Voodoo is the image aquisition program supplied by SDSU. It is the successor to CCDTool. It requires the use of a PCi interface.

The best machine to use for Voodoo is lpss17 in the WHT detector lab. It is not recommended that other machines be used.

The controller and camera should be connected up as follows : (jpg image) (PowerPoint)

To use voodoo first log in as dspdev onto lpss17. Then type 'voodoo &'. Then click on 'setup' on the top menu bar. You then need to tick the following boxes within the setup window that has just appeared: 

    Reset Controller
    Timing Board
    Utility Board
    Power On
    Image Dimensions

Then select which timing lod file you want to download by clicking on the directory icon to the far right of the Timing Board name window. Navigate to the lod file you want to use. Timing lod files are stored within the /home/dspdev/ccd/tim  directory.

Then select which utility lod file you want to download by clicking on the directory icon to the far right of the Utility Board name window. With the ING CCD cameras a special 'voodooed' utility file must be used. This is in directory : /home/dspdev/ccd/util/voodoo.

Image dimensions of a camera can be got from the detector performance web pages and must be entered in the relevant boxes.

Finally, go to the top menu bar in the setup window labelled 'Master Board' and select 'Utility'. This defines the board that contains the power on sequence code.

When everything is configured the 'Apply' button can be clicked  at the bottom of the Setup window. Due to a bug in Voodoo you may need to resize the window to make this button visisble.

 The WHTWFC cannot be tested directly using Voodoo. uDAS treats the camera correctly as a 2 chip mosaic with each chip contains 2154 columns. Voodoo can be configured to deal with a single chip with two outputs and so emulate the mosaic , but changes are required to the chip dimensions in timwfc.asm. It is recommended that the WHTWFC only be used under uDAS. The controller can still be tested using Voodoo but cannot be used for imaging.

With large cameras the image buffer size may need to be changed from the 'Program' menu at the top of the main Voodoo window.

Commands can be manually sent to the controller (such as commands to read memory locations) by clicking on the 'Debug' menu option at the top of the main Voodoo window followed by 'DSP Command'.

Voodoo is quite unreliable and may occasionally require power cycling of the attached controller and restarting of the program.