Tools for use of the Topaz multichannel analyzer.
Acquires spectrum and external counts for five second integrations from a connected Topaz MCA. It's intended for bench testing and logging background data.
The output is a tab-separated value (TSV) stream to standard output. Typical usage is:
qdaq | tee output.tsv
The qdaq command does not take arguments.
Sets the detector bias voltage. Typical usage:
topaz_hv 60.0
This sets the bias at the HIGH VOLTAGE connector to 60V and enables the HV supply. There's a compiled-in limit of 70V, adjustable in the Makefile. Negative voltages are unsupported (the hardware can't do that), and setting the voltage to 0 also disables the HV supply.
This command takes no arguments. It disables the HV supply.
These instructions assume you have a BrightSpec USB drive containing version 4.0.0 of the DIMHW tools automounted on a Raspberry Pi. They've been tested on a Rasperry Pi 3B running Raspbian Buster. A similar procedure predating the Makefile succeeded on a Model 2B.
In the TopazTools directory:
sudo make
This extracts the BrightSpec Linux development tree into a directory in TopazTools. It installs the runtime library in /usr/local/lib. It sets up user access to the MCA over USB, and insures that the Linux libusb is installed.
cd src
make
This builds the tools. Then:
sudo make install
installs the tools under /usr/local.