Beamline Controls

WIKI for the APS Beamline Controls Community, maintained by the Beamline Controls Technical Working Group.
This wiki exists to collect the output of the working group, including documentation on beamline controls software and hardware useful for APS beamline scientists and resident users.

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Getting Started

• EPICS Cheat Sheet: Channel Access command-lines, noteworthy record fields & IOC shell commands.
• EPICS 101: definition of basic EPICS components (IOC, PV, record, database).
• IOC 101: learn how to create your own IOC.
• Git 101: git refresher (basic workflow, commands, and more).

Beamline Controls Documentation

• EPICS networking: basic overview of how to control the network paths used by EPICS IOCs and clients.
• Controls Software Documentation
• Hardware and IT Configuration
• APSU_PVs: Description of what process variables(PVs) have changed for PSS, EPS, and ID control for the APSU beamlines
  • Mark Rivers has documented the process he used to find the relevant medm screens and the useful PVs for his beamline:
    • https://github.com/CARS-UChicago/GSECARS-EPICS/blob/master/docs/EPICS_Beamline_PVs.docx
    • https://github.com/CARS-UChicago/GSECARS-EPICS/blob/master/docs/EPICS_Beamline_PVs.pdf

Practical Beamline Controls Training (2023)

Session 1: IOC Basics Session 2: IOC Deployment & Troubleshooting

Beamline Controls Technical Working Group information

The BC Technical Working (BCTWG) group meets monthly to review and gather feedback on possible changes in either the way BC delivers support or the technologies that BC supports. The BCTWG comprises the BC group plus interested stakeholders from XSD. In a nutshell, the main goal of the BCTWG is to improve communication between BC and its customers on topics of mutual interest.

• Box folder with slides and meeting notes (ANL only): [1]

• Current chairs:
  • Kevin Peterson (XSD-BC)
  • Tejas Guruswamy (XSD-DET)
  • Andrew Chuang (XSD-MPE)

Beamline Data Pipelines

• https://git.aps.anl.gov/groups/bdp-public/-/wikis/home