Short term solution

• NI PXI-1033 Chassis with integrated MXI express controller, PCIexpress card and 3m cable
• NI PXI-8464 CAN-Bus controller with 2 ports, software selectable between high speed, slow speed and single wire CAN protocol
• Software: Some old basic VIs can be found here. It is a client-server application to control Wiener crate via CAN.

The chassis will have 4 slots (total) and thus provides possibilities for further extensions, like a FireWire card to read out a CCD camera. The disadvantage is the neccessity of having the PC close to the PXI crate inside the ESR cave. In case of a PC crash during the experiment, this will require to stop data acquisition, enter the cave and reboot the PC.

Long term solution

• NI PXI chassis with fiber optical controller
• NI PXI CAN-Bus card

With a 200m fiber optical link between the PXI and the PC, the latter can be located in the experiment control hutch outside the ESR cave. It is therefore instantly accessible.

-- HaraldBraeuning - 14 Sep 2006