3.5. SuperlumBL#

Summary:

:pluginsummary:`SuperlumBL`

Type:

:plugintype:`SuperlumBL`

License:

:pluginlicense:`SuperlumBL`

Platforms:

Windows, (Linux possible but yet not implemented)

Devices:

Lightsource from company Superlum

Author:

:pluginauthor:`SuperlumBL`

3.5.1. Overview#

Applications:

  • Optical coherence tomography

  • Characterization of optical components

  • Optical fiber metrology

  • Optical measurement

Features(S840-B-I-20):

  • 50nm Bandwidth

  • 840nm Center wavelength

  • 15mW ex fiber (single-mode)

  • Built-in optical isolator

  • Powered directly from a wall outlet.

  • RS-232 remote control capability.

Description (from www.superlumdiodes.com):

S-series Broadlighters are high-power, high-stability, low-coherence, broadband AC powered SLD light sources. They are based on Superlum’s high-power (HP) SLD modules. The most high-power Broadlighters are equipped with appropriate polarization-insensitive fiber-optic isolators that protect the SLD modules from being damaged by optical feedback. All the light sources have two operating modes: the High Power mode and the Low Power mode. During normal operation, the High Power mode of the Broadlighter is always employed, whereas the Low Power mode is intended for safe alignment of optical components and circuits in the customer’s optical system during the set-up process. The devices are developed for optical test and measurement applications.

3.5.2. Initialization#

The following parameters are mandatory or optional for initializing an instance of this plugin:

To communicate with the device, you need to perform the following settings for the serial port communication using the Plugin SerialIO.

The parameter are as follow:

Baud rate (bits per second)

57600

Data bits

8

Parity

none

Stop bits

1

Flow control

none

Data type

ASCII string

Then create a new instance of the plugin SuperlumBL using the instance of the SerialIO plugin.

serial = dataIO("SerialIO", COM-Port, Baudrate, endline="\r\n")
bs = dataIO("SuperlumBL", serial, deviceName)

After the initialization of the plugin SuperlumBL the remote communication is set. The plugin works only, if the remote access is available. If the instance of SuperlumBL is deleted, the remote access is switched to the local mode.

3.5.3. Parameters#

These parameters are available and can be used to configure the SuperlumBL instance. All of them are directly initialized by the parameters of the constructor. During the runtime of an instance, the value of these parameters is obtained by the method getParam, writeable parameters can be changed using setParam.

comPort: {int}, read-only

The current com-port ID of this specific device. -1 means undefined.

local: {int}

( 0 ) local or ( 1 ) remote mode.

name: {str}, read-only

Name of plugin.

optical_output: {int}

( 0 ) optical output is disabled, ( 1 ) optical output is enabled.

power_mode: {int}

( 0 ) LOW Power mode, ( 1 ) HIGH Power mode.

serial_number: {str}, read-only

Serial number of device.

3.5.4. Usage#

First open the serial port and assign it to the variable serial. For example COM Port 1, Baud rate 57600, endline = “\r\n”.

serial = dataIO("SerialIO", 1, 57600, endline="\r\n")

Then create a new instance of the acuator plugin SuperlumBL. Mandatory parameters are the serialIO instance and deviceName. Assign it to the variable bl.

bl = actuator("SuperlumBL", serial, deviceName)

All the parameters can be changed by using the function setParam. This example shows how to set output power mode. 0 means “low”, 1 means “high”.

bs.setParam("power_mode", 1)

The optical output of the Broadlighter is enabled by setting the parameter optical_output to 1 or disabled by setting it to 0.

bs.setParam("optical_output", 1)

The parameters can be queried by using the function getParam.

>>bs.getParam("optical_output")
1
>>