FROST (Fridge Remote Operations, Status, and Thermometry)

Primary cryostat control software for MEC' (MKID Exoplanet Camera) Prime

Overview

FROST provides a single interface for controlling and monitoring all cryostat hardware

• Lakeshore 625 - Superconducting Magnet Power Supply - controls ADR
• Lakeshore 370 - AC Resistance Bridge - monitors device stage temperature
• Lakeshore 350 - Temperature Controller - all stage and gl7 thermometers
• Heatswitch Driver - Zaber Stepper Motor Control - opens and closes heatswitch
• Cryomech Driver - Pulse Tube Compressor Control - monitors cryomech compressor

Building and Running

# Build the project
cargo build --release

# Run the application (GUI)
cargo run --release

# Run a CLI command directly
cargo run --release -- <device> <command>

Installation (adding frost to your PATH)

After building in release mode the binary lives at target/release/frost. The recommended way to install is a symlink — it requires no extra steps after rebuilding and is immediately available system-wide:

sudo ln -sf /home/kids/FROST/target/release/frost /usr/local/bin/frost

This only needs to be run once. After any subsequent cargo build --release the symlink automatically points to the updated binary.

Verify the installation, and get a list of all available commands:

frost --help

Example command to read input 2 on lakeshore370:

frost lakeshore370 all 1

Requirements

• Rust 1.70+
• GUI environment (X11 or Wayland)

Dependencies

cryomech_api (required for compressor.rs)

compressor.rs uses the cryomech_api crate for serial communication with the Cryomech pulse tube compressor. It is referenced as a path dependency, so the crate must be present at ../cryomech_api relative to the FROST directory (i.e. a sibling folder in the same parent directory).

To get it:

# Clone the cryomech_api repo into the parent directory (next to FROST/)
git clone <cryomech_api-repo-url> ../cryomech_api

# Or, if you already have it locally, ensure the folder is at:
#   <parent-of-FROST>/cryomech_api/

cryomech_api itself requires the smdp crate at ../smdp. Both must be present for FROST to compile with compressor support.

If you do not have the compressor hardware and want to build without it, remove or comment out the cryomech_api dependency in Cargo.toml and the mod compressor; line in src/gui.rs.

GUI

To launch the interactive gui, we execute:

frost gui

Or, to compile a fresh version of the gui:

cargo run --release -- gui

License

APACHE 2.0