Status Panel

The Status panel provides real-time detector and scan status information for live instruments. Information presented for each scan includes detector names, spectral range, gain, minimum and maximum signal levels, scan number, direction, size, ZPD location, scan rate, and IRIG time stamp. Temperature information is included for systems with an Edgar controlled blackbody.

The real-time status information is very useful for quickly determining the status of your system. In a correctly operating system, you should see the scan number incrementing by 1 for each new scan. This could be several scans per second, depending on your resolution setting. The scan direction should be bouncing back and forth between "Forward" and "Reverse". The scan size and ZPD location should be constant for any given resolution setting, as shown in the table below.

Resolution (cm-1)	0.5	1	2	4	8	16	32	64	128
Scan Size	65536	32768	16384	8192	4096	2048	1024	512	256
ZPD Location	32768	16384	8192	4096	2048	1024	512	256	128

The status of the data acquisition subsystems can also be determined from the Status panel. The three subsystems are indicated by the text "FTS" (FTS controller), "Ann" (Annotator command/control link), and "Acq" (Annotator data acquisition link) on the left edge of the panel. Red text indicates the submodule failed to initialize, and green text indicates success. The firmware version of these modules can be determined by positioning the mouse cursor over the "FTS", "Ann", or "Acq" text so that a temporary version number field is displayed.

The detector gain for each channel can be controlled from the Status panel. If a gain level of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 is selected, the gain will be fixed at the selected level. If Auto is selected, then if the signal level falls below 20% of full scale, the gain will be automatically increased, and if the signal level rises above 80% of full scale, the gain will be automatically decreased. (This autoranging function is performed in real-time at the end of each scan by the Annotator board in the interferometer.) The Status panel also provides controls for the IRIG time stamp trigger position and the 32-bit scan number ID reset.

The Min and Max values displayed on the Status panel correspond to the minimum and maximum values for each scan. These values are determined in real time on the Annotator board and transmitted to Edgar in an annotation block at the end of each scan. The location (position in the igram) of the minimum and maximum values is determined and also transmitted. By default, the Status Panel displays these values in units of ADC counts. The Min and Max display can be changed to Volts, and the location can also be displayed. The analog igram signal present at the input to the ADC has a full scale voltage swing of +-2.5 Volts. This is converted by the ADC to a 2's compliment number, so the conversion applied by Edgar to get from raw counts to volts is this:

I_v = I_c * 5/65535
where I_v = igram sample value in volts
and I_c = igram sample value in ADC counts

Each section (Channel Status, Scan Status, and Temperature) of the Status panel is detachable, and can be dragged out to the Edgar desktop so that it becomes a top level container. In this case, you can close the Status panel and the detached section remains visible. If you close the detached section, it will return to the Status panel. Also, within each status section, you can right click to pop up a menu that allows removing/adding individuals parameters to the panel, so that you can customize which parameters show up in your status bar.