I hope I'm not to late to add my two-cents... 'cus I'm gonna anyway.
We had a similar situation here where the operators did not want to give up
trusty knobs with LED displays for a mouse and screen. They also did not like
the SunDials or the km interface.
The old chassis had a knob, a display, and a set of buttons to select the
channel. They were computer selected (ie: button push --> computer sets the
logic appropriately to send knob (encoder) pulses to D/A at device and displays
readback on LEDs). Initially, I just made EPICS take the place of that computer.
When it came time to replace those chassis though, I opted for similar encoder
knobs, touch-screens, and some Linux boxes. For each knob, there is a TCL/tk GUI
script (and more scripts can be run under keyboard-only control) which I call
"Control Panel Interface" (CPI). Each script has a set of virtual buttons and a
readout. The v-buttons select the channel as well as various control options.
Here's how it works:
The operator selects a channel via CPI and CPI establishes CA connections.It
then begins displaying the value for that channel. Knob inpulses are taken as
interrupts via AVME 9440 Digital IO board and increment counts in EPICS records.
The pulse-count records are monitored by CPI. When it sees a count on a knob it
has control of, it updates the control value for that channel and decrements the
knob's counter.
Some features I'm pretty proud of that might even be of use to you include:
1) Before a knob is "attached", it's DESC field is read to make sure it's
available. If so, it is made unavailable by writing the controlled-channel's
count to it. A check is also made to ensure that another knob is not already
controlling the channel.
2) "Read-only" channels are supported
3) Keyboard control is supported
4) Analog or Pulse outputs are available
Some specifics that might be of some use are:
1) All control/readback is done in standard EPICS db records (ai, ao, bi, bo).
2) Linux boxes are used only to drive the Microtouch touch-screens (CPI actually
runs on Unix box with display shipped back to Linux box).
3) This whole arrangement has been working flawlessly for us for years
If you want more info, my code, etc, just say so.
Garrett Rinehart
Control and Data Acquisition System Manager
Accelerator Operations Group
Intense Pulsed Neutron Source
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Ave
Argonne, IL 60439
(630)252-6561
[email protected]
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