SPIDER Testbeam meeting 07/07/2009

Present  N. Watson. J Wilson (Birmingham), P. Dauncey (Imperial), 
 J.J. Velthuis (Bristol), G. Zhang, M. Stanitzki (RAL)

Minutes: Marcel

We went through the actions of the last meeting and started with the TPAC 
DQM. Paul reported, that he has simulation going now to produce exactly the 
same file format as the DAQ would. He'll provide a few samples so Jan and 
Nigel can test the software and also analysis code can be developed. We need 
to agree on basic plots and Jaap pointed out, that they should be simple 
enough for anybody to check if everything is going alright at 0300. Paul is 
also going to contact Jamie Ballin, whether he'd be interested in working on 
the testbeam analysis again. Jaap announced that there is EUDET money 
available for funding a few month effort for testbeam related work. For TPAC 
Marcel summarised, that he thinks, the Chip will be ready for Testbeam, so the 
DAQ is the main item. Barnaby (RAL summer student) has started studying 
configuration load issues and will report on his findings later 
ACTION Marcel:  Check TPAC DAQ status with Rui and Andrei
 
The adapter for the CAEN LV modules will be ready in two weeks, so it cab be 
tested before the testbeam. Paul raised the issue about cooling and fans. We 
weren't really sure how to do it, but since we are in Birmingham next week, 
we'll have a look at the stack and think about possible ways of mounting fans.
We'll also need to know, where we going to put the stack on, Jaap said there 
are several xy-tables sitting around, but we'll need to know a bit more.
ACTION Jaap: Find out what is available in the testbeam area.
ACTION All: Cooling options for the TPAC stack.

We then discussed a possible network layout for the TPAC DAQ, we'll need a 6 
port router with Gigabit Ethernet and possible wireless. Birmingham will 
investigate. We have potentially three DAQ PC's and one monitoring PC. Paul 
proposed to run this as a gateway, so we'll only have to register one PC with 
CERN IT and all the other PC's are on a private sub-net. This will require one 
PC with two ethernet cards. We'll try to borrow that PC from RAL, if not we 
can still buy one.
ACTION Nigel: Check for suitable switches   
ACTION Marcel: Check if we can borrow a fast machine from RAL.

Also we need some long ethernet cables (50 m) to connect the DAq with the 
computers in the testbeam cabin.
ACTION Marcel: Organize long ethernet cables 
Gary reminded everyone, that we'll likely need adapters from UK plugs to Swiss 
or French ones. We also still short on USBDAQ flat ribbon cables
ACTION Paul: Get price for a cable set

On Fortis there weren't many news, only the fact the Fortis 1.1 has an error, 
which seems to take out ~ 20 % of the chip (1 column). As Dave wasn't there, 
we didn't get an update on the Fortis DAQ status. als we need to know how many 
PC's we'll need for Fortis in the testbeam

ACTION Jaap, Dave: Update on Fortis DAQ status
ACTION Jaap: Number of required Fortis PC's

As ISIS2 is not going to participate in the testbeam, we didn't cover ISIS2 
today. John reported that the PMT board has been delivered and is now being 
populated. He'll expect it to be ready to go in two weeks.



Next meeting 14th of July, 1100