Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Eric Bjorklund, NPSM" <[email protected]> · Mon, 3 Nov 1997 15:45:09 -0700 (MST)

>Dear all,
>We are planning to join the EPICS community with a small EPICS system:  2
>IOC's,  2-4 CAMAC serial highways (~2000 pts),   and Allen-Bradley PLCs
>(~1000 pts).  Our planned configuration includes the MVME-177 (16 MB)  and
>the Hytec VSD 2992 CAMAC serial highway driver.  I would like to start off
>using R3.13..0.beta11 but I have a sense that the Hytec driver has not been
>revised/tested with 3.13.
>
>Before I plunge in,  does anyone have any advice on the above  ?
>
>Are there HW/firmware modifications required for the Hytec 2992 ?
>Do I need VxWorks_5.2 or 5.3 ?   Do I want Tornado ?
>
>
>Thanks in advance,
>-ps

At LANSCE, we are currently converting to EPICS 3.13 (beta4, while waiting for
the official release) and VxWorks 5.2.  So far we have had no problems (but
admittadly little actual field testing) with the camac software.  Our camac
extension tree can be found via anonymous ftp at:

	thoth.adtiv.lanl.gov/Epics/camac_R3.13.tar.gz

and contains drivers for the Hytec 2992 and the KS 2917.  Also included are
device support and the generic CAMAC record.  I believe others are also making
this conversion as well (Johnny Tang at J-Lab & Mark Rivers at U-Chicago).

We found that we were having problems with the block-mode reads on our Hytech
cards until we upgraded to version 2B of the RPT chip (on the row closest to
the backplane, third chip from the bottom -- the chip should be labled "RPT2B"
or higher (I believe there is at least a 3A now shipping).  Harry Wardell at
Hytec can probably help you if you are having problems with older boards.

Jeff Hill (also at LANL) is developing driver/device support using serial ports
into PLC-5's & PLC-2's.  I'm working on a similar driver for the PLC-5/VME.
These efforts are still a few weeks away from release status, but if you're
interested I can keep you appraised.

==============================================================================
Eric Bjorklund				Voice: 505-667-6031
Los Alamos National Laboratory		Email: [email protected]
AOT-6 MS H820
PO Box 1663
Los Alamos, NM 87545
==============================================================================

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System