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You can trigger the Flame using a variety of External Triggering options through the 40-pin Accessory Connector on the
spectrometer. See the External Triggering Options document located at
The triggering document contains
further instructions for configuring External Triggering options for the Flame.
Triggering Modes
The Flame supports three triggering modes, (plus Normal mode), which are set with the Trigger Mode command. Detailed
information of each triggering mode follows. Also, refer to the External Triggering Options document located on our website at
. The following paragraphs describe these modes.
Normal
In the Normal (Free-run) mode, the spectrometer will acquire back-to-back spectra based on the integration period specified. After
the Integration Cycle completes, the data is read out of the detector and written into an internal FIFO where it is available for
reading. In parallel to this read/write operation, another integration is occurring. If the data from the FIFO is completely read before
the parallel integration completes, a back-to-back operation will occur. If the data is not read (FIFO Empty) in this time period, the
FPGA will generate an Idle Cycle that is equivalent to one integration period and the data from the detector is discarded. After the
Idle Cycle has completed, the FIFO Empty status is checked. If the FIFO is empty and a new spectrum is requested by the software, a
new acquisition will begin. If either condition is false, additional Idle Cycles will be generated until both conditions are true.
For the Flame-S and Flame-T, this is also referred to as the nonbuffering mode because only one spectrum is stored within the FPGA
and not multiple spectra. In this scenario, ReadEnable is generated by the software/firmware to initiate each new acquisition. Since
only one spectrum is stored at a time in the FPGA, a new integration cannot be started until the FIFO data has been fully retrieved by
the software.
External Synchronous Trigger Mode
In the External Synchronous Trigger mode, two external triggers are required to complete a data acquisition. The first rising edge
starts the integration period and the second rising edge stops the integration and starts the next. Thus, the integration time is the
period between the two external trigger pulses. After the integration period, the spectrum is retrieved and available to the user. As in
normal mode, no further spectra are acquired until the original spectrum is read by the user.
External Hardware Level Trigger Mode
In the External Hardware Level Trigger mode, a rising edge detected by the spectrometer from the External Trigger input starts the
integration period specified through the software interface. After the integration period, the spectrum is retrieved and is ready to be
Summary of Contents for FLAME
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