Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Ned D. Arnold" <[email protected]> · Tue, 04 Mar 2003 09:33:13 -0600

Kate,
There are about a dozen different alarm handlers running in the APS
control room. Our operators have indicated a <strong> desire to have
"comfort displays" much like you described, as they also find it
inconvenient to "chase" alarm handlers.
One feature of ALH is that it can write the severity of an alarm group
to a specified PV. We intend to use this capability to feed "soft" PVs
that are are used for the "comfort" display. The comfort display will be
a simple medm screen with red/green boxes on a dedicated monitor. A
simple glance at the comfort display will direct the operators to the
appropriate alarm handler where they can find the many details
associated with the alarm.
This provides a very basic, always visible, comfort display by using
standard EPICS tools. The hierarchical approach for alarms built into
alh is helpful in managing the thousands of signals that are monitored
and grouping them down to about two dozen top-level groups.
Just an idea ....
 Ned

Feng, Shuchen wrote:

At NSLS, we used TVs dedicated to important PV information
display (e.g. alarm signals, radiation levels, ..etc.), which
are controlled by non-EPICS IOCs. Users love the TVs because
the information is real-time independent of network
problems, and 2) the display is dedicated so that it does not
interfere with the operation control consoles. 

Before I take the effort to convert the non-EPICS TV control
into an EPICS IOC, I would like to seek if there is any other
morden solution in different facilities. The alarm handler

that is provided by the current EPICS release

is not suitable in our control environment because 1) the users
want to have a dedicated alarm screen for emergency
control instead of taking the risk of shuffling the alarm handler

out of sight, 2) the alarm sound provided by the console computer
is not lound enough in our control enviroment. An audible
output controlled by an IOC is required, 3) the real-time
information and actions ensure the notification of the
emergent conditions. 

Any comment or suggestion is highly appreciated.
Thanks,
Kate 
[email protected] 

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System