LITEbox (LED Instrument for Tomography Education in a box)

The LITEbox in the first instance is being produced for the Harwell Open Day on Saturday 29th June, which Diamond is a part of. This will see thousands of members of the public (upwards of 10,000 people) come to Diamond and learn about the science and engineering happening at our facility. As we will be in a run it will not be possible for them to visit beamlines. Therefore, the LITEbox is being built to still give them an understanding of what happens at beamlines and the importance of tomography at Diamond.

Beyond Harwell Open Week, the LITEbox will be able to be used for various forms of engagement; from Diamond public open days, to outreach in schools. Making the LITEbox portable will therefore enable it to be used more at external events and opportunities and share the science that happens at Diamond far and wide.

Hardware

The hardware consists of:

• Thorlabs MCWHL7 Mounted LED
• Thorlabs LEDD1B LED Driver
• Thorlabs DDR25/M Rotation Mount
• Thorlabs KBD101 DC Servo Driver
• PandABox
• AVT Manta G-895B

Software

This repository contains the supporting files that are needed on the laptop that runs the experiment:

• The EPICS IOC for the GigE camera
• The settings for the PandA
• The script to run the experiment, starting the motor, controlling the IOC and reconstructing the data

How to use LITEBox

TLDR

assuming you have the laptop, camera and pandabox plugged into the PoE switch.

• login as ec-test on the laptop
• cd LITEbox
• ./setup.sh
• repeat ./setup.sh if things go wrong
• ./phoebus.sh gets you a GUI to the IOC (for debugging only)
• TODO - add the Jupiter notebook instructions here ...

Setup

To setup for on a new machine requires:-

• ubuntu 22.04 is installed on the machine (recommended - other distros probably OK)
• git and python3.11 or newer installed
• docker is installed
  • see https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/#install-using-the-convenience-script
• the user is a member of the docker group
• the user should have full sudo rights
• the wired network is set up as 'Link Local Only'
• the camera is connected direct to the machine
  • preferably with a local switch that also connects to the panda box
• the machine has internet access via wifi - recommend gov.wifi
  • see https://www.wifi.service.gov.uk/

Once the above are ready, the following commands will set up the machine:-

git clone https://github.com/DiamondLightSource/LITEbox
cd LITEbox
./setup.sh

This will:

• setup an virtual environment
• install 'ec' tool
• use ec to deploy the camera IOC

Run the experiment

To start the motor moving and trigger the camera to create a set of images when receiving triggers, use the kbd101.py. This code can be embedded in a Jupiter notebook that will do the reconstruction.

Each execution of the above python script will result in a new HDF file appearing in the folder /data.

Debugging

configure environemnt

To configure a terminal with the necessary tools to debug the IOC, run the following command:

source ./config.sh

This will open a terminal that has the 'ec' tool setup.

Use ec --help to see the available commands.

e.g.

• ec ps lists the IOCs running
• ec logs bl01t-di-cam-01 shows the logs for the camera IOC

loading a GUI to the IOC

./phoebus.sh

testing the camera.

To test the camera without triggers:

source ./config.sh
ec exec bl01t-di-cam-01
caput BLEC1-EA-DET-01:DET:TriggerSource Freerun

# restore to triggered with
caput BLEC1-EA-DET-01:DET:TriggerSource Line1

You can use phoebus to control all other camera settings.