Basic instructions for new Scintillation system by Lev Haim
1.1. Startup
To start MAESTRO, click on Start on the Windows Taskbar, then on Programs,
MAESTRO 32, and MAESTRO for Windows.
1.2. Main MAESTRO Screen Features.
1. Title bar, showing the program name and the source of the currently active spectrum window.
2. Menu Bar, showing the available menu commands.
3. Toolbar, beneath the Menu Bar, containing icons for recalling spectra, saving, starting and stopping
data acquisition, and adjusting the vertical and horizontal scale of the active spectrum window.
4. Detector List, on the Toolbar, displaying the currently selected Detector (or the buffer). When you
select the buffer or a Detector from the list, a new spectrum window opens, to a limit of eight. If you
selected a Detector, the spectrum in its memory (if any) is displayed.
5. Spectrum Area, which displays multiple spectrum windows — up to 8 Detector windows and 8 buffer
windows simultaneously. Alternatively, you can turn off the Multiple Windows feature and run in the
original one-window-at-a-time mode.
Spectrum windows can be moved, sized, minimized, maximized, and closed with the mouse, as well as
tiled horizontally or vertically from the Window menu. When more than one window is open, only one is
active available for data manipulation and time. The title bar on the active window will normally be a
brighter color than those on the inactive windows.
6. The Expanded Spectrum View shows all or part of the full histogram; this allows you to zoom in on a
particular part of the spectrum and see it in more detail. You can change the expanded view vertical and
horizontal scaling, and perform a number of analytical operations such as peak information, marking
ROIs, or calibrating the spectrum. This window contains a vertical line called a marker that highlights a
particular position in the spectrum. Information about that position is displayed on the Marker
Information Line (see item 10 below).
7. The Full Spectrum View shows the full histogram from the file or the Detector memory. The vertical
scale is always logarithmic, and the window can be moved and sized. The Full Spectrum View contains a
rectangular window that highlights the portion of spectrum now displayed in the Expanded Spectrum
View. To quickly move to different part of the spectrum, just click on that area in the Full Spectrum View
and the expanded display updates immediately at the new position.
8. ROI Status Area, on the right side of the menu bar, indicates whether the ROI marking mode is
currently Mark or UnMark. This operates in conjunction with the ROI menu commands and arrow
keys.
9. Status Sidebar, on the right side of the screen, provides information on the current Detector presets
and counting times, the time and date, and a set of buttons for moving easily between peaks, ROIs.
10. Marker Information Line, beneath the spectrum, showing the marker channel, marker energy, and
channel contents.
11. Supplementary Information Line, below the Marker Information Line, used to show library
contents, the results of certain calculations, warning messages, or instructions.
1.3. The Toolbar
The row of buttons below the Menu Bar provides convenient shortcuts to some of the most common
MAESTRO menu functions.
The Recall button retrieves an existing spectrum file. This is the equivalent of selecting
File/Recall from the menu.
Save copies the currently displayed spectrum to disk. It duplicates the menu functions File/Save
or File/Save As...
Start Acquisition starts data collection in the current Detector. This duplicates Acquire/Start and
<Alt + 1>.
Stop Acquisition stops data collection. This duplicates Acquire/Stop and <Alt + 2>.
Clear Spectrum clears the detector or file spectrum from the window. This duplicates
Acquire/Clear and <Alt + 3>.
Mark ROI automatically marks an ROI in the spectrum at the marker position. This duplicates
ROI/Mark Peak and <Insert>.
Clear ROI removes the ROI mark from the channels of the peak currently selected with the
marker. This duplicates ROI/Clear and <Delete>.
The next section of the Toolbar (Fig. 7) contains the buttons that control the spectrum’s vertical scale.
These commands are also on the Display menu. In addition, vertical scale can be adjusted by zooming in
with the mouse.
Vertical Log/Lin Scale switches between logarithmic and linear scaling. When switching from
logarithmic to linear, it uses the previous linear scale setting. Its keyboard duplicate is
Keypad</>.
Vertical Auto Scale turns on the autoscale mode, a linear scale that automatically adjusts until
the largest peak shown is at its maximum height without overflowing the display. Its keyboard
duplicate is Keypad<*>.
The field to the left of these two buttons displays LOG if the scale is logarithmic, or indicates the current
vertical full-scale linear value.
The horizontal scaling section follows next
. It includes a field that shows the
current window width in channels, and the Zoom In, Zoom Out, Center, and Baseline Zoom buttons.
These commands are also on the Display menu.
Zoom In decreases the horizontal full scale of the Expanded Spectrum View, so the peaks appear
“magnified.” This duplicates Display/Zoom In and Keypad<+>.
Zoom Out increases the horizontal full scale of the Expanded Spectrum View, so the peaks
appear reduced in size. This duplicates Display/Zoom Out and Keypad<!>.
Center moves the marker to the center of the screen by shifting the spectrum without moving the
marker from its current channel. This duplicates Display/Center and Keypad<5>.
Baseline Zoom keeps the baseline of the spectrum set to zero counts.
2. Saving data
From the menu bar >File>Save As> in Save as type: ASCII SPE
ASCII type file can be exported to another program. In order to see the counts per channel data just open
it with Notepad. Double clicking on a spectrum filename within Windows Explorer will start WinPlots
and display that spectrum.
2.1. WinPlot
This program makes a hardcopy output of any type of ORTEC spectrum file in a fixed format with many
user-set optional variations (such as grid lines) available. To start WinPlots, click on Start on the
Windows Taskbar, then Programs, MAESTRO 32, and WinPlots.
The Options>Plot> menu items control the plot settings and WinPlots operation. Title is printed at the top
of every plot. The Axis Labels and the text Description from the file can be printed. The description
includes the sample, detector, and acquisition
description. If the spectrum to be plotted is
calibrated, the plot can be either in Energy or
Channel numbers. Tic Marks and Grid
Lines can be included. The plot can either be
the complete spectrum or any part of the
spectrum. Unmarking Full Scale will enable
the Range button. Selecting Range will open
the dialog so you can set the limits for the
plot. One of the two choices, Log and Linear,
can be selected. The linear scale is set by
clicking on Range. When Auto Scale is
selected, the plot vertical axis is adjusted so
that the largest count in the spectrum is near
the top of the plot region. When Auto Scale is
clicked off, the Range button is enabled.
Clicking on Range will display the dialog. The value entered will be the value for the top of the plotted
region. Any counts above this value will be plotted at this value.
3. Getting started with measurements
Before we start our measurements we must set the amount of channels we going to use and set the time
for each measurement.
3.1. Choosing the number of channels:
From the menu bar Acquire>MCB properties>ADC>In the Conversion Gain select the amount of
channels.
3.2. Setting the measurements time:
There are two time parameters, which can be controlled.
1. Real time means elapsed time or clock time.
2. Live time refers to the amount of time that the Detector is available to accept pulse (i.e., is not
busy), and is equal to the real time minus the dead time (the time the Detector is not available).
From the menu bar >Acquire>MCB properties>Presets
The presets can only be set when the Detector is not acquiring data. To disable a preset, enter a value of
zero. If you disable all of the presets, data acquisition will continue until manually stopped.
4. Automated Job
Most of the functions under the various MAESTRO menus can be automated by writing a JOB, which
consists of one or more commands written in ASCII text. JOBs allow you to easily perform repetitive
tasks and/or define initial conditions at Detector startup. These files are given a filename extension of
.JOB.
4.1. Creating and Programming a Job file
Create a new text document then change the suffix from .txt to .job, this is your empty job file.
Open your empty job file and write the following commands:
SET_DETECTOR 1
SET_PRESET_CLEAR
SET_PRESET_LIVE 43
LOOP 3
SET_DETECTOR 1
CLEAR
START
WAIT
FILL_BUFFER
SET_DETECTOR 0
SAVE " TEST???.asc"
END_LOOP
The above commands run three 43-second acquisitions and store the data on a disk in files TEST001.Spe,
TEST002.Spe and TEST003.Spe.
4.2. JOB Command Details
SET_DETECTOR <number>: This selects the active Detector or the buffer. The Detector number can
be 1 to 999 according to the Detector configuration, or 0 for the buffer. The Detector number is the
number shown on the Toolbar and the Detector pick list.
SET_PRESET_CLEAR: This command clears the presets for the active Detector. The clearing should
be done to ensure that unwanted presets are not used by the Detector when the Detector is started.
Presets can only be changed when an MCB is not counting.
SET_PRESET_LIVE <seconds>: This command sets the Live Time preset for the active Detector. The
preset is set to the entered value. With this condition, the Detector stops counting when the live time
reaches this limit, unless some other preset condition occurs first.
SET_PRESET_REAL <seconds>: This command sets the Real Time preset for the active Detector. The
preset is set to the entered value. With this preset condition, the Detector stops counting when the real
time reaches this limit, unless some other preset condition occurs first.
LOOP <repetitions> ... END_LOOP: This command pair executes multiple times all the commands
between LOOP and END_LOOP. The number of execution times is specified by <repetitions>. Each
command must be given on a separate line. A value of 0 executes once. A LOOP with no END_LOOP
statement executes once.
CLEAR: This command clears (erases) the spectral data, real time, and live time for the selected
Detector. The presets are not changed. This command has the same function as the Clear function under
the Acquire menu. The command would logically be preceded by the SET_DETECTOR command.
START: This command initiates data collection in the selected Detector.
WAIT [<seconds>]: This command suspends execution of the JOB until either the active Detector stops
counting (in the case where the <seconds> argument is not included), or for a fixed number of seconds
(which can be fractional).
FILL_BUFFER: This command transfers the active Detector data to the buffer. This command has the
same function as Copy to Buffer under Acquire.
SAVE “[d:][\path\]file[.chn]”: This command, which has the same function as Save As... Under the File
menu, saves the currently active buffer to a disk file. The disk filename (in quotation marks) can be any
valid filename; the drive [d:], path [\path\] and extension [.CHN] are optional (for ASCII write .asc). If an
extension is not supplied, the default extension is automatically .CHN. Also, the current drive and
directory are used by default when the optional path specification is not supplied. The real time, live time,
start of acquisition, and, if available, calibration data, Detector description, and sample description, are
stored with the spectrum.
NOTE: The loop count value can be included in the filename by typing three question marks (???) in the
text where the loop count is to be inserted. The loop count replaces “???” wherever it appears.
4.3. Starting the Job file
To start a JOB or edit a .JOB file, in MAESTRO select >Services>Job Control...
To run a JOB, select a .JOB filename and click on Open. The contents of the selected file can be
displayed at the bottom of the dialog by using the mouse to mark the Show Contents checkbox.
Note that displaying the file contents will slow down the accessing of files, especially when browsing
through a long list.
To edit a .JOB file from the Run JOB File dialog (whether or not Show Contents is activated), select a
file from the list and click on the Edit File button. This will open Windows Notepad with the .JOB file
loaded. NOTE When editing is complete, the file must be saved in Notepad (select Save or Save As
under the File menu) for the changes to be effective. When Notepad is closed (File/Exit), the newly
edited file will be shown in the Run JOB File dialog’s Show Contents list box.
If a JOB is terminated prematurely because of some error condition, a message box briefly explaining the
cause of the error will be displayed.
5. Abbreviations
MDA - Minimum Detectable Activity.
ROI - Region Of Interest.
MCA- MultiChannel Analyzer. An MCA, in its most basic form, is an instrument that sorts and counts
events in real time. This sorting is based on some characteristic of these events, and the events are
grouped together into bins for counting purposes called channels. The most common type of multichannel analysis, and the one which is of greatest interest to nuclear spectroscopists, is pulse-height
analysis (PHA).
PHA events are signal pulses originating from a detector. The characteristic of interest is the pulse height
or voltage, which is proportional to the particle or photon energy. An analog to digital converter (ADC)
is used to convert each pulse into a channel number, so that each channel corresponds to a narrow range
of pulse heights or voltages. As pulses arrive over time, the MCA collects in memory a distribution of the
number of pulses with respect to pulse height. This distribution, arranged in order of ascending energies,
is commonly referred to as a spectrum. To be useful, the acquired spectrum must be available for storage
and/or analysis, and is displayed on a graph whose horizontal axis represents the height of the pulse and
whose vertical axis represents the number of pulses at that height, also referred to as a histogram.
MAESTRO-32, combined with multichannel buffer (MCB) hardware. The MCB performs the actual
pulse-height analysis. The MAESTRO software is the vital link that marries these components to provide
meaningful access to the MCB via the user interface provided by the computer hardware.
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