Table of contents

• MCA set up screen.
• MCA screen with ROI.
• MCA manual
• How to set up scanH.
• How to set up saveData.
• How to set up scan1.
• How to set up the detector window of scan1.
• How to set up scan2.
• How to read MDA files saved by saveData.

• How to set up the MCA hardware

  The screen below shows how to set up the MCA. Note the real time should be
  set longer than the live time because of dead time effects.
  
  

• An MCA spectrum

  The screen below shows an MCA spectrum. Several ROIs can be set and used in
  a scan record as effective SCA windows. The EraseStart button is used by the
  scan record trigger. 5 ROIs are displayed, and the first one was set up to
  sum the first 2000 channels.
  
  



• How to set up scanH:

  
  Detector trigger to use is the AIM-MCA Erase and Start button.
  The Det. 01 is the pv for the whole array.
  Note that the scan record only saves 2000 channels
  Note that 7idC_0018.mda is the file saved by saveData in the MDA format
  ACQ mode should be in get array mode
  
  

• How to set up saveData:

  
  SaveData is a program running in the VME crate that saves scan data without
  using the catcher2 program. It saves data in a binary format called MDA.
  At the time of this writing, the files are saved in ~lucent for the 7ID-C
  crate, ~laser for the 7ID-D crate or ~ornl for the 7ID-B crate (not working
  in 7ID-B at the time of the writing). The syntax for the file system is
  shown. In the example, data was saved in /export/home/lucent/Livingston/test
  and the next file saved would have been 7idC_2000.mda.
  
  
  

• How to set up scan1:

  
  Scan1 triggers scanH to acquire an MCA spectrum so make sure to trigger scanH
  in your 1D scans.
  
  

• Detectors to add e.g. ROIs:

  
  Note how to add MCA ROIs to the detector columns.
  Note that I save the MDA file number here, ROI #0, the real and live time per scan
  
  

• How to set up scan2:

  
  Below is how to set up scan2. This is the usual way irrespective of MCAs.
  
  

• Savedata file format:

  
  SaveData saves spectrums in a file MDA format.
  We have installed a utility called "mdals" which prints to the standard
  output the MCA spectrum.
  

  usage: mdals [-aA] [-p prefix] [-fNN] [-sNN] filename
  * a: display attributes.
  * A: display array values.
  * p: if specified, prepend 'prefix' to every line except array values
  * fNN: display floating point numbers using the fixed notation with NN digits
  * sNN: display floating point numbers using the scientific notation with NN digits
  default floating point formating is: fixed with 6 digits of precisions
  

  
  
• The MDA home page at the APS