| Controller |
This is the interface to the sympathetic specific hardware. Flow chart (under normal conditions): UI -> controller -> hardware. Basically, that's it. Exceptions: -controller can set values displayed on UI (only meant for special cases, like startup or re-loading a saved parameter set) -Some public functions allow the HC to be controlled remotely (see below). HardwareState: There are 3 states which the controller can be in: OFF, LOCAL and REMOTE. OFF just means the HC is idle. The state is set to LOCAL when this program is actively upating the state of the hardware. It does this by reading off what's on the UI, finding any discrepancies between the current state of the hardware and the values on the UI and by updating the hardware accordingly. After finishing with the update, it resets the state to OFF. When the state is set to REMOTE, the UI is disactivated. The hardware controller saves all the parameter values upon switching from LOCAL to REMOTE, then does nothing. When switching back, it reinstates the hardware state to what it was before it switched to REMOTE. Use this when you want to control the hardware from somewhere else (e.g. MOTMaster). Remoting functions (SetValue): Having said that, you'll notice that there are also public functions for modifying parameter values without putting the HC in REMOTE. I wrote it like this because you want to be able to do two different things: -Have the hardware controller take a back seat and let something else control the hardware for a while (e.g. MOTMaster) This is when you should use the REMOTE state. -You still want the HC to keep track of the hardware (hence remaining in LOCAL), but you want to send commands to it remotely (say from a console) instead of from the UI. This is when you would use the SetValue functions. The Hardware Report: The Hardware report is a way of passing a dictionary (gauges, temperature measurements, error signals) to another program (MotMaster, say). MOTMaster can then save the dictionary along with the data. I hope this will help towards answering questions like: "what was the source chamber pressure when we took this data?". At the moment, the hardware state is also included in the report. |
