To assist in communication with test devices in the target room, many cables have been run between patch panels throughout the NSRL facility to corresponding patch panels at various positions in the target room. These connections ease the setup of experiments and their use is heavily encouraged.
A “user cable tray” has been installed in the labyrinth hallway leading to the target room for connections that cannot use the provided patch panels, or for which the use of experimenters’ own cables is otherwise preferred.
User Patch Panels
A set of compact and conveniently located ethernet and analog signal patch panels are provided, which meet the needs of most physics and electronics testing experimenters. They are available at 3 locations in the NSRL building, each of which connects to 2 corresponding panels at both the upstream and downstream positions of the beamline.
Each location has a total of 12 connection points: a color-coded set of 3 RJ45 (8P8C) jacks for Cat. 5e ethernet and 3 BNC jacks for analog signals, for both the upstream and downstream beamline positions.
The figure below depicts a truncated floor plan map of the NSRL facility with the user patch panels positions labeled.
The ethernet connections use Cat. 5e 24 AWG 350 MHz cables. They are entirely passive, i.e. each connection is just a long cable and does not use any switch or active repeater.
The signal connections use 50 Ω impedance RG-58 A/U type, 21 AWG coaxial cable.
User Cable Tray
Some experimenters may want to run their own cables to the target room. For this purpose a cable tray was installed in the labyrinth hallway exclusively for use by experimenters. This cable tray—depicted as the purple path on the previous diagram—runs along the wall of the labyrinth 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) above the floor.
Cables must drop from the tray to the floor near the entrance doors so they can be fed beneath the turnstile and doors. They must also drop from the tray to the floor on in the target room and then travel to the experimental equipment. Both of these add a fair amount to the total length of cable required.
In all, from the labyrinth entrance doors to the upstream experiment area, a total of 114 feet (34.8 meters) of cable is required. Experimenters are strongly recommended to use cables at least 125 feet (38.1 meters) in length. The most common problem with experimental setups encountered at NSRL is cables with insufficient length.
Physics Patch Panels
For more complex experiments—like those that require many cables, detector HV bias, or low loss analog signals outside of the target room—experimenters may make use of NSRL’s patch panels for physics instrumentation. There are connection points for both analog signals and high voltage bias for detectors.
The figure below depicts a schematic map of these patch panels. You may need to download the image and zoom in should you need to read the number of each patch position.
The figure has been divided into 3 sections each representing different locations within the NSRL facility. The target room is shown on the top, the physics room racks are shown on the left, and the control room instrumentation racks are shown on the right. The cables that share the same start and end positions have been grouped together and color-coded. Purple, pink, and blue, and gray colors correspond to signal patch panels. Green, orange, and yellow colors correspond to high voltage patch panels. The connectors that have been rendered in light gray represent positions which are not available for use by experimenters.
Signal Patch Panels
There are a total of 128 signal connection points in patch panels across 3 positions along the target room rail system. 16 of these lead to corresponding patch panels in the control room instrumentation racks, and the remaining 112 have been routed to patch panels in the physics room. Each connection consists of a RG-58 A/U type, 21 AWG, 50 Ω impedance coaxial cable which attaches to BNC jack connectors on each end.
High Voltage Patch Panels
There are a total of 72 high voltage connection points across 3 positions along the target room rail system, 24 of which lead to the control room, while the remaining 48 lead to the physics room.
The connections use RG-59/U type, 22 AWG, 75 Ω impedance coaxial cables which are jacketed in red-colored PVC in order to distinguish them as high voltage cables. SHV jack connectors are used on the panels at either end. Other high voltage connectors are almost never used, however there are a handful of and MHV to SHV adapters available for use at NSRL should they be needed.
Triax Patch Panel
Should extremely low loss cables be required, NSRL has 3 triaxial (“triax”) cables connecting the physics room to the target room. The cables are Belden 9888 50 Ω impedance 11 AWG (7×19) RG-8/U type and have PL80 connectors. Typically a set of adapters are used to convert from PL80/BJ80 to BNC at each end. The triax cables are have enough extra length in the target room that they should be able to reach any position along the rails.
Cables and Adapters
NSRL makes extensive use of small coaxial cables with high density connectors whenever the required cable length is less than approximately 10 feet (3 meters). The vast majority have LEMO 00 connectors and are made of FEP jacketed, M17/113D RG-316 coaxial cable. Experimenters are free to make use of these cables as well as any of several kinds of LEMO 00 to BNC adapters that NSRL has on hand.
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