ADLINK PXES-2780 18 Slot PXIe Chassis Deployment Configuration

ADLINK PXES-2780 18 Slot PXIe Chassis Deployment and System Management Complete Guide

In large-scale automated testing systems, slot capacity and power supply are often the key bottlenecks that determine platform scalability. ADLINK PXES-2780 is an 18 slot PXI Express chassis that offers 1 system slot, 1 system timing slot, 6 PXIe peripheral slots, and 10 hybrid peripheral slots, with a total slot count that ranks among the top in its class. Its backplane adopts a configurable PCIe switching architecture, supporting two link modes: 4-link x4 (default) or 2-link x8. The system bandwidth can reach up to 8 GB/s, and the dedicated peripheral slot bandwidth can reach 4 GB/s (x8 link). The industrial grade AC power supply can stably output 800 W power within a wide temperature range of 0 ° C to 55 ° C. With three sets of rear fans (each set 185.9 CFM) and innovative bottom air inlet/rear exhaust heat dissipation design, the cooling capacity of each slot reaches 38.2 W (verified at 55 ° C). In addition, the chassis provides BNC 10 MHz reference clock input/output, DB-9 suppression/voltage monitoring interface, and RS-232 remote monitoring serial port, and supports dual-mode system management through SMBus or serial port. 

Overview and Core Specifications of the Chassis

The PXES-2780 complies with the PXI-5 Rev. 1.0 specification and is compatible with PXI Express, CompactPCI Express, and hybrid slot compatible PXI-1/CompactPCI modules. The allocation of 18 slots is as follows:

Slot 1: System controller slot, supporting a maximum width of 4 slots for controllers;

Slot 10: System Timing Slot (ST), providing single ended and differential star trigger functions, and can also be used as a regular PXIe x4 peripheral slot;

Slot 2~9, Slot 11~18: Among them, there are 10 hybrid peripheral slots (compatible with PXI-1/CPCI/PXIE/CPCIe) and 6 PXIe dedicated peripheral slots (only supporting PXIe/CPCIe modules). Slot 8、 9. 11 and 12 support PCIe x8 links, while other peripheral slots support x4 links.

Power parameters:

Communication input: 100-240 VAC, 50-60 Hz, maximum input power of 1200 W;

DC output (maximum available power 800 W):

+5V / 29.0 A， Ripple ≤ 50 mV

+12V / 45.0 A， Ripple ≤ 120 mV

+3.3V / 60.0 A， Ripple ≤ 50 mV

-12V / 2.5 A， Ripple ≤ 120 mV

Reference clock: 10 MHz system clock slot skew ≤ 300 ps, built-in accuracy ± 25 ppm; BNC output amplitude 1 Vpk pk (50 Ω load) or 2 Vpk pk (no-load), output impedance 50 Ω± 5 Ω; External input requires 10 MHz ± 100 PPM, amplitude of 100 mVpp~5 Vpp, and high impedance input. 100 MHz differential clock slot skew ≤ 100 ps, accuracy ± 25 ppm.

Mechanical and Environmental: Dimensions 464.3 (W) × 191.4 (H) × 465.3 (D) mm, net weight 11.9 kg; operating temperature 0~55 ° C, storage -20~70 ° C; shock resistance 30 G half sine, vibration working 0.3 Grms, non working 2.46 Grms; 46.3 dBA in automatic noise mode and 64.5 dBA in full speed mode.

Key points of installation and heat dissipation engineering

2.1 Unboxing and Attachment Confirmation

The standard packaging includes the PXES-2780 chassis, power cords, filler panel kit (1 3-channel panel and 18 1-channel panels), and ADLINK All in One CD (including monitoring software). If the PXES-2780 Rack Mount Kit is selected, the front and rear positions of the chassis in the rack can be flexibly adjusted. Any missing or damaged items should be immediately reported to the dealer.

2.2 Innovative heat dissipation design and gap requirements

The PXES-2780 adopts a horizontal air duct with bottom intake and rear exhaust. Three sets of rear fans draw in cold air from the bottom and front openings, which flows through all modules and is discharged from the rear. This design can effectively avoid inhaling hot air discharged from adjacent equipment during rack installation, while maintaining uniform temperature in each slot. Key gap:

Bottom air inlet: Leave at least 1U (44.5mm) clearance;

Rear air outlet: at least 76.2 mm (3 inches) away from other objects;

All unoccupied slots must be equipped with filling panels to maintain wind pressure and directional airflow.

If these requirements are ignored, even if the ambient temperature does not exceed the limit, the temperature alarm inside the chassis may be triggered due to airflow short circuit.

2.3 Installation of System Controller and Peripheral Modules

The system controller (such as ADLINK PXIe-3975) is installed in Slot 1 and can occupy up to 4 slot widths. Installation steps:

Confirm that the CPU, memory, and storage on the controller are ready;

Press the module latch release button, smoothly push it in along the upper and lower guide rails, and lift the latch to fully engage with the back panel;

Tighten the fixing screws on the front panel and connect the external devices.

The peripheral module is installed in Slot 2-18 (Slot 10 is the system timing slot and can also be used as a peripheral slot). The operation is similar: select the slot, insert along the guide rail, lift the latch, and tighten the screw. All empty slots must be equipped with filling panels. When powering on, connect the power cord to the rear C19 power inlet (note: this chassis uses a C19 socket with a current capacity higher than the standard C13), press the front panel power button, and the blue Power LED will light up, indicating normal operation.

Configurable PCIe Link Architecture

The PXES-2780 backplane PCIe switching architecture supports two link modes, which users can switch through monitoring software:

4-link x4 mode (factory default):

There are 4 x4 links from the system slot to the switch chip, with a total bandwidth of 8 GB/s;

All peripheral slots share the system bandwidth evenly, with each x4 peripheral slot having a bandwidth of 1 GB/s (Gen2 signal). This mode is suitable for multi module load balancing scenarios.

2-link x8 mode:

There are 2 x8 links from the system slot to the switch chip, with a total bandwidth of 8 GB/s;

Some dedicated peripheral slots (Slot 8, 9, 11, 12) can obtain x8 links, with a single slot bandwidth increased to 2 GB/s (Gen2). This mode is suitable for applications where high-throughput modules (such as high-speed digitizers and vector transceivers) require exclusive bandwidth.

Switching steps: Select the desired configuration (four-link x4 or two-link x8) in the "PXle Link" area of the Chassis Remote Mon. Utility, and click "Config" to apply. The new settings need to be restarted before they can take effect. This configuration capability enables PXES-2780 to flexibly adapt to testing tasks with different bandwidth requirements without the need to replace the hardware backplane.

Trigger bus and star trigger

4.1 Three stage trigger bus and bridge

The 18 slots of PXES-2780 are divided into three trigger bus segments:

Segment A: Plot 1-6

Segment B: Plot 7-12

Segment C: Slot 13-18

Each segment contains 8 trigger lines (TRIG<0-7>), and all slots within the segment share the trigger signal. The connection or isolation between segments is achieved through two trigger bus buffers. Users can independently configure the bridging status for each trigger line through monitoring software, achieving 8 different combinations of inter segment connections. This feature allows the chassis to be divided into multiple independent trigger domains, or all slots to be unified in the same trigger domain, greatly enhancing the flexibility of multi module synchronization.

4.2 Star Trigger (System Timing Slot 10)

Slot 10 serves as a system timing slot, providing 1 single ended star trigger (PXI_STAR) and 3 pairs of differential star triggers (PXIe-DSTAR) to each peripheral slot. The routing allocation is shown in Table 1-4 of the manual. For example, the PX_STAR line for Slot 2 corresponds to number 7, Slot 3 corresponds to number 6, and so on. Differential star triggering is allocated based on pairing. When installing a dedicated star trigger controller module, precise star trigger allocation can be achieved, which is particularly suitable for high-speed acquisition applications that require triggering multiple modules simultaneously. If this feature is not required, Slot 10 can also be used as a regular PXIe x4 peripheral slot.

Dual mode remote monitoring system

PXES-2780 provides two interfaces for communicating with the chassis management unit: SMBus (via system slot, ADLINK embedded controller required) and RS-232 serial port (rear DB-9, remote PC available). There is a significant difference in the functional support between the two interfaces:

Function SMBus RS-232 serial port

Chassis status monitoring (voltage/temperature/fan) support

Alarm threshold setting support

Triggering bus routing settings is not supported

PCIe link mode switching is not supported

Therefore, if only monitoring the status is needed, the RS-232 serial port can meet the requirements; If you need to configure the trigger bus or switch link modes, you must use the ADLINK embedded controller to access through SMBus.

5.1 Installation and use of monitoring software

The monitoring tool is located on the All in One CD (path: X: Driver Installation PXI Platform PXI chassis PXES-2780 xxxx Setup. exe) and is only compatible with ADLINK PXIe controllers. The third-party controller needs to be developed independently (refer to the function library documentation) or remotely monitored through RS-232.

After starting the software, the interface is divided into three parts:

Connect Control: Select the interface (SMBus or RS-232), click Connect/Start to establish communication, Stop/Disconnect to terminate; Log Chassis Status can record logs (supports overwrite/append, can set sampling period); Save/Load Threshold saves or restores threshold configuration.

Chassis Control&Alarm Threshold: The core control area includes triggering bus routing settings, PCIe link mode switching, target temperature setting, fan mode switching, and setting various voltage/temperature/fan alarm thresholds.

Chassis Status: Real time display of voltage readings, 8 temperature sensors (T1~T8, located on the back panel from left to right), 3 fan speeds, clear identification of normal/abnormal status.

5.2 Intelligent Fan and Target Temperature Setting

Rear fan switch (HIGH/AUTO):

HIGH: The fan maintains a constant full speed, suitable for high load environments;

AUTO: Dynamic speed regulation based on the highest temperature of the backplate.

Default fan curve: When the temperature is below 25 ° C, the fan operates at a 40% duty cycle; Linear increase after temperature exceeds 25 ° C; Full speed (100%) when reaching the target temperature (default 50 ° C). Users can modify the target temperature value (range 25 ° C~70 ° C) in the software, and click Set to take effect immediately. If a large number of high-power modules are installed inside the chassis, the target temperature can be lowered to 45 ° C, allowing the fan to enter full speed ahead of schedule and increasing the heat dissipation margin.

5.3 Automatic selection of 10 MHz reference clock source

PXES-2780 supports three 10 MHz reference clock sources, automatically switching according to priority:

Highest priority: PXI_CLK10-IN signal of system timing slot (Slot 10);

Next highest: External 10 MHz clock at the rear BNC input port;

Minimum: Built in oscillator on the backplane (accuracy ± 25 ppm).

When an external clock source is present, the backplane PLL automatically locks and synchronizes the 100 MHz differential clock to ensure that all peripheral slots receive a reference clock in phase. This feature allows users to introduce high-precision external clocks (such as GPS taming oscillators) to achieve multi chassis or cross device synchronization.

Troubleshooting and Maintenance Guide

6.1 System cannot start

Check if the power cord is securely plugged into the rear C19 socket and confirm that the wall socket has power;

Confirm that the rear Inhibit switch is in the "DEF" position (the power button on the front panel is valid). If it is in the "MAN" position, it needs to be controlled through the DB-9 suppression pin;

If it still cannot start, remove all peripheral modules and only keep the minimum configuration for system controller testing; If successful, insert modules one by one to locate the fault.

6.2 LED Status Indication and Fault Meaning

Blue Power LED flashing: voltage exceeding limit or short circuit. Remove all modules to test the no-load state; If it still flashes, it may indicate a power module malfunction and technical support needs to be contacted.

Green Fan LED flashing: Fan speed below threshold (default 800 RPM). Check if the rear fan is blocked by cables or dust; If it still flashes after cleaning, check the actual speed in the software. If it is too low, replace the fan.

Amber Temperature LED flashing: Temperature sensor exceeds threshold (default 70 ° C). Check whether the bottom and rear gaps meet the requirements, and whether all empty slots are installed with filling panels; If the exhaust temperature is normal but the LED still flashes, you can adjust the temperature alarm threshold in the software or check the sensor failure.

6.3 RS-232 serial communication issues

Confirm that the serial port cable is of Rx Tx/Tx Rx crossover type (the manual indicates that the DB-9 port has been internally crossed, so a straight through cable is required);

Check if the baud rate is 9600 (automatically set by software);

Confirm that the serial port of the remote PC is not occupied by other applications.

6.4 Maintenance and Cleaning

Cleaning: After turning off the power, wipe the outside of the chassis with a dry cloth, focusing on cleaning the dust accumulation at the bottom air inlet and rear air outlet. If the internal dust is severe, you can open the top cover (remove the screws on both sides) and use compressed air to blow the fan blades and radiator, but avoid touching the backplane connector.

Handling: Net weight 11.9 kg, be sure to use handles on both sides to avoid twisting.

Power supply: Ensure that the power cord is intact and avoid connecting to overload circuits; The power consumption of this chassis is relatively high (up to 800 W), and it is necessary to ensure sufficient power supply line capacity.