Hardware and software upgrades for the saturn data acquisition triggers and time base (work supported by the Dept. of Energy)

This paper summarizes the recent changes to the hardware and software systems associated with the diagnostic digitizer triggers and their data acquisition control program at the Saturn pulsed power facility at Sandia National Laboratories. The main screen room contains approximately 70 digitizing scopes for monitoring 6 voltage or current probes along each of its 36 energy storage and transmission lines. Each module locates probes along its length in an identical fashion so that by comparing the timing of similar probes on each line, a measure of the power flow time symmetry can be obtained. The probes from each line are recorded in scope groupings, each containing 36 channels. In numerous cases, the archived group time bases were not correctly quantified with respect to the other scope groupings. This was problematic when comparing signals from different scope groupings. The source of the errors was found to be how the scope groupings were triggered as well as a software error associated with two models of digitizers. We have implemented changes so that all scope groupings are time tied to a common reference.