1
Ron Jenkins, R. W. Gould, and Dale Gedcke, Quantitative X-Ray Spectrometry (New York: Marcel Dekker,
Inc.), 1981, pp. 266–267.
2
For the purposes of this manual, when we refer to MAESTRO, we mean the ORTEC MCA emulator/analysis
application you are using (e.g., MAESTRO, GammaVision
®
, ScintiVision™).
1
1. INTRODUCTION
The ORTEC
®
EASY-MCA-8K™ and EASY-MCA-2K™ multichannel buffers (MCBs) include
512 KB of memory and 1.25
μ
s conversion time. The 8K model’s successive-approximation
8192-channel ADC has conversion gain settings of 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, and 8192. The
2K model offers conversion gain settings of 256, 512, 1024, and 2048. Dead time can be correc-
ted using the highly accurate Gedcke-Hale extended live-time method.
1
The EASY-MCA communicates via high-speed USB, and up to eight units can be controlled by
a single computer.
Features
!
Fast (1.25
μ
s) ADC and memory.
!
Onboard memory allows fast downloads to your computer.
!
PUR, BUSY, and GATE inputs and an ADC-busy LED.
!
Bundled with our MAESTRO
®
MCA Emulator Software.
1.1. Host Computer and Software Requirements
The EASY-MCA is completely computer controlled by ORTEC spectroscopy applications such
as MAESTRO,
2
which runs under Microsoft
®
Windows
®
8, 7, and XP Professional SP3, com-
municating with C
ONNECTIONS
v6.11 or later.
1.2. About this Manual
This manual describes the EASY-MCA, tells how to connect it in a complete spectroscopy sys-
tem, gives instructions on configuring the hardware settings (such as high voltage, presets, and
gain), and supplies the firmware commands and responses for users who wish to write custom
control software.
