Hardware Setup

The CTIO PC Guider software supports two different hardware setups and its configurable by editing a single configuration file. One setup is intended for using the camera in the Mosaic-II 8Kx8K imager environment. The other one is the more general purpose setup for CTIO digital cameras.

Mosaic-II 8Kx8K Imager Environment

In this environment the standard RS-170 analog signal from the ICCD cameras is put into the IC-CMP frame grabber to be acquired. The PC guider then calculates the error correction and sends the correction to the TCS using either the network or a dedicated RS-232 line.

The schematics below shows the cable connector between the ICCD camera.

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CTIO Digital Camera Environment

In this environment the digital signal coming from the camera head is fed into the comex board for serial to parallel format convertion. The resulting 12 bit word is then acquired by the IC-DIG frame grabber. The PC guider then calculates the error correction and sends the correction to the TCS using either the network or a dedicated RS-232 line.

Installing the IC-PCI frame grabber

The IC-PCI board is an standard PCI board, so installation is quick and simple. No jumper configurations have to be made and the board can be installed right out of the box.
After you install the board you will have to save some upper memory for the frame grabber. There's no way at present time under Linux 2.0.X to dynamically allocate a block of linear memory during runtime.
To save this memory you will have to edit the /etc/lilo.conf file to look like the following example:

boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
     root=/dev/sda2
     append="mem=60M"
     read-only

In the example above the line 'append="mem=60M' tell the kernel that only 60 megabytes are available out of the total amount of memory. If the total memory is 64 Mb then only 4 Mb will be saved for the frame grabber.
Then as root execute the "lilo" command and reboot.

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Installing the IC-PCI drivers

Copy the icpci.tar.gz file to the /usr/src directory on your machine and follow the instructions in the README file in the icpci directory to compile and install the driver. The driver module will be copied to the /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc directory.
NOTE: The RedHat Linux distribution add to the kernel version number a release number. If using that distribution the "make install" command will create a new directory named /lib/modules/2.0.36/misc" and will install the drivers there. Move manually the drivers to the "/lib/modules/preferred/misc/ directory.

Then you will have to edit you /etc/rc.d/rc.local file and add a line like the following.

insmod icpci base=60 size=4

The line above will load the module at boot time allowing you to get the frame grabber ready to go after the machine comes alive. Reboot the machine to take the changes.

When more than one IC-PCI board is installed the driver will assign a board number to each one. The number the driver gave to each board must be determined by trial an error (aghhh!). The board number defines what especial character file correspond to each board. For example, if an installed IC-DIG board receives number 1 then its associated fille will be /dev/ic1idI under BMA mode. If the number is 3 then the file will be /dev/ic3idI.
Keep that in mind when programming with this drivers.

The comex device driver

If you are using the IC-PCI board in its IC-DIG encaranation, then you will have to additionally install the comex device drivers. The Comex device transform the serial stream from the camera head into parallel words to the IC-DIG board.

Copy the comex-1.0.0.tar.gz file to the /usr/src directory on your machine. Then type make all to compile and install the driver modules. Finally add a sentence like the following to you rc.local startup scripts:

/usr/src/comex-1.0.0/comex_load

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