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====== How to control Kevin's timing modul boxes ======

The boxes made by Kevin Lang are controlled via an ethernet port, which means the first important thing: You can control each box that is plugged in GSI from everywhere within the GSI network! So **please** always remember which of the modules you are using and don't change any other modules.

To control the boxes you need the software "Timing Control" which you can find on the common drive. Just place it anywhere you can find it again and open the exe-file within the folder.\\
The **IP adress** that you see in the upper part can also be choosen by a list. This list (or a single IP) is read in the software from the file "ip.txt" in the main folder. Let the port "7" next to the IP like it is, it's the connection port of the ethernet card. Furtheron when I talk about ports, I mean different ports from the modules in the "Kevin Boxes"!

Now you can choose either a semi-automatic building of command by choosing the following **parameters**:\\
**MBADR**: this is the so called module address or "Modulbus address". The box in the Atom Container has the slots with numbers 4 till 8. On 4 is OTR, on 5 is my ScreenLadder Timing, so please choose a different address and label it appropriately.\\
**DELAY**: A time in microseconds after that the generated pulse is given out from the modul (or port) As far as I remember the minimum is not 0 but 1 microsecond due to process time or so.\\
**PORT**: This is now the port that I refer here mainly, default value is 1 (to choose a different port you need to enter the command manually), which is the first output port on the backside of the modules. (later more to this part, because it's a bit complex)\\
**REPEAT**: 1 means 'repeat modus", 0 is "single modus"\\
**LENGTH**: length of the pulse in microseconds\\
**LOGIC**: 1 is active high, 0 is active low\\
**EVENT:START**: The first entry is the machine number, the second is the event number. Both numbers have to be entered in hexadecimal digits! So e.g. a machine number of 10 means you have to enter an "A", if you have event 60 you have to enter the number "3C" and so on. (You can calculate these numbers either by Excel or just by using the usual windows calculator in one of the expert modes)\\
**STARTWIDTH**: bitsize of the start-event you've choosen before. it's either 8, 12 or 16. With 8 you JUST look for the event number, NOT for the machine number, so if a second machine is running, you will also get the events from this machine! By choosing bitsize 12 you select by event- and machine number, which is fully the purpose usually. Bitsize 16 is only recommendable if you have advanced knowledge of the timing system and event structure. For common use of the timing box it is actually not necessary to choose STARTWIDTH 16.

==== Choosing of output-ports ====
Here the system of choosing is binary! In complete there are only 8 ports to use as output. You reach these ports by calculating via 2^{choosen-portnumber - 1)\\
So the easiest port to choose is of course port 1, since you only write 1 (=2^{1-1} = 2^0 = 1). To choose port 2 you need to enter the number 2 (also still easy, but...) to choose port 3 you write "4" (=2^{3-1}). To choose port 8 you write "128" (=2^{8-1}).\\
By this way you can even choose combinations of ports, so that an output is generated by the same machine and event number on different ports of the module. E.g. for an output on ports 1 AND 3 you write "5" (=2^{1-1} + 2^{3-1} = 2^0 + 2^2). To choose ALL ports you write "255".\\
You can always check, which output ports are programmed at the moment by looking on the frontside of the module, if the corresponding light is on, than the port is programmed.

==== Example of entering a command manually ====
<code> GATE:MBADR 1;DELAY 1;PORT 255;REPEAT 1;LENGTH 10;LOGIC 1;EVENT:START 0x823;STARTWIDTH 12 </code>
Here the modul with number 1 looks for machine number 8 and event number 35 (in hex it's 23!!!). It's looking continiously for the event (repeat mode 1) and gives out a high pulse of 10 mikroseconds lengths on ALL ports (255) with a delay of 1 microsecond.

To release or "delete" all output ports again you write:\\
<code> DISABLE:MBADR 5;PORT 255; </code>

The commands are absolutely sensitive where to put a space sign or a semicolon! So try your commands in time and save them somewhere, so that you just need to copy it. 


==== Pulse or Gate for Trigger? ====
A Gate is a special pulse defined by an additional parameter: the gate length. With the existing system it's **not** possible to put different Gate outputs on different ports of the **same** module card. If you want to trigger on more than one event number you have to choose a pulse. Example for Pulse from Event 35 (Injection) on output port 4:
<code> PULSE:MBADR 5;DELAY 1;PORT 8;REPEAT 1;LOGIC 1;EVENT:START 0x323;STARTWIDTH 12;AWIDTH 12;APORT 8 </code>
The length of the pulse is fixed to 1 microsecond (standard TTL length). As you can see the event gets additional parameters by the bitsize of AWIDTH and again giving the output port with the parameter after APORT. For the latter also use binary system.

===== SIS18 event numbers =====
Find a scheme of GSI-SIS18-event numbers {{:how-to:sis_esr_standard_zyklen.pdf|here}} (decimal numbers, you need to recalculate into hex to use with the Timing Control software!)
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