Joerger Scalers

Author: Tim Mooney (1995, 2003)

Table of contents

• Configuration
  • VSC Series
  • VS Series
• Supported Record Types
  • VSC Series
  • VS Series
• Diagnostic Functions
  • VSC Series
  • VS Series
• Debug Variables
  • VSC Series
  • VS Series
• Notes
• Hardware Reference

The vme module provides device support for two families of Joerger VME scaler modules:

• VSC series (VSC8, VSC16): 8- or 16-channel, 32-bit scalers with interrupt-driven count completion (originally Lecroy 1151). Located in A32 address space.
• VS series (VS64, VS32, VS16): 32-bit read-on-the-fly scalers in multiple variants (TTL, ECL, NIM, and “D” versions). Located in A16 address space.

Both families interface with the EPICS scaler record from the SCALER module (formerly part of STD).

Configuration

VSC Series

Call VSCSetup in the IOC startup script before iocInit:

VSCSetup(num_cards, addrs, vector)

Argument	Description	Default
num_cards	Maximum number of cards in crate	–
addrs	A32 base address (256-byte boundary, range 0x100-0xffffff00)	0x00900000
vector	Interrupt vector (64-255, or 0 for non-interrupting)	0

Example:

VSCSetup(1, 0x00900000, 200)

VS Series

Call scalerVS_Setup in the IOC startup script before iocInit:

scalerVS_Setup(num_cards, addrs, vector, intlevel)

Argument	Description	Default
num_cards	Maximum number of cards in crate	–
addrs	A16 base address (2048-byte boundary, range 0x800-0xf800)	0xd000
vector	Interrupt vector (64-255, or 0 for none)	0
intlevel	Interrupt level (masked to 3 bits)	5

Example:

scalerVS_Setup(1, 0xd000, 210, 5)

Supported Record Types

VSC Series

Record Type	DTYP String
scaler	"Joerger VSC8/16"

VS Series

Record Type	DTYP String
scaler	"Joerger VS"

Diagnostic Functions

VSC Series

VSCscaler_show(card)
VSCscaler_debug(card, numReads, waitLoops)

VS Series

scalerVS_show(card, level)
scalerVS_regShow(card, level)

Debug Variables

VSC Series

var devScalerDebug 0

Level	Output
0	No messages
>= 5	Initialization messages
>= 19+N	Per-channel detail for channel N

VS Series

Variable	Default	Description
devScaler_VSDebug	0	Debug level (>= 5: init info, >= 10: detail)
devScaler_VS_check_trig	1	Enable trigger verification
devScaler_VS_trig_retries	10000	Max retries when verifying trigger
devScaler_VS_trig_retry_report	100	Report threshold for retry count
devScaler_VS_trig_reads	5	Number of consistent reads required

Notes

• The VSC-series devScaler_debug.c is used instead of devScaler.c because many newer VSC-series cards have hardware issues that the debug version works around.
• The VSC device support reports at initialization whether the card is configured for TTL or NIM termination.
• Both families require the SCALER module (provides the scaler record type).

Hardware Reference

See JOERGER_Vs64Mc.PDF for the Joerger VS series datasheet.