First steps

This is a quick start tutorial to get you familar with iseg Control and iseg High Voltage modules. Typical operations are described here.

Generating High Voltage

To generate High Voltage, the following steps are necessary:

  1. Select the HV channel you want to control with the mouse or the cursor keys.
  2. Press V. The Set Voltage input dialog appears:

    Input the desired voltage value and press Enter. The value is sent to the module and appears in the Vset column after the module accepted the value.
  3. Press O to turn the channel on. The channel ramps to the voltage set value with the configured voltage ramp speed. During the ramp, the Status column shows "Ramp".
Note: If the channel was previously turned off by an error, you may need to clear the EventStatus bits before turning on is possible.

Changing the voltage ramp speed

When turning the High Voltage on or off, or when changing the voltage set value, the High Voltage does not jump to the new value but changes in small steps with a specific ramp speed. This is necessary to avoid high currents on capacitive loads (e. g. for detector protection).

Press R or choose menu Module → Set Voltage Ramp... to change the voltage ramp speed. The ramp speed is entered in percent per second.

Most devices allow 0.001 up to 20 percent. Example: with a ramp speed of 20 percent, it takes five seconds to ramp from zero to the nominal value.

Note: This setting is module-wide and therefore identical for all channels in a module.

Note: The upper limit for the voltage ramp is 1 % in mode Kill Enable or if Delayed Trip is enabled.

Turning off the High Voltage

Select the HV channel you want to turn off. Press F or choose menu Channel → Set Off. The High Voltage ramps to zero with the configured voltage ramp speed.

Note: due to internal and external capacities connected to the channel, long discharge times may occure before the High Voltage reaches zero.

Event clearing

Events capture Status changes. They indicate that something happened since the last time this Event was cleared.

Some Events prevent turning on the High Voltage if their corresponding Event Mask bit is set. The easiest way to clear all Events in a module is by pressing F10 or by menu Module → Clear all Events.

The following Events will block the High Voltage generation:

Set a Delayed Trip

This dialog allows to set a current value and to select the action that is performed when this current is reached.

Select a channel and press T or use Menu Channel → Set Current Trip... to open this dialog.

If the Checkbox "Turn the channel off when reaching this current" is checked, a delayed trip time can be configured in the range of 8 to 4095 Milliseconds.
When the output current is larger then the set value, the channel goes in Current Control mode and acts as constant current source. When the configured trip time is elapsed, the channel can perform one of two special actions:

Note: This setting is done with the help of variable groups and is not available if the groups are used otherwise.

Note: This setting is only available in mode Kill Disable.

Note: The letter 'T' is shown in the Iset column if the channel is configured for Delayed Trip.

Configuring an External Inhibit action

This dialog allows to set an action that is performed, when an External Inhibit for a channel becomes active.

Select a channel and press N or use Menu Channel → Set External Inhibit Action... to open this dialog.

Four possible actions exist:

Note: This setting is only available in mode Kill Disable.

Emergency shut down the High Voltage

Select the HV channel you want to turn off. Press Y or choose Channel → Emergency Off. The High Voltage is shut down without ramp.

When a channel is in state Emergency Off, it cannot be turned on. First, leave the state Emergency Off by pressing M or choose Channel → Clear Emergency Off.

Next, you may need to clear the Event Status bit Emergency Off before the High Voltage can be turned on.

Note: due to internal and external capacities connected to the channel, long discharge times may occure before the High Voltage reaches zero after an Emergency Off.

Instructions for all channels

For faster control, it is possible to perform the same operation on all channels in a module. For example, set all channels to the same voltage set value or turn on all channels. These Operations are located in the Menu Module → Instructions for all Channels.

For easy usage, these operations use the same keyboard shortcuts as the single channel operations in combination with the Control key.

Direct editing in table

The demanded values for voltage (Vset) and current (Iset) can be entered directly in the table. To achive this, double click on the Vset or Iset cell of the desired channel, edit the shown value and press Enter to send the value to the module.

With keyboard, navigate to the cell you want to change, press F2, edit the shown value and press Enter to send the value to the module.

Status Summary

The last columns in the channel table are Status, CV, and CC.

The Status cell can contain the following conditions:
OffChannel is Off
OnDemanded Set On, but not yet on
OnChannel is On and in stable condition
RampingChannel is ramping to to the Set Voltage or to zero
RampingChannel is ramping to to the Set Voltage or to zero
(neiter Constant Voltage nor Constant Current is satisfied)
EmergencyChannel is in state Emergency Off
InhibitChannel is shut down via External Inhibit
Voltage LimitChannel is in Voltage Limit
Current LimitChannel is in Current Limit
Current TripChannel is turned off because of Current Trip
Voltage BoundsChannel is in Voltage Bounds
Current BoundsChannel is in Current Bounds

The columns CV and CC indicate the channels regulation, constant voltage or constant current mode.

Load Module

Load modules have both internal measurement and the possibility to select one channel for external measurement.

The operating modes are switched with the menu items in menu Channel → Load Module or with the Channel context menu when a load module is selected.

Internal and external Measurement

The internal measurement measures voltage and current of all channels sequentially.

Furthermore, the selected channel of a load module can be set in one of the following operating modes:

Auto-switch Measurement

The function "Auto-switch Measurement" automatically sets the selected channel to External and Ripple measurement. This allows easy switching through all channels with the Up and Down keys.

This function is only located in the menu Channel → Load Module.

Note: Selecting this function again switches off the automatic measurement switching.

Do Multiplex

To activate the internal Measurement for all channels, the command "Do Multiplex" can be used. In this case, the user doen't have to know which channel is set to External or Ripple Measurement.

Switchable Resistors

Some Load modules have two switchable resistors. One or both of these resistors can be activated and deactivated for all channels for all channels at once.

Note: Switching resistors is not available over SNMP at the Moment.

Index