ELOG DRS4 Forum

When Denable and Dwrite is high , the voltage of PLLOUT is 0 V. And the Dtap is turn high with no delay when the Denable turns high.

After power up and configuration(the WSR,WCR,CR are all set to 11111111), the readout data is no change whenever the input analog signal and rofs,bias,oofs changes. I have test useing the DAC to supply the Dspeed voltage, and change a new DRS4 chip, but all is the same. The readout data is strange : the first about 100 cells is rise or fall and the last 900 cells is out of the range of ADC.

So how should I do for debugging the drs4 now.

201

Tue Dec 4 09:39:44 2012

Zhongwei Du wrote:

When Denable and Dwrite is high , the voltage of PLLOUT is 0 V. And the Dtap is turn high with no delay when the Denable turns high.

So how should I do for debugging the drs4 now.

The first thing to make work is to have DTAP oscillating with fsamp/2048. Keep Denable and Dwrite low (required during power-on, see elog:10), set Dspeed to 2.5V, then rise Denable and Dwrite. You should see Dtap toggling at about 2.4 MHz. If not, double check all supply voltages, and especially all soldering points. The QFN package is a bit hard to solder.

/Stefan

202

Tue Dec 4 09:50:11 2012

Zhongwei Du

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Zhongwei Du wrote:

When Denable and Dwrite is high , the voltage of PLLOUT is 0 V. And the Dtap is turn high with no delay when the Denable turns high.

So how should I do for debugging the drs4 now.

/Stefan

"Keep Denable and Dwrite low (required during power-on, see elog:10), set Dspeed to 2.5V, then rise Denable and Dwrite. You should see Dtap toggling at about 2.4 MHz. "

In this process , should i config any registers( WSR,WCR,CR ) ?

203

Tue Dec 4 09:55:43 2012

Question for using Multi board

Zhongwei Du wrote:

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Zhongwei Du wrote:

When Denable and Dwrite is high , the voltage of PLLOUT is 0 V. And the Dtap is turn high with no delay when the Denable turns high.

So how should I do for debugging the drs4 now.

/Stefan

"Keep Denable and Dwrite low (required during power-on, see elog:10), set Dspeed to 2.5V, then rise Denable and Dwrite. You should see Dtap toggling at about 2.4 MHz. "

In this process , should i config any registers( WSR,WCR,CR ) ?

After power-up reset, these registers are all set to "1", which should be ok to start.

BTW, Jinhong Wang <wangjinh@mail.ustc.edu.cn> from your institute hast the chip correctly working. Maybe he can help you in a more direct way than I can.

193

Wed Nov 21 08:34:52 2012

Gyuhee Kim

Hi.

I have 2 DRS4 evaluation V4 boards, and I want to use these 2 board to multi board DAQ system for 4 ch vs 4 ch DAQ.

But there is no option for multi board use. I just only find the multi board trigger mode check button on DRS4 Oscilloscope program, but I couldn`t check.

Is there any method to use multi board?

Best regards.

Gyuhee.

194

Wed Nov 21 08:38:26 2012

Question for using Multi board

Gyuhee Kim wrote:

Hi.

I have 2 DRS4 evaluation V4 boards, and I want to use these 2 board to multi board DAQ system for 4 ch vs 4 ch DAQ.

But there is no option for multi board use. I just only find the multi board trigger mode check button on DRS4 Oscilloscope program, but I couldn`t check.

Is there any method to use multi board?

Best regards.

Gyuhee.

This mode is not yet implemented in firmware. Maybe I find some time towards the end of this year to add this. At the moment, you have to build and external trigger to synchronize the two boards. There are also 16-channel boards on the market where you would not need a multi-board mode. Just Google for "DT5742".

/Stefan

195

Wed Nov 21 08:48:00 2012

Gyuhee Kim

Question for using Multi board

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Gyuhee Kim wrote:

Hi.

I have 2 DRS4 evaluation V4 boards, and I want to use these 2 board to multi board DAQ system for 4 ch vs 4 ch DAQ.

But there is no option for multi board use. I just only find the multi board trigger mode check button on DRS4 Oscilloscope program, but I couldn`t check.

Is there any method to use multi board?

Best regards.

Gyuhee.

/Stefan

Thanks Stefan.

I will build external trigger system.

495

Sat Apr 2 11:21:10 2016

Felix Bachmair

Question about timimng calibration

Hi,

I am trying to understand some details about the timing calibration.

We wrote our own code but we more or less use the ideas of the Oscilloscope class.

In the binary file writing of in the function Osci.cpp::SaveWaveforms() (line 924ff)

the following code is executed:

if (m_waveDepth == 2048) { t = (tcal[j]+tcal[j+1])/2; j++; } else t = tcal[j];

I do not understand the averaging of the to adjacent calibration constants. Could you explain this? Do one have two measurements?

Cheers

Felix

496

Sat Apr 2 11:41:07 2016

Question about timimng calibration

The evaluation board normally has 1024 bins per channel. We offer an option with 2048 bins using channel cascading, to capture longer waveform windows. The binary data format is however defined as having 1024 bins. Therefore, for the 2048 bin boards, the software averages over two adjacent cells and saves effectively 1024 bins. The noise of each bin improves this way by sqrt(2). The time however is not very well defined, since you average the voltage of two bins. Therefore, I simple also average over the time of the two bins. Maybe this is not the best way, so feel free to change this.

Stefan

Felix Bachmair wrote:

Hi,

I am trying to understand some details about the timing calibration.

We wrote our own code but we more or less use the ideas of the Oscilloscope class.

In the binary file writing of in the function Osci.cpp::SaveWaveforms() (line 924ff)

the following code is executed:

if (m_waveDepth == 2048) { t = (tcal[j]+tcal[j+1])/2; j++; } else t = tcal[j];

I do not understand the averaging of the to adjacent calibration constants. Could you explain this? Do one have two measurements?

Cheers

Felix

445

Wed Aug 19 15:07:53 2015

Martin Petriska

QtPALS

There is software for DRS4 board and positron lifetime measurement availiable. Still in beta but works. Its usable for measuring time between pulses in two or three channels and histogramming that time. (May be time of flight measurement should be tested too) Project code is here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtpals/. More about it is here http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/505/1/012044/. Still tested only with v3 and v4 evaluation board, but should work with new callibration in v5 board too.

522

Wed May 11 15:48:57 2016

SANDJONG Saturnin Orly

Probl�me de Calibration de la DRS4

Bonjour, Je suis en stage dans un laboratoire ou on utilise pour echantillonnage des données, une cartes DRS4 5GSPS avec 1024 cell, mon probléme réside dans la partie Calibration en tension selon l'article "Novel Calibration Method for Switched Capacitor Arrays Enables Time Measurements with Sub-Picosecond Resolution".

En fait je ne comprends pas précisément ces 3 parties de la calibration en tension. Quelqu'un pourras t-il s'il vous plait m'expliquer assez clairement avec des exemples comment il faut s'y prendre?

Merci et bien Cordialement.

Attachment 1: piedestaux_per_time.jpg

873

Mon Mar 7 13:38:03 2022

Radoslaw Marcinkowski

Problems with DRS4 Evaluation Board after Windows 10 upgrade - share of experiences

Dear DRS4 Users,

I would like to share my expireinces with using of DRS4 Evaluation Board software (oscilloscope) after upgrade of Windows 10.

I had Windows 10 (Enterprise) in version from ~2016. It was working fine with DRS4 Scope software. Due to the company policy, Windows was upgraded to the newer version (2019). Since this time the board was not recognized any more as DRS4 Evaluation Board, both by Windows and DRS4 Scope standard software. Changing USB sockets did not help at all. I installed once more time Zadig USB driver (suggested by https://www.psi.ch/en/drs/software-download), no Admistrator rights were needed. It took long time, about 10 minutes or more, it suggested restart in the meantime, and finally noticed that ... installation failed! Even that, DRS4 software started to recognize the board without the problem even without reboot. Let me notice that all users on this machine can use the DRS4 software even if installation was done by non-administrator user.

Regards,

Radek

549

Wed Oct 26 21:15:35 2016

Alexey Lubinets

Hello, everybody

I have installed the software for the DRS4 Evaluation Board.
When I run the DRS Oscilloscope, it works OK (at least, my computer "knows", that the board is connected). But when I run the DRS Command Line Interface, it writes "USB successfully scanned, but no boards found
No DRS boards found".
How can I manage with this problem? The drivers for the DRS Evaluation Board are installed.

Regards, Alexey Lubinets

550

Thu Oct 27 08:29:26 2016

Alexey Lubinets wrote:

You are the first one describing this problem (out of ~200 people), so I guess the problem must be on your side. Have you made sure to start the DRS oscilloscope and the Command Line Interface not at the same time? Only one program can access the board at a given time. Have you tried disconnecting and re-connecting the board?

Stefan

551

Fri Oct 28 15:02:18 2016

Simon Mendisch

Stefan Ritt wrote:

Hello,

that means, I am the second one experiencing this problem. To be more specific, the "No DRS Board found" problem is only present at one machine running Win7x64.
DRSOsc, of course not running simultaneously works just fine. Only drscl shows this behavior. Upgrading to a newer software version or a re-installation of the old one didn't solve the issue.
On other Win7x64 machines everything works fine, so I am pretty sure the problem is on this specific machine. Do you have any idea what could be the cause of this behavior?

Best Regards,

Simon

552

Fri Oct 28 15:51:59 2016

Problem with C++ script to use DRS4 evaluation board. Not taking data.

No, I absolutely have no idea. Both DRSOsc and drscl use exaclty the same code to access USB.

Stefan

Simon Mendisch wrote:

that means, I am the second one experiencing this problem. To be more specific, the "No DRS Board found" problem is only present at one machine running Win7x64.
DRSOsc, of course not running simultaneously works just fine. Only drscl shows this behavior. Upgrading to a newer software version or a re-installation of the old one didn't solve the issue.
On other Win7x64 machines everything works fine, so I am pretty sure the problem is on this specific machine. Do you have any idea what could be the cause of this behavior?

910

Fri Dec 20 20:35:31 2024

Matias Henriquez

Hello,

I need to write a script in C++ to take data using the DRS4 evaluation board v4. For that, I used the drs_exam.cpp example as a reference. This is my code (see attachement 2), which is very similar to the provided example, however the difference is that I need to trigger on CH1 OR CH2. In the next version I will need to trigger with an OR in all channels.

The problem is, my code gets stuck in waiting for trigger or only 1 event occurs (event 0). I read that event and it doesn't even go above 30mV, which was the threshold I set. There are some questions I have:

Why Transparent mode is activated for Hardware Trigger?
Why EnableTCal is activated? is the drs4_exam example based acquires the 100MHz reference just for the sake of the example? or is just a time calibration routine?
Can someone explain the function EnableTrigger(flag1,flag2) in boardType 8? it si not clear to me how the trigger is enabled.
To check that my input signals are correct, I run the drsosc application and I can see the signals with no problem (see attachement 1). However I noticed that I had to configure the trigger delay in the drsosc application, and I don't do that in my c++ code. I will try that later.
How do I perform voltage calibration and time calibration using the c++ functions?

Thank you so much for your help.

Attachment 1: 1.png

Attachment 2: drs_test.cpp

/********************************************************************\

  Name:         drs_exam.cpp
  Created by:   Stefan Ritt

  Contents:     Simple example application to read out a DRS4
               evaluation board

  $Id: drs_exam.cpp 21308 2014-04-11 14:50:16Z ritt $

\********************************************************************/

#include <math.h>

#ifdef _MSC_VER

#include <windows.h>

#elif defined(OS_LINUX)

#define O_BINARY 0

#include <unistd.h>
#include <ctype.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <errno.h>

#define DIR_SEPARATOR '/'

#endif

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#include "strlcpy.h"
#include "DRS.h"

/*------------------------------------------------------------------*/

int main()
{
   int i, j, nBoards;
   DRS *drs;
   DRSBoard *b;
   float time_array[8][1024];
   float wave_array[8][1024];
   FILE  *f;

   double domino_freq = 2; //Domino Ring Frequency = 2GHz
   double trigger_level_ch1 = 0.03; // Trigger level for channel 1
   double trigger_level_ch2 = 0.03; // Trigger level for channel 2
   //double trigger_level_ch3 = 0.01; // Trigger level for channel 3
   //double trigger_level_ch4 = 0.01; // Trigger level for channel 4

   int trigger_source_reg = (1<<0) + (1<<1);
   //int trigger_source_reg = (1<<0) + (1<<1) + (1<<2) + (1<<3);
   
   /* do initial scan */
   drs = new DRS();

   /* show any found board(s) */
   for (i=0 ; i<drs->GetNumberOfBoards() ; i++) {
      b = drs->GetBoard(i);
      printf("Found DRS4 evaluation board, serial #%d, firmware revision %d\n", 
         b->GetBoardSerialNumber(), b->GetFirmwareVersion());
   }

   /* exit if no board found */
   nBoards = drs->GetNumberOfBoards();
   if (nBoards == 0) {
      printf("No DRS4 evaluation board found\n");
      return 0;
   }

   /* continue working with first board only */
   b = drs->GetBoard(0);

   /* initialize board */
   b->Init();

   /* set sampling frequency */
   b->SetFrequency(domino_freq, true);

   /* enable transparent mode needed for analog trigger */
   b->SetTranspMode(0);

   /* set input range to -0.5V ... +0.5V */
   //b->SetInputRange(0.5);

   /* use following line to set range to 0..1V */
   b->SetInputRange(0.45);
   
   /* use following line to turn on the internal 100 MHz clock connected to all channels  */
   //b->EnableTcal(1);

   /* use following lines to enable hardware trigger on */
   if (b->GetBoardType() >= 8) {        // Evaluaiton Board V4&5
      b->EnableTrigger(1, 0);           // enable hardware trigger
      //b->SetTriggerSource(1<<0);        
   } else if (b->GetBoardType() == 7) { // Evaluation Board V3
      b->EnableTrigger(0, 1);           // lemo off, analog trigger on
      //b->SetTriggerSource(0);          
   }
   //b->SetTriggerLevel(0.05);            // 0.05 V
   b->SetTriggerPolarity(false);        // positive edge
   
   /* use following lines to set individual trigger elvels */
   b->SetIndividualTriggerLevel(1, trigger_level_ch1);
   b->SetIndividualTriggerLevel(2, trigger_level_ch2);
   //b->SetIndividualTriggerLevel(3, trigger_level_ch3);
   //b->SetIndividualTriggerLevel(4, trigger_level_ch4);
   //Set Trigger Configuration
   // OR Bit0 = CH1, Bit1 = CH2, Bit2 = CH3, Bit3 = CH4, Bit4 = EXT
   // AND Bit8 = CH1, Bit9 = CH2, Bit10 = CH3, Bit11 = CH4, Bit12 = EXT
   // TRANSP Bit15
   b->SetTriggerSource(trigger_source_reg); 
   
   b->SetTriggerDelayNs(0);             // zero ns trigger delay
   
   /* use following lines to enable the external trigger */
   //if (b->GetBoardType() == 8) {     // Evaluaiton Board V4
   //   b->EnableTrigger(1, 0);           // enable hardware trigger
   //   b->SetTriggerSource(1<<4);        // set external trigger as source
   //} else {                          // Evaluation Board V3
   //   b->EnableTrigger(1, 0);           // lemo on, analog trigger off
   // }

   /* open file to save waveforms */
   f = fopen("data.txt", "w");
   if (f == NULL) {
      perror("ERROR: Cannot open file \"data.txt\"");
      return 1;
   }
   
   /* repeat ten times */
   for (j=0 ; j<10 ; j++) {

      /* start board (activate domino wave) */
      b->StartDomino();

      /* wait for trigger */
      printf("Waiting for trigger...");
      
      fflush(stdout);
      while (b->IsBusy());

      /* read all waveforms */
      b->TransferWaves(0, 8);

      /* read time (X) array of first channel in ns */
      b->GetTime(0, 0, b->GetTriggerCell(0), time_array[0]);

      /* decode waveform (Y) array of first channel in mV */
      b->GetWave(0, 0, wave_array[0]);

      /* read time (X) array of second channel in ns
       Note: On the evaluation board input #1 is connected to channel 0 and 1 of
       the DRS chip, input #2 is connected to channel 2 and 3 and so on. So to
       get the input #2 we have to read DRS channel #2, not #1. */
      b->GetTime(0, 2, b->GetTriggerCell(0), time_array[1]);

      /* decode waveform (Y) array of second channel in mV */
      b->GetWave(0, 2, wave_array[1]);

      /* Save waveform: X=time_array[i], Yn=wave_array[n][i] */
      fprintf(f, "Event #%d ----------------------\n  t1[ns]  u1[mV]  t2[ns] u2[mV]\n", j);
      for (i=0 ; i<1024 ; i++)
         fprintf(f, "%7.3f %7.1f %7.3f %7.1f\n", time_array[0][i], wave_array[0][i], time_array[1][i], wave_array[1][i]);

      /* print some progress indication */
      printf("\rEvent #%d read successfully\n", j);
   }

   fclose(f);
   
   /* delete DRS object -> close USB connection */
   delete drs;
}

912

Fri Dec 27 22:04:48 2024

Matias Henriquez

Problem with C++ script to use DRS4 evaluation board. Not taking data.

Hello, some updates:

4. I was able to capture correct waveforms using c++ code. I needed to use the function SetTriggerDelayNs() to properly capture my waveforms.

5. I noticed that the drsosc program source code uses the functions: CalibrateVolt() and CalibrateTiming() for performing calibration. For these to work, is it necessary to use EnableAcal() and EnableTcal() functions right?

I'd appreciate if you can still give some insights about 1,2 and 3. Thank you!

Matias Henriquez wrote:

Hello,

Why Transparent mode is activated for Hardware Trigger?
Why EnableTCal is activated? is the drs4_exam example based acquires the 100MHz reference just for the sake of the example? or is just a time calibration routine?
Can someone explain the function EnableTrigger(flag1,flag2) in boardType 8? it si not clear to me how the trigger is enabled.
To check that my input signals are correct, I run the drsosc application and I can see the signals with no problem (see attachement 1). However I noticed that I had to configure the trigger delay in the drsosc application, and I don't do that in my c++ code. I will try that later.
How do I perform voltage calibration and time calibration using the c++ functions?

Thank you so much for your help.

913

Mon Jan 6 12:52:23 2025