hvl-ccb 0.16.0

Python common code base to control devices high voltage research devices, in particular, as used in Christian Franck's High Voltage Lab (HVL), D-ITET, ETH

HVL Common Code Base

Python common code base (CCB) to control devices, which are used in high-voltage research. All implemented devices are used and tested in the High Voltage Laboratory (HVL) of the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).

• Free software: GNU General Public License v3

• Copyright (c) 2019-2024 ETH Zurich, SIS ID and HVL D-ITET

Features

For managing multi-device experiments instantiate the ExperimentManager utility class.

Devices

The device wrappers in hvl_ccb provide a standardised API with configuration dataclasses, various settings and options, as well as start/stop methods. Currently wrappers are available to control the following devices:

Function/Type	Devices
Bench Multimeter	Fluke 8845A and 8846A 6.5 Digit Precision Multimeter
Data acquisition	LabJack (T4, T7, T7-PRO; requires LJM Library) Pico Technology PT-104 Platinum Resistance Data Logger (requires PicoSDK/libusbpt104)
Digital Delay Generator	Highland T560
Digital IO	LabJack (T4, T7, T7-PRO; requires LJM Library)
Experiment control	HVL Cube with and without Power Inverter
Gas Analyser	MBW 973-SF6 gas dew point mirror analyzer Pfeiffer Vacuum TPG (25x, 26x and 36x) controller for compact pressure gauges SST Luminox oxygen sensor
Laser	CryLaS pulsed laser CryLaS laser attenuator
Oscilloscope	Rhode & Schwarz RTO 1024 TiePie (HS5, HS6, WS5)
Power supply	Elektro-Automatik PSI9000 FuG Elektronik Heinzinger PNC Technix capacitor charger Korad Lab Bench DC Power Supply KA3000
Stepper motor drive	Newport SMC100PP Schneider Electric ILS2T
Temperature control	Lauda PRO RP 245 E circulation thermostat
Waveform generator	TiePie (HS5, WS5)

Each device uses at least one standardised communication protocol wrapper.

Communication protocols

In hvl_ccb by “communication protocol” we mean different levels of communication standards, from the low level actual communication protocols like serial communication to application level interfaces like VISA TCP standard. There are also devices in hvl_ccb that use a dummy communication protocol; this is because these devices are build on proprietary manufacturer libraries that communicate with the corresponding devices, as in the case of TiePie or LabJack devices.

The communication protocol wrappers in hvl_ccb provide a standardised API with configuration dataclasses, as well as open/close and read/write/query methods. Currently, wrappers for the following communication protocols are available:

Communication protocol	Devices using
Modbus TCP	Schneider Electric ILS2T stepper motor drive
OPC UA	HVL Cube with and without Power Inverter
Serial	CryLaS pulsed laser and laser attenuator FuG Elektronik power supply (e.g. capacitor charger HCK) using the Probus V protocol Heinzinger PNC power supply using Heinzinger Digital Interface I/II SST Luminox oxygen sensor MBW 973-SF6 gas dew point mirror analyzer Newport SMC100PP single axis driver for 2-phase stepper motors Pfeiffer Vacuum TPG (25x, 26x and 36x) controller for compact pressure gauges Technix capacitor charger Korad Lab Bench DC Power Supply KA3000
TCP	Lauda PRO RP 245 E circulation thermostat
Telnet	Technix capacitor charger Fluke 8845A and 8846
VISA TCP	Elektro-Automatik PSI9000 DC power supply Rhode & Schwarz RTO 1024 oscilloscope
propriety	LabJack (T4, T7, T7-PRO) devices, which communicate via LJM Library Pico Technology PT-104 Platinum Resistance Data Logger, which communicate via PicoSDK/libusbpt104 TiePie (HS5, HS6, WS5) oscilloscopes and generators, which communicate via LibTiePie SDK

Sensor and Unit Conversion Utility

The Conversion Utility is a submodule that allows on the one hand a unified implementation of hardware-sensors and on the other hand provides a unified way to convert units. Furthermore it is possible to map two ranges on to each other. This can be useful to convert between for example and 4 - 20 mA and 0 - 10 V, both of them are common as sensor out- or input. Moreover, a subclass allows the mapping of a bit-range to any other range. For example a 12 bit number (0-4095) to 0 - 10. All utilities can be used with single numbers (int, float) as well as array-like structures containing single numbers (np.array(), list, dict, tuple).

Currently the following sensors are implemented:

• LEM LT 4000S

• LMT 70A

The following unit conversion classes are implemented:

• Temperature (Kelvin, Celsius, Fahrenheit)

• Pressure (Pascal, Bar, Atmosphere, Psi, Torr, Millimeter Mercury)

Documentation

Note: if you’re planning to contribute to the hvl_ccb project read the Contributing section in the HVL CCB documentation.

Do either:

• read HVL CCB documentation at RTD,

or

• build and read HVL CCB documentation locally; install first Graphviz (make sure to have the dot command in the executable search path) and the Python build requirements for documentation:

  $ pip install docs/requirements.txt

  and then either on Windows in Git BASH run:

  $ ./make.sh docs

  or from any other shell with GNU Make installed run:

  $ make docs

  The target index HTML ("docs/_build/html/index.html") should open automatically in your Web browser.

Credits

This package was created with Cookiecutter and the audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage project template.

Installation

Stable release

To install HVL Common Code Base, run this command in your terminal:

$ pip install hvl_ccb

To install HVL Common Code Base with optional Python libraries that require manual installations of additional system libraries, you need to specify on installation extra requirements corresponding to these controllers. For instance, to install Python requirements for LabJack and TiePie devices, run:

$ pip install "hvl_ccb[tiepie,labjack]"

See below for the info about additional system libraries and the corresponding extra requirements.

To install all extra requirements run:

$ pip install "hvl_ccb[all]"

This is the preferred method to install HVL Common Code Base, as it will always install the most recent stable release.

If you don’t have pip installed, this Python installation guide can guide you through the process.

From sources

The sources for HVL Common Code Base can be downloaded from the GitLab repo.

You can either clone the repository:

$ git clone [e-mail]:ethz_hvl/hvl_ccb.git

Or download the tarball:

$ curl  -OL https://gitlab.com/ethz_hvl/hvl_ccb/-/archive/master/hvl_ccb.tar.gz

Once you have a copy of the source, you can install it with:

$ pip install .

Additional system libraries

If you have installed hvl_ccb with any of the extra features corresponding to device controllers, you must additionally install respective system library; these are:

Extra feature	Additional system library
labjack	LJM Library
picotech	PicoSDK (Windows) / libusbpt104 (Ubuntu/Debian)

For more details on installation of the libraries see docstrings of the corresponding hvl_ccb modules.

History

0.16.0 (2024-10-18)

• New device: Korad laboratory bench DC power supply KA3000p-series

• Fix pytest-profiling to 1.7.0 as new release has a bug

• Use datetime.now() with timezone

0.15.1 (2024-09-25)

• Update to be complient with 0.6.0 of ruff

• Remove wrong kwarg from ModbusTcpClient

• Small fix of logging in tcp-communication

• Change logging behaviour when checking the status of a labjack connection

• Report test results in CI as jUnit-data

0.15.0 (2024-05-14)

• Support of Python 3.11 and 3.12 (Older Python versions will not be supported with future release)

• Code formatting and linting is performed with Ruff (black, isort, pylint are not used anymore)

• Minor rework of VISA communication

• Minor rework of fug-package

• Bugfixes in tiepie

• New feature in lauda: Read temperature from exteral sensor

0.14.4 (2023-12-22)

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 23.12.0 of black

• Switch to src-layout

• In tiepie:

  • implementation property generator_is_running to check, whether the generator is running

  • properties probe_offset and probe_gain are not implemented and raise NotImplementedError

0.14.3 (2023-11-17)

• Fix Heinzinger conversion from mA to A and fix wrong docstrings

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 23.11.0 of black

• Fix bumpver tag messages

• Implementation of Technix to fulfil protocols.Source

0.14.2 (2023-09-07)

• Change dependency to libtiepie with linux binaries using forked version python-libtiepie-bi

• Adapt makefile after removing setup.py

• Fix commit messages and tag with bumpver

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 3.5.0 of pymodbus

0.14.1 (2023-08-21)

• Remove setup.cfg, setup.py, mypy.ini, pytest.ini, requirements_dev.txt and change to pyproject.toml

• Replace bump2version with bumpver

• Change dependency to libtiepie with linux binaries

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 6.1.0 of flake8

0.14.0 (2023-07-28)

• Rework of Heinzinger high voltage source control

  • validation of input values (e.g. voltage-property)

  • merge HeinzingerPNC and HeinzingerDI to Heinzinger

  • always return values as V for voltage and A for current

  • RangeEnum for number_of_recordings

  • fulfil protocols.Source

  • raise Error for getter and setter (e.g. set_current, get_current …), use property instead

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 23.7.0 of black

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 3.4.0 of pymodbus

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 1.1.6 of libtiepie

  • drop support for I2C

• Remove default import from hvl_ccb.comm and hvl_ccb.dev for specific communication protocols and devices

0.13.3 (2023-03-31)

• Introduce common protocol for voltage and current sources hvl_ccb.dev.protocols.sources

• Update code style to black 23.3.0 and isort 5.12.0

• An _EarthingStick of BaseCube is implemented as a _Switch

• Code improvements for device Heinzinger

  • use property-based instead of getter and setter

  • DeprecationWarning for getter and setter (e.g. set_current, get_current …)

0.13.2 (2023-03-17)

• Hot-fix to be compatible with the newly released version 3.0.0 of typeguard

0.13.1 (2023-03-03)

• Repository maintenance

  • add the option to manually set n_attempts_max and attempt_interval_sec in query of the SyncCommunicationProtocol

  • fix links in description for Heinzinger digital interface and universal high voltage power supplies

  • keep copyright year information only in docs/conf.py and README.rst

  • remove copyright year information from the files

  • fix readthedocs build failed issue

  • update code style to black 23.1.0

0.13.0 (2023-01-27)

• Drop support for Python 3.7 and 3.8:

  • remove version dependent implementations

  • changed typing acc. to PEP 585

• Un-freeze version number of dependencies and upgrade to most recent versions

0.12.3 (2022-12-27)

• Code improvements for device cube:

  • split alarms from constants

  • split errors from constants

  • split earthing_stick from constants

  • split support from constants

• Update code style to black 22.12.0

• Smaller change of device tiepie:

  • change hard coded trigger time out value for no time out/infinite (-1) to ltp.const.TO_INFINITY

0.12.2 (2022-11-29)

• Move the device modules into packages

• Bugfix in validate_number to check the order of the limits

• Repository maintenance:

  • imports are sorted with isort

  • some mypy fixing and additional typing

0.12.1 (2022-10-31)

• Fix numpy version requirement problem

  • for Python 3.7: 1.21.6

  • for Python 3.8 and onwards: 1.23.4

0.12.0 (2022-10-17)

• Last release for Python 3.7 and 3.8

• Repository maintenance

  • update Labjack LJM software installer link in the pipeline

  • fix dependencies to the fixed version

  • fix asyncua to 0.9.95 and pymodbus to 2.5.3 (newer versions break the code)

  • fix PICube checker for slope as it is always positive

0.11.1 (2022-09-15)

• Repository maintenance

  • fix issue with mypy and Python 3.10.7

  • update code style to black 22.8.0

  • project configurations merged into setup.cfg

  • fix coverage indicator

0.11.0 (2022-06-22)

• New device: Fluke 884X Bench 6.5 Digit Precision Multimeter

• RangeEnum is a new enum for e.g. measurement ranges which also finds a suitable range object

• smaller changes of device tiepie:

  • introduce status method is_measurement_running() to check if the device is armed

  • introduce stop_measurement() to disarm the trigger of the device

  • fix bug with docs due to change of libtiepie

• NameEnum and inherited enums can only have unique entries

0.10.3 (2022-03-21)

• fix bug in the Labjack pulse feature that occurred when the start time was set to 0s

• new conversion utility to map two ranges on each other

• update CONTRIBUTING.RST

• update makefile and make.sh

• improve the mockup telnet test server

0.10.2 (2022-02-28)

• introduction of black as code formatter

• increase the required version of the package aenum

• remove device supercube2015 - as it is no longer used

• remove unused package openpyxl requirement

• fix bug in highland logging

• improve handling for communication error with picotech

0.10.1 (2022-01-24)

• several improvements and fixes for device cube:

  • privatize Alarms and AlarmsOverview

  • fix list of cube alarms

  • improve docs

  • fix bugs with earthing sticks

  • fix bug in config dataclass of cube

• introduction of BoolEnum

• introduction of RangeEnum

• bumpversion -> bump2version

0.10.0 (2022-01-17)

• Reimplementation of the Cube (before known as Supercube)

• new names:

  • Supercube Typ B -> BaseCube

  • Supercube Typ A -> PICube (power inverter Cube)

• new import:

  • from hvl_ccb.dev.supercube import SupercubeB -> from hvl_ccb.dev.cube import BaseCube

• new programming style:

  • getter / setter methods -> properties

  • e.g. get: cube.get_support_output(port=1, contact=1) -> cube.support_1.output_1

  • e.g. set: cube.get_support_output(port=1, contact=1, state=True) -> cube.support_1.output_1 = True

• unify Exceptions of Cube

• implement Fast Switch-Off of Cube

• remove method support_output_impulse

• all active alarms can now be queried cube.active_alarms()

• alarms will now result in different logging levels depending on the seriousness of the alarm.

• introduction of limits for slope and safety limit for RedReady

• during the startup the CCB will update the time of the cube.

• verification of inputs

• polarity of DC voltage

• Switch from python-opcua to opcua-asyncio (former package is no longer maintained)

0.9.0 (2022-01-07)

• New device: Highland T560 digital delay and pulse generator over Telnet.

• Rework of the Technix Capacitor Charger.

  • Moved into a separate sub-package

  • NEW import over import hvl_ccb.dev.technix as XXX

  • Slightly adapted behaviour

• Add validate_tcp_port to validate port number.

• Add validate_and_resolve_host to validate and resolve host names and IPs.

  • Remove requirement IPy

• Add a unified CCB Exception schema for all devices and communication protocols.

• Add data conversion functions to README.

• Update CI and devel images from Debian 10 buster to Debian 11 bullseye.

• Fix typing due to numpy update.

• Fix incorrect overloading of clean_values() in classes of type XCommunicationConfig.

0.8.5 (2021-11-05)

• Added arbitrary waveform for TiePie signal generation, configurable via dev.tiepie.generator.TiePieGeneratorConfig.waveform property.

• In utils.conversion_sensor: improvements for class constants; removed SciPy dependency.

• Added Python 3.10 support.

0.8.4 (2021-10-22)

• utils.validation.validate_number extension to handle NumPy arrays and array-like objects.

• utils.conversion_unit utility classes handle correctly NamedTuple instances.

• utils.conversion_sensor and utils.conversion_unit code simplification (no transfer_function_order attribute) and cleanups.

• Fixed incorrect error logging in configuration.configdataclass.

• comm.telnet.TelnetCommunication tests fixes for local run errors.

0.8.3 (2021-09-27)

• New data conversion functions in utils.conversion_sensor and utils.conversion_unit modules. Note: to use these functions you must install hvl_ccb with extra requirement, either hvl_ccb[conversion] or hvl_ccb[all].

• Improved documentation with respect to installation of external libraries.

0.8.2 (2021-08-27)

• New functionality in dev.labjack.LabJack:

  • configure clock and send timed pulse sequences

  • set DAC/analog output voltage

• Bugfix: ignore random bits sent by to dev.newport.NewportSMC100PP controller during start-up/powering-up.

0.8.1 (2021-08-13)

• Add Python version check (min version error; max version warning).

• Daily checks for upstream dependencies compatibility and devel environment improvements.

0.8.0 (2021-07-02)

• TCP communication protocol.

• Lauda PRO RP 245 E circulation thermostat device over TCP.

• Pico Technology PT-104 Platinum Resistance Data Logger device as a wrapper of the Python bindings for the PicoSDK.

• In com.visa.VisaCommunication: periodic status polling when VISA/TCP keep alive connection is not supported by a host.

0.7.1 (2021-06-04)

• New utils.validation submodule with validate_bool and validate_number utilities extracted from internal use within a dev.tiepie subpackage.

• In comm.serial.SerialCommunication:

  • strict encoding errors handling strategy for subclasses,

  • user warning for a low communication timeout value.

0.7.0 (2021-05-25)

• The dev.tiepie module was splitted into a subpackage with, in particular, submodules for each of the device types – oscilloscope, generator, and i2c – and with backward-incompatible direct imports from the submodules.

• In dev.technix:

  • fixed communication crash on nested status byte query;

  • added enums for GET and SET register commands.

• Further minor logging improvements: added missing module level logger and removed some error logs in except blocks used for a flow control.

• In examples/ folder renamed consistently all the examples.

• In API documentation: fix incorrect links mapping on inheritance diagrams.

0.6.1 (2021-05-08)

• In dev.tiepie:

  • dynamically set oscilloscope’s channel limits in OscilloscopeChannelParameterLimits: input_range and trigger_level_abs, incl. update of latter on each change of input_range value of a TiePieOscilloscopeChannelConfig instances;

  • quick fix for opening of combined instruments by disabling OscilloscopeParameterLimits.trigger_delay (an advanced feature);

  • enable automatic devices detection to be able to find network devices with TiePieOscilloscope.list_devices().

• Fix examples/example_labjack.py.

• Improved logging: consistently use module level loggers, and always log exception tracebacks.

• Improve API documentation: separate pages per modules, each with an inheritance diagram as an overview.

0.6.0 (2021-04-23)

• Technix capacitor charger using either serial connection or Telnet protocol.

• Extensions, improvements and fixes in existing devices:

  • In dev.tiepie.TiePieOscilloscope:

    • redesigned measurement start and data collection API, incl. time out argument, with no/infinite time out option;

    • trigger allows now a no/infinite time out;

    • record length and trigger level were fixed to accept, respectively, floating point and integer numbers;

    • fixed resolution validation bug;

  • dev.heinzinger.HeinzingerDI and dev.rs_rto1024.RTO1024 instances are now resilient to multiple stop() calls.

  • In dev.crylas.CryLasLaser: default configuration timeout and polling period were adjusted;

  • Fixed PSI9080 example script.

• Package and source code improvements:

  • Update to backward-incompatible pyvisa-py>=0.5.2. Developers, do update your local development environments!

  • External libraries, like LibTiePie SDK or LJM Library, are now not installed by default; they are now extra installation options.

  • Added Python 3.9 support.

  • Improved number formatting in logs.

  • Typing improvements and fixes for mypy>=0.800.

0.5.0 (2020-11-11)

• TiePie USB oscilloscope, generator and I2C host devices, as a wrapper of the Python bindings for the LibTiePie SDK.

• a FuG Elektronik Power Supply (e.g. Capacitor Charger HCK) using the built-in ADDAT controller with the Probus V protocol over a serial connection

• All devices poling status or measurements use now a dev.utils.Poller utility class.

• Extensions and improvements in existing devices:

  • In dev.rs_rto1024.RTO1024: added Channel state, scale, range, position and offset accessors, and measurements activation and read methods.

  • In dev.sst_luminox.Luminox: added querying for all measurements in polling mode, and made output mode activation more robust.

  • In dev.newport.NewportSMC100PP: an error-prone wait_until_move_finished method of replaced by a fixed waiting time, device operations are now robust to a power supply cut, and device restart is not required to apply a start configuration.

• Other minor improvements:

  • Single failure-safe starting and stopping of devices sequenced via dev.base.DeviceSequenceMixin.

  • Moved read_text_nonempty up to comm.serial.SerialCommunication.

  • Added development Dockerfile.

  • Updated package and development dependencies: pymodbus, pytest-mock.

0.4.0 (2020-07-16)

• Significantly improved new Supercube device controller:

  • more robust error-handling,

  • status polling with generic Poller helper,

  • messages and status boards.

  • tested with a physical device,

• Improved OPC UA client wrapper, with better error handling, incl. re-tries on concurrent.futures.TimeoutError.

• SST Luminox Oxygen sensor device controller.

• Backward-incompatible changes:

  • CommunicationProtocol.access_lock has changed type from threading.Lock to threading.RLock.

  • ILS2T.relative_step and ILS2T.absolute_position are now called, respectively, ILS2T.write_relative_step and ILS2T.write_absolute_position.

• Minor bugfixes and improvements:

  • fix use of max resolution in Labjack.set_ain_resolution(),

  • resolve ILS2T devices relative and absolute position setters race condition,

  • added acoustic horn function in the 2015 Supercube.

• Toolchain changes:

  • add Python 3.8 support,

  • drop pytest-runner support,

  • ensure compatibility with labjack_ljm 2019 version library.

0.3.5 (2020-02-18)

• Fix issue with reading integers from LabJack LJM Library (device’s product ID, serial number etc.)

• Fix development requirements specification (tox version).

0.3.4 (2019-12-20)

• New devices using serial connection:

  • Heinzinger Digital Interface I/II and a Heinzinger PNC power supply

  • Q-switched Pulsed Laser and a laser attenuator from CryLas

  • Newport SMC100PP single axis motion controller for 2-phase stepper motors

  • Pfeiffer TPG controller (TPG 25x, TPG 26x and TPG 36x) for Compact pressure Gauges

• PEP 561 compatibility and related corrections for static type checking (now in CI)

• Refactorings:

  • Protected non-thread safe read and write in communication protocols

  • Device sequence mixin: start/stop, add/rm and lookup

  • .format() to f-strings

  • more enumerations and a quite some improvements of existing code

• Improved error docstrings (:raises: annotations) and extended tests for errors.

0.3.3 (2019-05-08)

• Use PyPI labjack-ljm (no external dependencies)

0.3.2 (2019-05-08)

• INSTALLATION.rst with LJMPython prerequisite info

0.3.1 (2019-05-02)

• readthedocs.org support

0.3 (2019-05-02)

• Prevent an automatic close of VISA connection when not used.

• Rhode & Schwarz RTO 1024 oscilloscope using VISA interface over TCP::INSTR.

• Extended tests incl. messages sent to devices.

• Added Supercube device using an OPC UA client

• Added Supercube 2015 device using an OPC UA client (for interfacing with old system version)

0.2.1 (2019-04-01)

• Fix issue with LJMPython not being installed automatically with setuptools.

0.2.0 (2019-03-31)

• LabJack LJM Library communication wrapper and LabJack device.

• Modbus TCP communication protocol.

• Schneider Electric ILS2T stepper motor drive device.

• Elektro-Automatik PSI9000 current source device and VISA communication wrapper.

• Separate configuration classes for communication protocols and devices.

• Simple experiment manager class.

0.1.0 (2019-02-06)

• Communication protocol base and serial communication implementation.

• Device base and MBW973 implementation.