Reflectometry Config Training ‐ Overview & Setup

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Reflectometry Config Training: Overview & Setup

This training unit presents a series of exercises which take you through the creation of a reflectometry config. The aim of this is to become more confident in working with a reflectometry configuration itself as well as to hopefully learn something about how the reflectometry IOC works internally.

NB: While I have taken care that the examples in the exercises produce a beamline model that resembles those of real instruments, it will be simplified in many ways for the sake of clarity.

Useful Resources:

• Reflectometry View User Manual
• Reflectometry Config Documentation & Reference Manual

Setup Instrument Configuration & Dev Environment:

1. Make sure your IBEX Server is not running
2. In /Instrument/settings/config/<ND...>/, pull branch REFL_TRAINING. This contains a blank reflectometry config for the exercises, as well as example solutions. Please do not commit anything to this branch directly as it is intended as a blank starting point for anyone doing this course. If you want to keep your local changes under version control, please create your own branch based off this one.
3. (Optional) in /Instrument/settings/config/<ND...>/Python/ rename init_inst.py to init_<your machine name>.py. This will load relevant reflectometry routines into genie_python sessions. Scripting is outside of the scope of this course so you should be able to complete everything without having done this, so this is just in case you want to play around.
4. (Optional but recommended) in /Instrument/Apps/EPICS/ioc/master/Galil/iocBoot/iocGALIL-IOC-01/st-common.cmd, find a line that says "Save motor settings every 30 seconds" and delete the relevant $(IFNOTRECSIM) conditional. This will make it so that simulated Galil axes retain their settings (limits, naming etc.) on IOC restart which can otherwise be a bit tedious to reapply every time.
5. Start IBEX Server
6. From an EPICS terminal, run /Instrument/settings/config/<ND...>/configurations/refl/motor_setup.bat. This will set up your motor axes to look like the SURF beamline (as this is one of the more simple reflectometers) through a series of caputs.
7. In the IBEX Menu Bar, navigate to Preferences > Select Visible Perspectives and tick yes for "Reflectometry"
8. Restart the REFL_01 IOC. The front panel on the Reflectometry Perspective should display a server status of "OKAY". If you see a lot of purple disconnected boxes, don't worry, this is expected. All other tabs should be blank at this point, i.e. no items listed.
9. You will be editing the python reflectometry configuration at /Instrument/settings/config/<ND...>/configurations/refl/config.py Next to it, there should be a folder with example solutions to all exercises. I highly recommend opening this in an IDE of your choice that lets you add /Instrument/Apps/EPICS/support/refl/ as a project dependency, as having access to class/function definitions and autocomplete will be extremely useful.

You should now be all set up!

Next: The Basics >