Re: [Cs-studio-core] assignable control/display and CSS [SEC=OFFICIAL]

[Kasemir, K. <kas...@or...>]

Hi Andrew:

I’ve heard about several related approaches throughout time but I think those are all site-specific attempts.
Sun workstations used to offer a ‘knob’ box with I think 6 encoder knobs. It had a serial interface, so we had some tcl/tk/ca tool that wrote the values from those dials to selectable PVs.
Eric Bjorklund wrote a paper about the idea,  https://www.jacow.org/proceedings/ica01/papers/THAP071.pdf
The start of its abstract pretty much sums it up:

Experience using hardware knobs as an operator
interface for controlling equipment has varied
considerably at different facilities. Reactions have
ranged from “indispensable” at some facilities, to
“virtually useless” at others.

In the not too distant past, Claudio Rosati, at the time at ESS, wrote about integrating user interface panels that are commonly used by musicians, USB devices with a whole bunch of dials and/or buttons. He created the “Knob” widget that’s still available in the CS-Studio display builder. See https://www.jacow.org/proceedings/icalepcs2017/papers/thsh101.pdf, and maybe Georg from ESS knows more about current usage etc.

I’m sure there’s somebody out there who hooked a potentiometer to a raspberry pi and has that control a PV.

Cheers,
Kay


From: SMITH, Andrew via Cs-studio-core <cs-...@li...>
Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 at 1:36 AM
To: cs-...@li... <cs-...@li...>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [Cs-studio-core] assignable control/display and CSS [SEC=OFFICIAL]
 Dear CSS,
We use CSS to control two of our four accelerators and it is an excellent system. The other two accelerators are manufactured by the National Electrostatic Corporation (NEC) and were delivered with their own proprietary control system Accel-NET. One really nice feature of the NEC machines is the ‘assignable control/display’ box, which permits any controllable parameter to be assigned to any one of four controls and for any readable parameter to be displayed on any  one of four analog meters. The sensitivity of the controls and meters is adjustable and the current control value can be latched into the control system with the push of a button. In combination with beam profile monitors (BPM), this system really helps operators in the beam tuning procedure. You can get an overview of the NEC system at https://www.pelletron.com/products/accelerator-system-overview/<https://urldefense.us/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.pelletron.com_products_accelerator-2Dsystem-2Doverview_&d=DwMFAg&c=v4IIwRuZAmwupIjowmMWUmLasxPEgYsgNI-O7C4ViYc&r=8RMagXS5oBauLyLs1HfVUTdnjjuRYthZ97c5pPc4pBQ&m=5ySvQHE25zPJdSE7OdMLMyYvp3Dto1FusOkl_E5h0_5auE7bvQnB2or8U8TD4rrF&s=RnjzACX0uviqvJ_AJ2gzZ3SEXb2lpiwhknfzV85A3Ek&e=>

I am wondering whether CSS have a such a system available or know of any CSS users who have developed a similar system?

Best regards,

Andrew.

Dr. Andrew Smith
Principal Research Scientist
NSTLI Centre Accelerator Science
Postal address: Locked Bag 2001, Kirrawee DC NSW 2232 Australia
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