CA Watcher

What is CA Watcher?

CA Watcher is a program which supervises EPICS variables. main window of CA Watcher

The user can receive warnings if desired.
These warnings can be sounds on the local computer, SMS or emails.
The text messaging option is only available at the HZB campus in Adlershof.

All detected alarm states including values are visible in a table
and can be stored for further useage.

CA Watcher should work on every platform, only Java (1.6 and above) is required.
It is available in English and German.

How does it look like?

What does the table show?

The table of the main window contains:

name
- For the PV name.
- If the PV-name is not valid, it is coloured red.
note
- For individual comments.
- Does not affect the program sequence.
current value
- If the PV is valid the current value is shown.
- If the PV has enumeration values, the text values will be shown.
timestamp
- Date and time of the last change.
status
- Displays the .STAT field of the PV.
- Provides an additional information about severity.
severity
- Displays the .SEVR field of the PV.
- Displays a global error classification.
operator
- An alarm is triggered if the comparison with the "comparison value" field is true.
- There is an intelligent selection of valid operators depending on the PV type.
comparison value
- Value to compare with.
- If the PV has enumeration values, you can choose them from a combobox.
watch
- Checkbox to activate watching and sending alarms for selected PV.
- A popup will open to select alarm properties.

Where can I see the alarms?

The alarm history is stored in a separate alarm window.

The first tab stores the alarms for all PVs.
The other tabs with names store only the alarms for one PV.
Each table can be saved to a CSV-File.

FAQ

How I can choose more than one host name in the environment variable 'EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST' ?

Link them with space, semicolon or comma.
Example: EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST=HOST1 HOST2

If there are questions please read the "Help" menu first.

Downloads of CA Watcher

CA_Watcher.jar (v1.6) Oct 2014

Change Log

v1.6 - support of watching status and severity v1.2.1 - added restriction of four digits for the SMS-field v1.2.0 - added a search function to help menu - bugfix: crashed if EPICS environment variables were missing v1.1.0 - a new column for individual comments is added - more than one host name can be choosen in EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST by linking them with space, semicolon or comma v1.0.0 - First Release

Author

Tim Freiheit

If you have any questions or comments please sent it to
carsten.winkler@helmholtz-berlin.de

Copyright and license of CA Watcher

Copyright (C) 2011 Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH , Berlin, Germany (HZB).
This software is distributed under the terms of the EPICS Open License .