imaqdx camera error message

[Josiah Sinclair]

Hi everyone, 

I want to test a camera, and can use a pineblaster or prawnblaster as my pseudoclock. When I try and make these the parent device of the camera, 

"IMAQdxCamera(

        'camera',
        parent_device=pineblaster_0.clockline,
        connection="port0/line5","

I get the following error, 

"devices of type trigger device cannot be attached to devices of type Generic ClockLine."

It would seem I need to use an intermediate device to trigger my camera. What is the best cheap intermediate device option for testing purposes? 

Thanks!

Josiah

[Chris Billington]

Hi Josiah,

To keep labscript happy, you could add a DummyIntermediateDevice to the connection table, something like:

from labscript import Trigger, start, stop
from labscript_devices.PineBlaster import PineBlaster
from labscript_devices.DummyIntermediateDevice import DummyIntermediateDevice
from labscript_devices.IMAQdxCamera.labscript_devices import IMAQdxCamera

PineBlaster('pineblaster_0')
DummyIntermediateDevice('intermediatedevice', parent_device=pineblaster_0.clockline)
Trigger('camera_trigger', parent_device=intermediatedevice, connection='do0')

IMAQdxCamera(
    'camera',
    camera_trigger,
    'trigger',
    serial_number=0xDEADBEEF,
)

Of course this will not actually produce a trigger for the camera, there is no physical intermediate device to do so. But this would at least let the connection table compile, and you could verify the camera worked in BLACS in manual mode.

The clockline of the pineblaster or prawnblaster will produce a rising edge at the times you command a trigger though, so you *could* use that signal (intended to be connected to an intermediate device) as the camera trigger for testing purposes - though the clockline will also pulse at t=0, so you'd have one extra pulse than actual requested triggers, unless you actually did request a trigger at t=0.

As for an actual IntermediateDevice, for very cheap you might want to look into the development that is happening here to make the prawnblaster have generic digital output capability in addition to being a pseudoclock:

https://github.com/labscript-suite/PrawnBlaster/issues/23

Otherwise, unsure what the cheapest option is - I would guess the cheapest NI DAQmx device that supports buffered digital output is probably not super cheap (I can't figure out how to make their website show me pricing, it's refusing to because I'm in Australia).

There is also the Narwhal Devices pulse generator for US$600, which is a pseudoclock and digital output device. Its labscript driver has not finished being written yet, though if he is likely to get another sale, the developer Rory Speirs (a friend of many on the labscript suite mailing list) may be inclined to finish it sooner! You should feel free to get in touch with him to find out.

Regards,

Chris

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[Josiah Sinclair]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for this info. The solution you provided worked great! For testing purposes I will just use the pseudo clock for now. 

Cheers,

Josiah 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 26, 2023, at 8:41 PM, Chris Billington <chrisjbi...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Aishik Panja]

Hi Chris and Josiah,

I am really struggling with giving the Trigger from the pineblaster. It seems like the pineblaster, unlike the Pulseblaster has no direct outputs that can be used as trigger. 

We want to give Trigger to a Raspberry pi or a SRS signal generator from the pineblaster.

Thanks,

Aishik Panja,

Purdue University