OVERVIEW & OPERATIONS WINDOWS:


  1. Overview

    The Endcap EMC comprises tower, shower maximum (SMD), and both Pre-Shower, and Post-Shower, detector subsystems.

    Briefly:

    The towers are read out by single anode PMT's housed in magnetically shielded boxes and associated Front End Electronics (FEE) crates located on the back of the STAR poletip; the SMD, Pre- and Post-Shower on the other hand, are all read out by Multi-Anode PMT's (MAPMT) and compact FEE enclosed in shielded boxes (also on the back of the poletip). The High Voltage for the (MA)PMT's, LV power for the FEE, data collectors and slow controls all reside in EEMC racks located along the Wide Angle Hall (WAH) west wall. An air blower for tower FEE crate cooling and a chiller unit giving H2O cooling of the MAPMT FEE box electronics are also located there.

    The EEMC systems for shift crews/experts to control and monitor are the LV power, tower FEE, MAPMT FEE and High Voltage systems. High voltage for both PMT and MAPMT have a common controller system ("HVSys") for their Crockroft-Walton bases. Separate VME crates in the EEMC WAH racks contain the slow controls (VxWorks CPU) and data collector modules, respectively. The screens allowing control of these various systems are indicated briefly below and further discussion of startup, normal operation/monitoring, trouble shooting alarms, and etc. are given in other sections of this writeup.

    In addition to operation as a stand alone STAR detector subsystem, the EEMC is an important part of STAR triggering for much of the physics program. Hence QA of its operational health, including all aspects related to trigger performance is essential. Such monitoring is done via the "Panitkin plots" (P-plots) produced during each run and whose description relevant to the EEMC is also given elsewhere in this document.


  2. Controls screens/Windows - these are usually open in desktop sessions on Endcap EMC slow controls computer "eemc-sc" (user = online; pwd = .... ), if not see sequence below.

    1. Top level EEMC control screen; launch from session connected to STAR "sc3" controls computer (sysuser@sc3.starp.bnl.gov; pwd ....) via "eemc_main" from any directory

      1. All status indicators and mini-displays should be green during normal operation.
      2. Global on/off and configure operations available at top level
        -> detail (brown buttons) screens give more options and operation feedback.
      3. Laser screen _not_ in use at present (3/06).

    2. HVSys -- CW base HV -- (click on EEMC top level screen "detail" for HVSys)
      1. 3 controllers each w/ 4 branches are indicated at bottom of GUI
      2. PMT CW bases -- 60 boxes displayed on GUI outer radius
      3. MAPMT CW bases -- 48 boxes displayed on GUI interior
      4. An example of sector 12 level screen (click detail) for the 5 Tower (12T_) and 4 MAPMT (12S_ and 12P_) boxes is given here

      5. Tower FEE -- (click on EEMC top level screen "detail" for Tower Fee)
        1. Top level crate status is given for the 6 Tower crates
        2. Indication of monitoring activity (and state, a.k.a. "installed/uninstalled")
        3. Detailed configuration and trigger LUT loading -- "Master Reload" does everything!
        4. An example of a Tower crate level screen (click detail) for crate 1 is given here

      6. MAPMT FEE -- (click on EEMC top level screen "detail" for MAPMT Fee)
        1. Top level MAPMT box status is given for all 48 boxes (12 sectors)
        2. Indication of monitoring activity (and monitoring paused/unpaused)
        3. At GUI upper left, power supply status and associated 4-sector configuration buttons
        4. Additional monitoring features (e.g., "center plate temperature") at GUI upper right.
        5. An example of a MAPMT FEE box screen (click detail) for 6S1 is given here

      7. Crates and LV power -- (click on "power" from EEMC top level screen):
        1. Shows crates and power supplies controlled by CANBus
        2. #90-91 VME crates: slow controls and data collectors( #90 example)
        3. #92-94 towers LV dual supplies ( #93 example)
        4. #95-97 MAPMT LV dual supplies ( #96 example)

      8. VxWorks monitor (window) -- use for error message check and Input/Output Controller (IOC) command line action.
        1. In general a window will be open ... if not, (from eemc-sc) open window to a control room "gateway" machine (e.g., daqman, startrg, etc.) and from there "telnet eemc-serv.trg.bnl.local 7007" ... hit "return" a few times to get "->" prompt.
        2. If window won't open -> find session that is connected to IOC and use it or kill/restart.