How to connect the instrument to a control PC

PNS Box

The instrument should be connected to the 19" rack-mounted box (the PNS box). SHUTTER and MASK on the instrument should be connected to the SH1(J107) and MIR (J109) sockets on the rear of the box. Sometimes the observatory staff will have done this.

Once this is done, it should be possible to manually activate the shutter and mask from the front of the PNS box. If the corresponding lamps light up, the shutter (or mask) will be in the closed position.

Control Software

Use a PC with DOS, or with a DOS window under Windows (not Windows 2000). A laptop will usually also work. The software addresses the parallel port directly and needs to be appropriately compiled: by default the executables have been compiled on the assumption that the port is at 0x378. To check that this is the case, type at the C:\ prompt:

debug
d 0040:08 L8
- if the response starts with the numbers 78 03, e.g.:
0040:0008 78 03 x x x x x x
(the x s can be anything) then the software should work. If not, it'll need to be recompiled.
quit

Cables

cable 1	a custom-made cable which splits a 25-pin plug into two outputs
cable 2	a standard cable with a 25-pin plug connected to a 9-pin plug "optie A"
cable 3	a standard 25-pin to 25-pin extention cable (short)
cable 4	a standard cable with a 25-pin plug connected to a 9-pin plug "optie B"
cable 5	a standard 25-pin to 25-pin extention cable (long), perhaps still draped around the A&G box at the WHT

WHT Hookup: with PC in control room

• you will probably want the PC over near the corner with the other control units (ULTRADAS, ICL)
• run cable 1 between the printer port of the PC and the "CASS RS232" breakout-box in the blue cabinets; put the plug marked "OPTIE B" into socket #1; cable 3 can be used to extend the cable if it doesn't reach
• make sure cable 1 is not under tension or otherwise likely to come to harm as it is semi-irreplaceable
• now connect cable 4 into the appropriate socket (marked J106 or "optie B" ) on rear of the PNS box; connect the other end to socket #1 of the RS232 breakout-box at the Cass; use cable 5 if extra length is required - this is normally done by Observatory staff
• The two cables from the instrument motors are normally connected to the PNS box by Observatory staff, and the cables are labelled with the number of the socket they should go in
• screw plugs in place where possible - otherwise use strong tape to hold them together, especially at Cass

1. are you really connected to the printer port?
2. is the PC suitable (see above)?
3. have you checked the connectors?

• you could try controling the PNS box from a networked PC mounted at Cass, this eliminates some connections such as the break-out box. This was set up for us by Luis Hermandez and worked well. Communication was established between a Windows 2000 PC in the control room and the Pentium PC at the Cassegrain by means of the client/server program PCanywhere. In this case, the printer port mentioned above is that of the PC at Cass. Ideally the PC should be close to the PNS box so that the cables reach without having to be extended.
• cable 2 is identical to cable 4
• there are several spare motor drives in the PNS box, but using them requires a change to the software and to the specially-made cables.

• there is a printed circuit in the PNS cupboard which will drive one of the PNS motors between open and closed

• during the Jul 01 commissioning run, Peter Moore's laptop was used for control. Nigel's laptop also worked.
• In the Sep 01 run, another PC was brought in for this purpose, it was labelled "PNS" with IP address 161.72.36.160. and failed in the March 2002 run. LI>In the Oct o2 run we operated a mouseless PC, Alt-F4 closes a window and (cntrl) tab switches between windows.

Nasmyth at TNG

Nothing organised yet.

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