Princeton Instruments PI-MAX4 - Page 167

Chapter 9 LightField and Dual Image Feature 167
Perform the following procedure to configure a single trigger DIF acquisition:
1. The PI-MAX4 camera must be aligned and focused on the area of interest for this
experiment. This is best accomplished while the PI-MAX4 is operating in
Full Frame
readout mode (i.e., before switching to
DIF mode on the Readout expander.)
Verify that the
Phosphor Decay Delay is appropriate to the phosphor used by the camera.
The
Phosphor Decay Delay time entered in LightField can be viewed or changed by
clicking on the
Advanced button on the Common Acquisition Settings expander.
NOTE:
The Phosphor Decay Delay setting tells LightField how long
to wait following the gate pulse before shifting the image. If
there is some residual image from the first frame in the second
frame, simply increase the
Phosphor Decay Delay setting to
allow more time for the phosphor emission to decay before
shifting the image. If residual image is not an issue, then the
Phosphor Decay Delay setting can be decreased to reduce the
time between the two DIF images.
2. After the alignment and focus, the PI-MAX4 system needs to be placed into DIF mode.
• On the Readout expander, select DIF as the Mode.
• On the Common Acquisitions Settings expander, configure the Frames to Save
to a multiple of 2 (i.e., 2, 4, 6, etc.)
3. On the Trigger expander, verify that Trigger Response is set to Readout Per Trigger.
4. On the Trigger expander, select Internal or External triggering.
External: Verify the trigger characteristics on the Trigger expander match the active
trigger edge for the trigger pulse being used.
Internal: Perform the following procedure to configure the Internal Trigger parameters
on the
SuperSYNCHRO Timing expander:
a. Use the hyperlinks at the top of the SuperSYNCHRO Timing expander to make any
changes to:
• Intensifier Settings;
• Trigger Settings;
• Phosphor Decay Delay;
• Frames to Save (must be a multiple of 2);
• Readout Mode (must be set to DIF.)
b. Configure the Internal Trigger Frequency.
c. Configure the Gate Width and Gate Delay times for each of the two images.
• The Initial Gate Delay time must be  86 µs.
• The Second Gate Delay time must be greater than:
Phosphor Decay + Minimum Camera Delay
Typical camera values are:
— Phosphor Decay = 1 µs
— Minimum Delay = 30 ns
Therefore, a typical minimum value is 1.03 µs.