Version 2.1
This project was developed as a debugging tool for the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) Long Wavelength Array (LWA). This code facilitates testing and control of a single 16-channel analog receiver (ARX) board with an Arduino library and GUI.
The library abstracts away many complicated bit manipulations and allows the user to focus on operating the ARX board.
If you don't have it already, download the Arduino IDE here
Download the repository as a .zip file by clicking the green "Clone or Download" button in the upper righthand corner of the github homepage.
Open the Arduino IDE. Go to Sketch>Include Library>Add .ZIP Library. Browse to your download location and select the file you just downloaded.
Follow the instructions on this website if you still have quesitons about downloading the library.
Broadly speaking, the methods are split into three categories. The first category is for configuring a single ARX channel. The second is for configuring all ARX channels simultaneously and the last category is the initialization and execution methods.
The following methods will change the setting for a single channel.
void setAt1(int channel, int setting);
void setAt2(int channel, int setting);
void setAts(int channel, int setting);
void setFEE(int channel, bool setting);
void setFEE_A(int channel, bool setting);
void setFEE_B(int channel, bool setting);
void setFilter(int channel, filter_t setting);Hints: Here channel is an integer betwen 1 and 8 inclusive which denotes the channel on which the setting will be applied. For the first three commands, setting is an even integer between 0 and 30. For the FEE commands, setting is a boolean value, true or false and for the Filter command, setting is one of four values which have type filter_t, namely, ARXsetting::SPLIT, ARXsetting::THRU, ARXsetting::BLOCKED, and ARXsetting::REDUCED.
The following methods will change the setting for all channels
void setAt1_all(int setting);
void setAt2_all(int setting);
void setAts_all(int setting);
void setFEE_all(bool setting);
void setFilter_all(filter_t setting);The following commands control the flow of information
void init();
void setCS(int ncs);
void sendReg_all();
void printreg(int reg);
void print_all();Hints: The init() command initializes the SPI bus and must be called in every program. The chip select or slave select pin can be selected using the setCS() command. To update the ARX board state, use the sendReg_all() command. The print commands print out one or all of the registers.
Once the library is downloaded, you can find the examples in the Arduino IDE at:
Open>libraries>ARXsettings
Click on an example to open it. Once the example is open, the Arduino IDE will display the example code. Ensure that the code will be compiled for the correct board and the correct USB port is selected by choosing the correct options from the drop-down menus at Tools>Board: and Tools>Port. Finally compile and upload the code to Arduino using the right-arrow button in the upper-left corner of the Arduino IDE.
To further facilitate the use of this software, a simple graphic user interface is included. To operate the ARX board with the GUI, there are two required pieces of software. First is the GUI itself which is a software called Device Druid and operated by Pat Deegan. If you are running Windows, this software can be downloaded from the Windows App store, otherwise, there is more information about obtaining this package on the Device Druid Downloads Page. The second piece of code comes with the Arduino
* No one has ever actually asked me these questions
Arduino is a family of microcontrollers which has been designed to facilitate the development of embedded solutions.
There are many potential reasons for this and many reasons are discussed in depth elsewhere. For the Arduinos in the Weinreb lab, the reason might be that your computer doesn't yet have the driver required to use the CH34X serial-USB chip on these boards. Follow the download instructions on this website.
Talk to Devin (dcody at caltech.edu)