model

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Ignacio Diéguez Estremera wrote:

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Ignacio Diéguez Estremera wrote:

Hi all,

i'm an electronics engineering student at UCM (Madrid) working on my master's thesis within the CTA collaboration. I'm designing the readout electronics for the telescope's camera, and i'm focusing in using GAPDs instead of PMTs and using the domino chip for the sampling of the signal. I was wondering if there is a spice and/or RF model of the DRS4 chip available. It would be very useful to perform some simulations before deciding to use the chip as the sampling solution for our prototypes.

If the answer is negative, can you give me some advise for modelling the chip in spice? Have you done any simulations?

Thanks in advance,

Ignacio Diéguez Estremera.

Yes there is a transistor-level spice model, which I used to design the chip, but you won't be happy with it: Given the 500,000+ transistors on the chip, a 100 ns simulation takes a couple of weeks. We tried to make a simplified model just for the analog input using some measured S-parameters, but found that the RF behavior of the chip is almost impossible to describe to better than let's say 50%. In the end you have to fine-tune your analog front-end experimentally, to obtain optimal bandwidth. We are just working on a reference design with gives you 850 MHz bandwidth using an active input buffer.

 Thanks for the information.

I would like to try the huge :-) model. Can you send it to my email address? Since the input signal are pulses of a few nanoseconds at FHWM, the simulation time may be reduced. I will post some feedback in the forum once i give it a try.

Kind regards.

I just checked and realized that we are not allowed to give out the "huge" model since it contains parameters from the chip manufacturer's library which are confidentially. 

 Thank you for the effort anyway.

So i guess i won't be able to include drs4 in my simulations :-(. Any other suggestions? Maybe the S-params model you where working on? Anything is better than nothing :-)

  75   Tue May 4 16:23:16 2010 Ignacio Diéguez EstremeraDRS4 chip model

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Ignacio Diéguez Estremera wrote:

So i guess i won't be able to include drs4 in my simulations :-(. Any other suggestions? Maybe the S-params model you where working on? Anything is better than nothing :-)

Please find attached the S-parameters. 

 Thanks :-)

  76   Wed May 5 22:30:50 2010 Ignacio Diéguez EstremeraRandom noise spec in datasheet

Hi,

According to DRS4's datasheet, the random noise is 0.35mVrms. Is this the input equivalent noise voltage? It is computed over the 0-950MHz frequency band?

Regards.

  421   Tue May 19 14:14:45 2015 Ilja BekmanDRS4 firmware UCF constraints
Hello, I'm using two DRS4 rev.5 boards for 8ch readout and triggering.

I needed to modify the trigger logic and implement some tweaks in the firmware, and noticed that 
the firmware source in drs-5.0.2 (and 5.0.3, SVN:5339) while still compiling fine with Xilinx ISE 10, stops
doing so in the ISE 14.7 (also already in 13.2)

While the Synthesis is running through (in the new ISE it complains about using more than 100% of resources.)
The Mapping fails due to constraints (firmware/ucf/drs4_eval5.ucf) complaining about an illegal IOSTANDARD
for P_IO_PMC_USR<55> (LVDS_25).

In the newer version the wild-cards (lines 67..69 ) are not properly dealt with, it seems, and if I move the
property by hand to all the wild-carded NETs it start to recognise the LVDS_25.
But after that Place&Route fails with messages about locked Banks due to incompatible VCCO.

I'm trying to adapt the ucf file and am reading about the changes in the ISE software and constraints files, but
want to ask if some of you guys have seen the same issue and resolved it out "officially".
  Draft   Wed Oct 7 13:06:34 2015 Ilja BekmanVoltage Calibration with signal on the input
  764   Thu Jul 18 01:03:44 2019 Ismael GarciaTrace Impedance

Hi Steffan,

              I'm an engineer at UCLA developing a board with the DRS4 chip. Our team has a question on what might be the required trace impedence for the analog inputs. Can that information be provided? 

Best Regards,
Ismael Garcia

Attachment 1: DRS4_Analog_IN.PNG
DRS4_Analog_IN.PNG
  766   Fri Jul 19 01:37:09 2019 Ismael GarciaTrace Impedance

When you're refering to laying a 50 Ohm trace, you're referring to the SMA input and not the interface between the output of the Op-AMP(THS4508) buffer 
and the inputs  of the DRS4(IN0-IN8). Is there a recommended diffential impedance for IN0-IN8? 

Ismael

Stefan Ritt wrote:

The requiremnet is the same as for any high speed analog board, there is othing special with the DRS4. If you want to terminate your line with 50 Ohms and you want a matched impedance layout, you route all lines with 50 Ohms impedance. Truth is however that nothing is perfect. The SMA connector is not exactly 50 Ohm, the PCB gets a 10-20% variation depending on the manufacturer. So even if you try hard, you will never have a 50 Ohm matched impedance. On the evaluation board we made some compromises as you have seen, but for us the board works satisfactory even with this compromises, and you can test it yourself with real hardware (namely the evaluation board). If you can do a better job, try it. But usually these compromises have only little influence on the signal quality.

Stefan

Ismael Garcia wrote:

Hi Steffan,

              I'm an engineer at UCLA developing a board with the DRS4 chip. Our team has a question on what might be the required trace impedence for the analog inputs. Can that information be provided? 

Best Regards,
Ismael Garcia

 

 

  164   Wed Jun 20 10:40:21 2012 Ivan Petrovtriger for measuring time between pulses in channels

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Martin Petriska wrote:

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Martin Petriska wrote:

 I have two BaF2 detectors with PMT connected to Ch1 and Ch2. At this time Im using external triger module to start DRS4. My evalution board is version 3 so I have no possibility to trigger on two or more pulses occurence on different channels. But I have this idea, trigger with analog trigger on channel 1 (start detector) will start measurement on all channels. After that using FPGA inside EVM to look if some value in Ch2 is bigger as treshold value for example 0,5V and if yes then send data by USB to PC, if signal in Ch2 is lower then restart measurement and wait on triger in Ch1. This way I want to eliminate false data transfer throw USB. Is this possible to implement it into DRS4 evaluation board firmware ?

Thanks.

It is muuuuch easier to upgrade to a V4 board!

Modification of firmware is not so easy. You have to learn and understand VHDL. Then, you have to add additional registers for this thresholds, which requires modification of the C library as well. The data inside the evaluation boards is not yet calibrated (this is only done on the C library), so you have an uncertainty of 30-40mV in this data. 

Ok, except this, I would have a question regarding to the new trigering posibility in V4 board. At this time, I am using Ztec ZT4612 which has some pattern triger posibility. Output from this card is used as an external trigger. Regarding this I have found a problem. Pulses from PMT have about 5-8 ns width. But I need to measure time diferences between pulses in range from 0-50ns. Problem is, that coincidence between pulses is working only on short pulse area (5-8ns) when they are overlapped. Additionaly the result histogram of time diferences is proportional to the pulse shapes. I solve this problem enabling 20MHz LPF filter in ZT4612, so the pulses are wider and overlaped on larger area. But, how it is with the V4 board? Will it trigger if I have for example one 5ns pulse on begiinning of CH1 and second pulse for example 50 ns later on Ch2 with the same probability when pulses are in the same time position?

No. 

Hello. I need to digitize pulses from two PMT. After pulse on first PMT I have to save all pulses from second PMT in range 200 ns (and starting pulse from the first, and time range between pulse from 1st PMT and pulses from 2nd PMT). Is it possible with DRS evaluation board?

  166   Wed Jun 20 14:36:01 2012 Ivan Petrovtriger for measuring time between pulses in channels

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Ivan Petrov wrote:

 

Hello. I need to digitize pulses from two PMT. After pulse on first PMT I have to save all pulses from second PMT in range 200 ns (and starting pulse from the first, and time range between pulse from 1st PMT and pulses from 2nd PMT). Is it possible with DRS evaluation board?

If you run at 2 GSPS, you have a time window of 500 ns like on an oscilloscope. If you trigger on 1st PMT, you will get the traces of all 4 inputs for the next 500 ns. So I guess this is what you want. 

 Ok. And, If I understand correctly, the main bottleneck in data readout is USB. I.e., theoretically maximum readout rate is 500 Hz. Is it true?

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