Reflectometry Config Training: Overview & Setup

This training unit presents a series of exercises which take you through the creation of a reflectometry config. The aim of this is to become more confident in working with the python configuration itself as well as to hopefully learn something about how the reflectometry IOC works internally.

NB: Whilst care has been taken so that the examples in the exercises produce a beamline model that resembles those of real instruments, it will be simplified in many ways for the sake of clarity.

Useful Resources:

• Reflectometry View User Manual

• Reflectometry Config Documentation & Reference Manual

• Reflectometry Glossary

Setup Instrument Configuration & Dev Environment:

1. Navigate to ...\Apps\EPICS\support\motorExtensions\master\settings\<computer name>\galil. If the folder doesn’t exist already, please create it.

2. Create a jaws.cmd with the following contents, so that the appropriate jaws are available later.

$(IFIOC_GALIL_01) dbLoadRecords("$(JAWS)/db/jaws.db","P=$(MYPVPREFIX)MOT:,JAWS=JAWS1:,mXN=MTR0101,mXS=MTR0102,mXW=MTR0104,mXE=MTR0103")
$(IFIOC_GALIL_01) dbLoadRecords("$(JAWS)/db/jaws.db","P=$(MYPVPREFIX)MOT:,JAWS=JAWS2:,mXN=MTR0105,mXS=MTR0106,mXW=MTR0108,mXE=MTR0107")

3. In the same folder create an axes.cmd with the following, these aliases are useful later.

$(IFIOC_GALIL_03) dbLoadRecords("$(AXIS)/db/axis.db","P=$(MYPVPREFIX)MOT:,AXIS=STACK:TRANS,mAXIS=MTR0305")
$(IFIOC_GALIL_03) dbLoadRecords("$(AXIS)/db/axis.db","P=$(MYPVPREFIX)MOT:,AXIS=STACK:HEIGHT,mAXIS=MTR0307")
$(IFIOC_GALIL_03) dbLoadRecords("$(AXIS)/db/axis.db","P=$(MYPVPREFIX)MOT:,AXIS=STACK:PHI,mAXIS=MTR0306")
$(IFIOC_GALIL_03) dbLoadRecords("$(AXIS)/db/axis.db","P=$(MYPVPREFIX)MOT:,AXIS=STACK:PSI,mAXIS=MTR0308")
$(IFIOC_GALIL_02) dbLoadRecords("$(AXIS)/db/axis.db","P=$(MYPVPREFIX)MOT:,AXIS=MONITOR,mAXIS=MTR0208")

4. Open up the IBEX GUI.

5. Create a new configuration called REFL_TRAINING or something similar.

6. Add the GALIL_01 IOC to the configuration, give it a Sim. Level of RECSIM, and assign 01 to the MTRCTRL macro, everything else can stay as the default values.

7. Add the GALIL_02 IOC to the configuration, give it a Sim. Level of RECSIM, and assign 02 to the MTRCTRL macro, everything else can stay as the default values.

8. Add the GALIL_03 IOC to the configuration, give it a Sim. Level of RECSIM, and assign 03 to the MTRCTRL macro, everything else can stay as the default values.

9. Add the REFL_01 IOC to the configuration, everything stays as the default values.

10. Load your configuration.

11. It may make things clearer if you update the motor descriptions as per the following table:

Axis	Galil 01	Galil 02	Galil 03
01	Jaws 1, North	Detector Angle	Slit 1 Offset
02	Jaws 1, South	Detector Position	Slit 2 Offset
03	Jaws 1, East	Bench Front
04	Jaws 1, West	Bench Back
05	Jaws 2, North	Bench Slide	Sample Stack Translation
06	Jaws 2, South	Supermirror Position	Sample Stack Phi
07	Jaws 2, East	Supermirror Angle	Sample Stack Height/Offset
08	Jaws 2, West	Monitor	Sample Stack Psi

12. Make sure the Reflectometry perspective is available to you, if it isn’t you can make it visible via the Preferences menu.

13. At this point if you open the Reflectometry perspective the Server Status should indicate an ERROR as it can’t find the configuration.

14. In the configurations folder for the computer you are using create a folder called refl, and in refl create config.py.

15. If you restart the REFL_01 IOC at this point, the server will still be in error, but the error text should have changed to being unable to read the file rather than being unable to find it.

16. Open config.py in the editor of your choice, and copy in this code, which is the reflectometry configuration you have that will edit and load during the exercises. This is the simplest version you can have to load and not create an error or warning.

from typing import Dict

from ReflectometryServer.beamline import Beamline
from ReflectometryServer.config_helper import (
    add_mode,
    get_configured_beamline,
)


def get_beamline(macros: Dict[str, str]) -> Beamline:
    #########################
    # FIXED BEAMLINE VALUES #
    #########################

    # Modes
    _nr = add_mode("NR") # The underscore is to ensure this passes for pyright because the mode is needed for getting the configured beamline, but is unused locally

    ##############################
    # BEAMLINE MODEL STARTS HERE #
    ##############################

    return get_configured_beamline()
    

17. At this point you should be able to edit config.py in the following pages and build up your example system. The make up of the configuration will be covered there as well.