Really basic DAQ for CAEN D5720 desktop digitizer and linux systems

Dependencies:

• Linux driver
• CAENVME
• CAENComm
• CAENDigitizer

Available here and here

Get it with a download or a clone (remember the git submodule).

To compile: make

You then need to write a configuration file with fields that match those in config.example.ini

Then to run: bin/simpledaq <path_to_configuration_file>

This will produce two things with paths specified in the configuration file

1. A header file containing a list of entries, each containing a selection of the header info produced by the CAEN digitizer
2. A directory with a file for each event containing the digitized samples

<eventDir>/event_0.dat <eventDir>/event_1.dat ...

SimpleDAQ is about the simplest use of the (C) CAENDigitizer library imaginable: it internally triggers off one of its channels and reads out that same channel. The hardware and CAENDigitizer are by no means limited to this, documentation available here.

Over USB, the digitizer is unable to annouce to its driver that it's time to readout events. Instead, it gradually fills up its internal buffer and the driver polls it triggering a readout of the events in the buffer up to a maximum number.

Note:

• the clock is 250MHz, so the samples are 4 ns apart
• the precision is 12bit, so the sample range is from 0 -> 4096