Beamline Workshop 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O1

We need advice and input from the EPICS user community Thank you 2

Goal of the Workshop To discuss how to best use the EPICS community to as a resource to support beamline development. Whilst I hope this may benefit TPS (since Chin-Yen asked for it!), I think we can all benefit. –Sharing experiences of the collaboration –Identifying organisations who have needs –Identifying organisations who can help –Generate ideas on what else we can do 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O3

Basic tenets “Beg, borrow, copy or steal before doing anything yourself” –Richard Farnsworth on building the Australian Synchrotron Remember that “Ego eats brains” –Don’t let self belief get in the way of sensible decisions Don’t underestimate the communities willingness to help –With the possible exception of Bob, we have all learnt from people who have done it before. –Consequently, we all have an obligation to pass it on. Start with synApps. –APS have been doing it for longer than anyone else 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O4

Diamond Beamline Experiences... How I didn’t make as much use of the EPIC collaboration as I should have

Where did I start? I arrived at Diamond in December 2004 One other person had started work on beamline controls 6 months before. –He left 8 months later First user scheduled 2 years later – January 2007 A significant number of the major beamline contracts had been placed. Neither of us had any synchrotron experience before Diamond –Both of us were astronomers Only I had EPICS experience. I have never hired anyone with any EPICS or synchrotron experience in my whole time at Diamond 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O6

What we did (early 2005) Spent 5 days (29/11–3/12/2004) at APS on my way to Diamond –Had conversations with John MacLean, Tim Mooney and Carlotta Lukowski, Tim Mooney, Mike Borland, Eric Norum, Marty Kraimer, Andrew Johnson, Ned Arnold, Mark Rivers, Hired 2 staff in Jan Hired another in June Took all 5 to SLS in July 2005 –They looked after us really well and we had a whole series of organised talks and discussions for us, plus lots of good food courtesy of SLS. –Presentations and discussions from Detlef Vermelen, Marcel Grunder, Andreas Ludeke, David Maden, Elke Zimoch, Rene Kapeller, Dirk Zimoch, Renata Krepaska, Jurai Krempaski, Christoph Quitmann 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O7

What we did (late 2005) Hired 3 more staff, lost 2 staff, hired one contractor. Hired another contractor to work specifically on source code control and release system. Organised 2 synApps workshops: –First in 5-8 December 2005 when Tim Mooney came to Diamond Discussed the synApps package, scanning, caPutCallback Additional attendees from SLS and BESSY –Second in February 2006 when Mark Rivers came to Diamond. Discussed asynDriver, detectors and feedback, interfacing with IDL and Python. Additional attendees from BESSY (2), SLS (4), Cosylab, Observatory Science and Hytec. 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O8

Other things we try and do Held regular EPICS training courses for new employees and contractor (ran by Observatory Sciences). Have new staff visit another synchrotron in their first year. Have all staff go to one EPICS or ICALEPCS meeting every 2 years. Encourage all staff to actively collaborate with developers in other sites. Always ask tech-talk before starting a new development. 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O9

Manpower rules of thumb 2-4 mature beamlines per EPICS engineers –APS has about 2, but the have no upper level software –Diamond has 3, but benefit from the GDA software group, so overall numbers are higher. –Other, less well funded, sites may have as high as 4. During development my average model is: –0.1 FTE before the Technical Design Review –0.5 FTE between TDR and technical commissioning –1-2 FTE during technical commissioning (~3 months). –0.4 FTE for first year. –0.33 FTE thereafter. However, some beamlines are more demanding than others. 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O10

Things that went well The SLS visit was pivotal The synApps workshops were also pivotal – particularly for the 4 new staff at the time. The redevelopment of motor support enable far more flexible use of modern motor controllers, while still preserving the motor record interface. areaDetector is making similar improvements for detector support. We were relatively flexible: –Originally EPICS was only going up to the exit window –Then we took over all control in the experimental area –Now we are taking over detectors. 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O11

Things that didn’t go so well Failed to set up many beamline specific standards: –Motor controller – including cabling, connectors, motor types etc. –Current amplifiers –Counter/scalars –Gateable ADC’s Didn’t get any motion specialists until we had started Phase 1 commissioning. 14 June 2011EtherCAT Driver for Remote I/O12