Menlo OFC

From: Menlo Systems

Class: herosdevices.hardware.menlo.ofc.OFC

Driver Quality Index: alpha

Requires the following packages

pywebchannel

Additional Information Check before use

Menlo OFC Setup

This driver is split into one core device and several modules attached to it.

OFC opens the single QWebChannel websocket connection to the comb and exposes its raw control/status tree via get_node/set_node/explore.

Each functional-layer module (DDS, LaserLock, DualLaserLock, FXE, RepetitionRate, CEO, Oscillator) is a separate HERO. It takes the already-running OFC HERO as a constructor argument via BOSS’s "ofc": "$device_menlo_ofc" reference, so all modules share the one physical connection instead of each opening their own.

See examples/menlo/ofc.json for a complete BOSS config wiring one comb with all its modules.

Some CW channels lock two wavelengths through one shared lock loop, with two separate frequency-distribution blocks instead of one. Deploying plain LaserLock against one of these fails, since it hardcodes a single frequency-distribution node name that these channels don’t have. Use DualLaserLock instead, passing both wavelengths’ node names explicitly; see examples/menlo/ofc.json for an example.

FXE wraps the comb’s 16-channel frequency counter. Unlike the other modules, it has no default observables, since which channel carries which signal is deployment-specific. Pass observables for the channels relevant to your comb, e.g. a beat on channel 3:

"arguments": {
  "ofc": "$device_ofc",
  "observables": {
    "cw_beat": {"path": "counterFrequencies.channel03", "unit": "Hz"}
  }
}

Node paths (used in get_node/set_node/observables) are firmware-dependent and not documented by Menlo. Use format_tree() to find them interactively:

>>> print(ofc.format_tree("functionalLayer.rrSettings", depth=2))
functionalLayer.rrSettings
|-- dds
|   |-- ddsFrequency = 28286800
|   |-- outputOn = True
|   `-- outputPower = 0.64
|-- mainControls
|   |-- fastOutput ...
|   |-- lock = True
|   `-- slowOutput ...
`-- repetitionRate
    |-- rrCounterRepRate = 250105340.0
    `-- rrTargetBeatRF = 250105340

Nodes shown as ... are unexpanded branches; raise depth or call format_tree again rooted at that path to descend further. explore() returns the same tree as a plain dict instead of a rendered string, if you want to process it programmatically.

For anything specific to your comb (e.g. a customer-specific fiber-noise-cancellation module), poll or control it directly instead of adding a new class: every module accepts an observables argument, merged on top of its DEFAULT_OBSERVABLES, and OFC.get_node/OFC.set_node give full read/write access to any node regardless.

"arguments": {
  "host": "IP_OR_HOSTNAME",
  "observables": {
    "fnc578_locked": {"path": "functionalLayer.fnc578Settings.mainControls.lock", "unit": ""},
    "fnc1157_locked": {"path": "functionalLayer.fnc1157Settings.mainControls.lock", "unit": ""}
  }
}

Important

The OFC device’s _ensure_connected method must be reachable from the other modules over the network. HEROS excludes underscore-prefixed methods from a RemoteHERO proxy unless marked force_remote, so the OFC row in your BOSS config needs:

"extra_decorators": [["_ensure_connected", "heros.inspect.force_remote"]]

See examples/menlo/ofc.json for this in context.

Warning

The PyPI package named pywebchannel is an unrelated project; installing it will not work. Install it from source instead:

pip install "pywebchannel @ git+https://github.com/MenloSystems/pywebchannel"

pywebchannel is not declared as a project dependency, so this install step must be run manually wherever the Menlo driver is used: locally, in CI, and in any Docker image.

In a Docker Container deployment via BOSS, use the BOSS_PIP_PKGS environment variable (see the BOSS documentation) instead of extending the image:

docker-compose.yml
 services:
   device_ofc:
     image: registry.gitlab.com/atomiq-project/herosdevices:latest
     restart: always
     network_mode: host
     volumes:
       - ./ofc.json:/ofc.json:ro
     environment:
       - BOSS_PIP_PKGS=pywebchannel@git+https://github.com/MenloSystems/pywebchannel
     command: python -m boss.starter -u file:///ofc.json --log info

Driver for a Menlo Systems optical frequency comb (OFC) exposed via the QWebChannel websocket interface.

The OFC exposes its full control/status tree (functional layer, modules, settings, …) via Qt’s WebChannel protocol. Because that tree is deep and firmware-dependent, individual nodes are addressed by dotted path strings (see get_node()) instead of being declared as fixed class attributes. Use explore() interactively to discover which paths are available on a given device, then list the ones you want polled in observables.

Values are pushed by the device and kept in a local cache as soon as the connection is established, so get_node() and _observable_data() never trigger network traffic themselves.

Bold arguments are mandatory. For more information on the listed arguments refer to the class documentation: herosdevices.hardware.menlo.ofc.OFC If parameters appear in this list but not in the class definition, please recursively check the linked base classes for the definition of the parameter.

Argument

Type

Default Value

Description

host

<class ‘str’>

Hostname or IP address of the OFC’s QWebChannel websocket endpoint.

port

<class ‘int’>

8002

Port of the websocket endpoint.

user

<class ‘str’>

guest

Username used for authentication.

password

<class ‘str’>

Password used for authentication.

timeout

<class ‘float’>

5.0

Seconds to wait for a single connection attempt, see QWebChannelConnection.

reconnect_cooldown

<class ‘float’>

30.0

Minimum seconds between two connection attempts, see QWebChannelConnection. Keeps a prolonged outage (e.g. the OFC being powered off for half an hour) from causing a reconnect attempt on every single poll tick; the OFC is picked back up automatically the next time it is read after coming back online, no restart needed.

observables

dict[str, dict[str, str]] | None

None

Additional observables to poll, merged on top of DEFAULT_OBSERVABLES (an entry here with the same name overrides the default) rather than replacing it. Each entry maps the name under which a value is emitted with the observable_data event to a dict with keys “path” (dotted node path, see get_node()) and “unit”. The repetition-rate, CEO, and oscillator modules have their own default observables instead, see RepetitionRate, CEO, and Oscillator.

The following JSON strings can be used to start a HERO device representation of OFC using BOSS.

{
    "_id": "device_menlo_ofc",
    "classname": "herosdevices.hardware.menlo.OFC",
    "arguments": {
        "host": "IP_OR_HOSTNAME"
    },
    "extra_decorators": [
        [
            "_ensure_connected",
            "heros.inspect.force_remote"
        ]
    ],
    "datasource": {
        "async": false,
        "interval": 15
    }
}

from examples/menlo/ofc.json

{
    "_id": "my_OFC",
    "classname": "herosdevices.hardware.menlo.ofc.OFC",
    "arguments": {
        "host": "<class 'str'>",
        "port": 8002,
        "user": "guest",
        "password": "",
        "timeout": 5.0,
        "reconnect_cooldown": 30.0,
        "observables": null
    }
}

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