Data acquisition and protection system for a multi-MHz neutron detector

At the “KWS2” small angle scattering instrument at the “FRM-2” neutron source at Garching, Germany a new 3He neutron detector was installed and commissioned in 2015. It is built of 18 “8-pack” modules from GE Power / Reuter-Stokes. Each of these modules has its own data acquisition and slow control processor, using only Gigabit Ethernet as its connection to the outside world. We show how data acquisition, time synchronization and interaction with the slow control system are laid out, as well as some first results and performance data.