Beginning of Experiment Checkout

This subsection describes the checkout of DAQ and trigger needed before an experiment can start.

1. First ensure that all the fastbus, VME, CAMAC, and NIM crates are powered on. They should boot up in a functional state, except for heavily loaded fastbus crates that sometimes lose their NVRAM. (If that happens, call R. Michaels)

2. You may download a default trigger, following the directions in the trigger chapter. If the hadron momentum changes you may need to set a new delay. A trigger expert should do the start-of-experiment trigger checklist.

3. Make sure the HV is on for all detectors and that the values are normal.

4. Start the xscaler display following the instructions below and check that the rates from detectors are normal.

5. Startup runcontrol (CODA) using the directions below and start a run. With the trigger downloaded and the HV on, you are taking cosmics data, typically at a rate of 3 Hz per spectrometer. Examine the data using dataspy, dhist, and ESPACE as explained below. Compare the plots and printouts to normal values.