I have installed a ZFL-500LN on the RF output of POY11. This should reduce the effect of the CM board voltage offsets by increasing the size of the error signal coming into the board. Checking with an oscilloscope at the LSC rack, the single arm PDH peak to peak voltage was something like 4mV, now it is something like 80mV. 

The setup is similar to the REFL165 situation, but with the amplifier in proximity with the PD, instead of at the end of a long cable at the LSC rack.
The PD RF output is T'd between an 11MHz minicircuits bandpass filter and a 50 Ohm terminator (which makes sure that signals outside of the filter's passband don't get reflected back into the PD). The output of the filter is connected directly to the input of the ZFL-500LN, which is powered (temporarily) by picking off the +15V from the PD interface cable via Dsub15 breakout. (I say temporarily, as Koji is going to pick out some fancy pi-filter feedthrough which we can use to make a permanent power terminal on the PD housing.)
The max current draw of this amplifier is 60mA. Gazing at the LSC interface (D990543), I think the +15V on the DSUB cable is being passed from the eurocard crate; I don't see any 15V regulator, so maybe this is ok...
The free swinging PDH signal looked clean enough on a scope. Jamie is doing stuff with the framebuilder, so I can't look at spectra right now. However, turning the POY whitening gain down to +18dB from +45dB lets the Y arm lock on POY with all other settings nominal, which is about what we expect from the nominal +23dB gain of the amplifier.
I would see CM board offsets of ~5mV before, which was more a little more than a linewidth before this change. Now it will be 5% of that, and hopefully more manageable. |