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  3022   Mon May 31 22:52:57 2010 ranaUpdatePEMGranite slab w/ lead balls is so far a flop

This plot shows the noise with the box on, but no granite. We're still pretty far off from the Guralp data sheet.

Untitled.png

I implemented software rotation in the huddle subtraction as Valera suggested and it works much better. The two plots below show the before and after. So far this is just 2 deg. of rotation around the z-axis. I'm assuming that aligning the seismometers vertically via bubble level is good enough for the z-axis, but I haven't calibrated the bubble yet.

huddlez.pnghuddlez.png

The residual slope is now suspiciously smooth. I somehow suspect that our readout electronics can still be responsible. We need to hook up a 9V battery to the input terminals to check it out. Its a little steeper than 1/f and I thought that we had exonerated the Guralp breakout box in the past, but now I'm not so sure. I'll let Jenne comment on that.

I also noticed that we have not yet divided by sqrt(2) to account for the fact that we are subtracting 2 seismometers. In principle, an unbiased estimate of the single seismometer noise will be lower by sqrt(2) than the green curve.

  3024   Tue Jun 1 11:47:14 2010 steveUpdatePEMlead balls on concrete

Quote:

Valera and I put the 2 Guralps and the Ranger onto the big granite slab and then put the new big yellow foam box on top of it.

There is a problem with the setup. I believe that the lead balls under the slab are not sitting right. We need to cut out the tile so the thing sits directly on some steel inserts.

You can see from the dataviewer trend that the horizontal directions got a lot noisier as soon as we put the things on the slab.

 The tiles were cut out in 1.5" ID circle to insure that the 7/16" OD lead balls would not touch the tiles on Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Granite surface plate specifications: grade B, 18" x 24" x 3" , 139 lbs

These balls and granite plate were removed by  Rana in entry log #3018 at 5-31-2010

  3025   Tue Jun 1 15:51:42 2010 steveUpdatePEMfoam box for good thermal stability

This box was made  to provide good thermal stability for seismometer calibration. There is an inner solid shell of 0.064" Al box that is covered by 2" insulation

inside and outside. The polystyrene foam is "CertiFoam 25 SE " from McMasterCarr #9255K3.

  3037   Wed Jun 2 18:09:32 2010 steveUpdatePEMseismometers off of linoleum floor

Steve for Nancy,

Seismometer interface box ac power was turned off, Guralps disconnected and moved. Ranger locked, moved and released. Nancy will describe the rest soon.

 

  3039   Wed Jun 2 21:21:43 2010 steveUpdatePEMseismometers off of linoleum floor

Quote:

Steve for Nancy,

Seismometer interface box ac power was turned off, Guralps disconnected and moved. Ranger locked, moved and released. Nancy will describe the rest soon.

The flattened lead balls were checked for their heights by the calliper, and were all in the range of 9.50 to 9.70 mm.

The rechecking was done by using these balls between two aluminium plates and checking their levelling. When confirmed this, we proceeded to install the balls(no more balls :P ) in their place.

The Guralps were switched off by switching off the power supply to them. The ranger mass was clamped in order to be able to move it. This can be undone by rotating the transport screw counter-clockwise.

We installed the flattened lead ballsin the space made for them. The granite was then placed on it with the help of many other people in the lab.  It was lowered by hanging it on two straps held by people , and then placed in the space marked for it.

Did we then turn on the seismometers? Did we release the locking screw on the Ranger? What happened to Bat-Boy??? Since they make a good mystery I will choose to leave them out of my elog entry.

  3047   Thu Jun 3 22:17:05 2010 ranaUpdatePEMseismometers off of linoleum floor

 At ~2350 UTC on June 2, the seismometers were turned off. After the granite slab was repositioned with the new lead, the Ranger was turned on, but not the Guralps.

Now, after ~24 hours, I have put the Guralps onto the granite and turned them on. During this off time, the input channels should be ADC noise limited (or perhaps limited by the INA134 differential receiver chips inside of the Sander Liu AA chassis). The following plot shows that this noise level is ~0.8 uV/rHz and then rising like ~1/sqrt(f) below 5 Hz:

Untitled.png

I checked the slab again by whacking it. It still rings with a Q of several, so I think we need to make the lead flatter. There should barely be any room between the granite and the linoleum.

UPDATE:

I guessed that it should be possible to make the slab-to-floor coupling better with flatter lead (Brian Lantz suggested to use lead sheets). So I removed my booties and jumped up and down on the granite several times. Because of my soft sole shoes, I was able to make an impulsive impact without shattering the granite. The effect of the stomping was pretty dramatic - the horizontal resonance frequency has gone up by a factor of 2. The red trace shows the new TF after the stomping:

a.png

 And the resulting spectrum is here too. As you can see, there is no excess between the Ranger and the Guralps until ~50 Hz where the mechanical resonance in the short direction (non-MC dir) takes over.

Untitled.png

 So, the lesson for next time is to flatten the balls a little more. I leave it to Nancy to calculate the horizontal resonant frequencies of this lead/granite combo to see if it matches with our measurements.

  3050   Fri Jun 4 23:52:57 2010 ranaUpdatePEMseismometers off of linoleum floor

Untitled.pnghuddlez.png

For the huddle test, I have updated the code to divide the residual by sqrt(2) because of the assumption of equal noise from the 2 Guralps. We would have to multiply this trace by sqrt(2) to compare with the previous results.

Now the question is, how do I add a low noise ~50 mV offset to the front of the Guralp breakout box to test for the noise of the box?

  3056   Tue Jun 8 18:39:36 2010 ranaUpdatePEMDAQ down

As before, I am unable to get data from the past. With DTT on Allegra I got data from now, but its unavailable from 1 hour ago. Same problem using mDV on mafalda. I blame Joe again - or the military industrial complex.

 

Quote:

Quote:

 Although trends are available, I am unable to get any full data from in the past (using DTT or DV). I started the FB's daqd process a few times, but no luck. 

I blame Joe's SimPlant monkeying from earlier today for lack of a better candidate. I checked and the frames are actually on the FB disk, so its something else.

 I tried running dataviewer and dtt this morning.  Dataviewer seemed to be working.  I was able to get trends, full data on a 2k channel (seismic channels) and full data on a 16k channel (C1:PEM-AUDIO_MIC1)  This was tried for a period 24 hours a go for a 10 minute stretch.

I also tried dtt and was able to get 2k and 16k channel data, for example C1:PEM-AUDIO_MIC1.  Was this problem fixed by someone last night or did time somehow fix it?

  3057   Tue Jun 8 20:52:25 2010 josephbUpdatePEMDAQ up (for the moment)

As a test, I did a remote reboot of both Megatron and c1iscex, to make sure there was no code running that might interfere with the dataviewer.  Megatron is behind a firewall, so I don't see how it could be interfering with the frame builder.  c1iscex was only running a test module from earlier today when I was testing the multi-filter matrix part.  No daqd or similar processes were running on this machine either, but it is not behind a firewall at the moment. 

Neither of these seemed to affect the lack of past data.  I note the error message from dataviewer was "read(); errno=9".

Going to the frame builder machine, I ran dmesg.  I get some disturbing messages from May 26th and June 7th. There are 6-7 of these pairs of lines for each of these days, spread over the course of about 30 minutes.

Jun 7 14:05:09 fb ufs: [ID 213553 kern.notice] NOTICE: realloccg /: file system full

Jun 7 14:11:14 fb last message repeated 19 times

There's also one:

Jun 7 13:35:14 fb syslogd: /usr/controls/main_daqd.log: No space left on device

I went to /usr/controls/ and looked at the file.  I couldn't read it with less, it errored with Value too large for defined data type.  Turns out the file was 2.3 G.  And had not been updated since June 7th.  There were also a bunch of core dump files from May 25th, and a few more recent.  However the ones from May 25th were somewhat large, half a gig each or so.  I decided to delete the main_daqd.log file as well as the core files.

This seems to have fixed the data history for the moment (at least with one 16k channel I tested quickly). However, I'm now investigating why that log file seems to have filled up, and see if we can prevent this in the future.

Quote:

As before, I am unable to get data from the past. With DTT on Allegra I got data from now, but its unavailable from 1 hour ago. Same problem using mDV on mafalda. I blame Joe again - or the military industrial complex.

 

Quote:

Quote:

 Although trends are available, I am unable to get any full data from in the past (using DTT or DV). I started the FB's daqd process a few times, but no luck. 

I blame Joe's SimPlant monkeying from earlier today for lack of a better candidate. I checked and the frames are actually on the FB disk, so its something else.

 I tried running dataviewer and dtt this morning.  Dataviewer seemed to be working.  I was able to get trends, full data on a 2k channel (seismic channels) and full data on a 16k channel (C1:PEM-AUDIO_MIC1)  This was tried for a period 24 hours a go for a 10 minute stretch.

I also tried dtt and was able to get 2k and 16k channel data, for example C1:PEM-AUDIO_MIC1.  Was this problem fixed by someone last night or did time somehow fix it?

 

  3060   Wed Jun 9 19:47:08 2010 nancyUpdatePEMlead balls on concrete

Quote:

Quote:

Valera and I put the 2 Guralps and the Ranger onto the big granite slab and then put the new big yellow foam box on top of it.

There is a problem with the setup. I believe that the lead balls under the slab are not sitting right. We need to cut out the tile so the thing sits directly on some steel inserts.

You can see from the dataviewer trend that the horizontal directions got a lot noisier as soon as we put the things on the slab.

 The tiles were cut out in 1.5" ID circle to insure that the 7/16" OD lead balls would not touch the tiles on Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Granite surface plate specifications: grade B, 18" x 24" x 3" , 139 lbs

These balls and granite plate were removed by  Rana in entry log #3018 at 5-31-2010

 I tried to calculate the frequency of resonance using Rayleigh's method.  approximated the geometry of lead to be that of a perfect cylinder, and  the deformation in the lead by the deflection in a cantilever under  a shear strain.

this rough calculation gives an answer of 170Hz and depends on the dimensions of each lead, number of leads, and mass of the granite. But the flaw pointed out is that this calculation doesnot depend on the dimension of the granite slab, nor on the exact placing of the lead spheres with respect toteh COM of the slab.

I will put up the calculations details later, and also try to do a FEM analysis of the problem.

 

BTW, latex launched this new thing for writing pdfs. doesnot require any installations.  check  http://docs.latexlab.org

  3062   Thu Jun 10 07:53:14 2010 AlbertoUpdatePEMLaTeXlabs

Quote:

BTW, latex launched this new thing for writing pdfs. doesnot require any installations.  check  http://docs.latexlab.org

 so cool!

  3139   Tue Jun 29 20:47:19 2010 JenneUpdatePEMTerminator put on Guralp Box

A little D-sub terminator was put on the Gur1 input to the Guralp box, to check again the noise level of the box.

  3147   Wed Jun 30 14:38:04 2010 JenneUpdatePEMGuralp terminator is switched

I moved the Guralp box's input terminator from Gur1 to Gur2 a minute or so ago to check the other channels.

  3149   Wed Jun 30 17:30:54 2010 JenneUpdatePEMSeismometers moved for MC Wiener work

Now that the MC is back up and running, I put the Guralp seismometers at the ends of the mode cleaner.  Gur1 is near MC2, and Gur2 is near MC1 (yes, it seems backwards....that's how the cable lengths work).  Also, the set of 3 MC2 accelerometers are in place under MC2.  I can't find the black cube for the other set of accelerometers, so there aren't any around MC1/3. 

  3153   Thu Jul 1 14:03:40 2010 josephbUpdatePEMTemporary disconnect of some PEM channels for ~20 minutes

In order to identify the output adapter of the BNC patch panel used for about 20 PEM channels, I had to disconnect its power and remove the back panel.  Channels coming into that panel (seismometers and so forth) was out from 1:36 to 1:56 pm.

I did a quick check of some of the channels and it looks like its working again after putting it all back together.

  3154   Thu Jul 1 14:28:39 2010 JenneUpdatePEMMC1 Accelerometers in place

Kevin sent me an email with top secret info on where one of the other accelerometer cubes was hiding (it was with his shaker setup on the south side of the SP table), so I took it and put the 3 MC1 accelerometers in their 3-axis configuration. 

Also, I changed the orientation of both sets of 3 axis accelerometers to reflect a Right Handed configuration, to go along with the new and improved IFO configuration.  Previously (including last night), the MC2 accelerometers were together in a Left Handed configuration.

  3161   Tue Jul 6 17:29:04 2010 ChipUpdatePEMThe Ranger is mine!
  3192   Mon Jul 12 10:23:51 2010 steveUpdatePEMair condition maintenance is today

The AC filters will be checked and/or replaced today. This means the AC will be off for sort periods of time. Temperature and particle count will be effected some what.

See 800 days plot

  3205   Tue Jul 13 11:51:19 2010 JenneUpdatePEMGur1 has no signal?!?!?!?!

[Sanjit, Jenne]

Sanjit discovered that the Gur1 channels are all digital 0.  We determined that this began on July8, 04:00 UTC (~9pm on the 7th?).

It's digital zero, so we suspect a software thing.  Just to check, we put a sine wave in, and didn't see anything.  Gur2 seems totally fine, and the sine wave input showed up nicely on dataviewer.  What's going on? Sabotage to prevent this paper from getting done?  Dmass trying to get his paper done before me???

Investigations are ongoing.... Joe claims it's not his fault, since his shenanigans near the PEM rack were on days before, and days after this, but not on the 7th.  

  3211   Tue Jul 13 23:20:37 2010 JenneUpdatePEMGur1 has no signal?!?!?!?!

Quote:

[Sanjit, Jenne]

Sanjit discovered that the Gur1 channels are all digital 0.  We determined that this began on July8, 04:00 UTC (~9pm on the 7th?).

It's digital zero, so we suspect a software thing.  Just to check, we put a sine wave in, and didn't see anything.  Gur2 seems totally fine, and the sine wave input showed up nicely on dataviewer.  What's going on? Sabotage to prevent this paper from getting done?  Dmass trying to get his paper done before me???

Investigations are ongoing.... Joe claims it's not his fault, since his shenanigans near the PEM rack were on days before, and days after this, but not on the 7th.  

 I just rebooted c0dcu1, which didn't help anything.  Joe said he'd try to give me a hand tomorrow.

  3267   Thu Jul 22 13:44:47 2010 JennaUpdatePEMGuralp seismometer

One of the Guralps [Gur2] has been taken to the atf gyro lab, along with the breakout box.

 

Edit by Jenne:  This means that we have no working seismometers in the 40m lab right now, so don't worry if you're looking for seismo data and you can't find any.  The 6 accelerometers should all still be up and running.

  3277   Fri Jul 23 15:32:02 2010 steveUpdatePEMcontrol room AC set point changed

The control room temp is warmer than usual. The heat exchanger Office Pro 18 set point was lowered from 70 to 68F yesterday.

The MOPA headtemp is higher also. The Neslab chiller bath temp peaks around 21.6 C daily. This should be rock solid 20.00 C

It did not have any effect.

Now, I have just lowered the thermostat setting of room 101 from 73 to71F  I  hope Koji can take this.

  3288   Mon Jul 26 08:51:31 2010 steveUpdatePEM lowering AC setpoint by 2F makes PSL happy

Quote:

The control room temp is warmer than usual. The heat exchanger Office Pro 18 set point was lowered from 70 to 68F yesterday.

The MOPA headtemp is higher also. The Neslab chiller bath temp peaks around 21.6 C daily. This should be rock solid 20.00 C

It did not have any effect.

Now, I have just lowered the thermostat setting of room 101 from 73 to71F  I  hope Koji can take this.

 Little change in the AC set temp can make wonders. Neslab chiller bath temp 19.99C is back to normal and daily variation of PSL are much better.

  3297   Tue Jul 27 11:43:24 2010 steveUpdatePEMair quality is bad today

The lab is at 30,000 and Pasadena air is at 1.1 e+6 particles /cf min of 0.5 micron.

  3334   Fri Jul 30 17:24:22 2010 JenneUpdatePEMGuralps back in the 40m

I brought the GUR2 seismometer back from Bridge so I can get some more MC/Seismic data during the next week while we're pumped down, before we start doing things to the PSL table.  Both of the Gur Seismometers are connected back up to the breakout box as of ~3:27pm today.  Alastair still has the handheld controller thing (which I use for mass centering, on occasion), since he'll want the seismometer back in a week or two when I'm done with it.

 

Something is wrong with both X channels of the Guralps.  Alastair claimed that he and Frank didn't do anything bad when they opened up the breakout box, but I am suspicious. 

 

While I'm at it, a reminder that Jan and his SURF student Greg still have the Ranger, disassembled over in Bridge.  They made a note in their elog, but not in the 40m elog when they took it back again.

Whenever you're done with the Mode Cleaner for the next week, please make sure it is locked, nicely aligned and happy before you leave.  Also please make a note of what you're doing and when, so that I know what is good data and what is data with unusual conditions.

In other, semi-bad news (but already recovered from), when I was finishing putting the Guralp Breakout Box back in the rack, I bumped the power strip that is on the top back side of the rack, near the corner that the door opens on (not the corner the door hinges on).  I turned the power strip back on, and I think everything that is connected to it came back okay.  Anyhow, my bad. Sorry. 

  3349   Mon Aug 2 18:02:46 2010 JenneUpdatePEMSeismometer Update: Still not good, but perhpas getting better

Today's seismometer diagnosis activities are still underway, this is just an update (since I did some reboots):

Problem 1: X and Z channels on both seismometers were flipped.  I unplugged an X cable (East/West on the cable labels) and the Z channel (vert) would go to floating ADC zero.  Rana suggested that the ADCs sometimes have random channel hopping, and that a reboot of the c0dcu1 computer which handles the PEM ADCU should fix this problem.  I keyed the c0dcu1 / c0daqawg crate, those computers came back just fine, and the channels were no longer flipped.  This is a good thing.  Although now it's actually the Z channels that were / are bad on both seismometers, not the X's.

While rebooting those computers, c1iovme, c1sosvme, c1susvme1 and c1susvme2 crashed.  I rebooted them, although for the first few power cycles c1susvme1&2 couldn't mount /cvs/cds/caltech.  Eventually they did, and life is good again.  Except that the seismometers are still funny.

  3351   Tue Aug 3 01:51:01 2010 JenneUpdatePEMSeismometer Update: Still not good, but perhaps getting better

Quote:

Today's seismometer diagnosis activities are still underway, this is just an update (since I did some reboots):

Problem 1: X and Z channels on both seismometers were flipped.  I unplugged an X cable (East/West on the cable labels) and the Z channel (vert) would go to floating ADC zero.  Rana suggested that the ADCs sometimes have random channel hopping, and that a reboot of the c0dcu1 computer which handles the PEM ADCU should fix this problem.  I keyed the c0dcu1 / c0daqawg crate, those computers came back just fine, and the channels were no longer flipped.  This is a good thing.  Although now it's actually the Z channels that were / are bad on both seismometers, not the X's.

While rebooting those computers, c1iovme, c1sosvme, c1susvme1 and c1susvme2 crashed.  I rebooted them, although for the first few power cycles c1susvme1&2 couldn't mount /cvs/cds/caltech.  Eventually they did, and life is good again.  Except that the seismometers are still funny.

 Some more progress, but still not complete:

Jan and I looked at all of the Gur channels on a 'scope (battery, so as not to be grounded), and 5 of the 6 looked good.  We were looking at the BNCs just as they go into the ADC.  The one which still looks bad is Gur1Z.  The 'scope just doesn't see any signal on that channel. 

In addition, the ADC's BNC input #4 (which normally has Gur2Z) looks totally shot.  When it's floating, the signal on dataviewer definitely doesn't look floating.  I'm probably going to have to move over to another channel, and just give that one up (this ADC already has several channels which have been declared bad, so maybe it's not a surprise that this can happen?)

Since one of the Gur signals looks bad (Gur1Z) and one of the ADC channels looks bad (usual Gur2Z), I switched the Z channels on the ADC board, so the channel being saved as Gur1Z is in fact Gur2Z.  This is valid as of ~1:15am until further elog notice.

During my investigations into why Gur1Z is funny, I also looked at the signal on the BNC octopus cable coming straight from the output of the Guralp Breakout Box (this is the cable which goes from "ADC Out" on the back of the box which is a 37 pin D-sub to 9 differential BNCs), and sometimes I saw zero on the 'scope, but sometimes there was a signal which would coincide with jumping tests.  Whenever there was a signal however, it was always a way lower amplitude (at least by a factor of 10?) than the other channels.

All of this craziness led to me pulling the Guralp box to investigate. 

Upon opening the box, I recalled that the channels go in order: Vert, NS, EW.  The Gur1Z channel is that first vert channel, and it's the one which always had a blue input capacitor rather than a surface mount one.  Being suspicious of Frank and Alastair, since they seemed unhappy with my capacitor choices, I wondered if they had wiggled the blue cap, and tore something loose.  Just in case, and to make things seem more uniform, I replaced the blue cap with a surface mount 1uF cap.  (Actually its 0.909uF, replacing the 0.905uF blue cap, according to the black DMM that measures capacitance.) While I was in there, since it had been a problem in the past (elog 2811), I relflowed the solder on some of the resistors, especially near the output op amp. 

Anyhow, none of that may have been necessary.  All 6 of the Gur channels were examined on a 'scope, using clip doodles to measure the various Test Points on the circuit.  I looked at all of the TPs in Gur1Z, and I didn't find that any particular stage was any noisier than the others.  Also, all 6 of the Gur channels seemed totally fine in terms of sending a good signal to the output of the box, including Gur1Z which is currently under investigation.  All of the channels passed the "output looks ~20x the input" test, and for approximately equal thumping on the ground all 6 channels seemed to have similar amplitude outputs.  The Z channels on both channels one and channels two were a little bigger than the X's or Y's, but the 2 Z channels were about the same.  This test was done using Guralp2 and the Gur2 cable on both channels 1 and 2, and then checked with Guralp 1, using the Gur2 cable on channels 1.  The Vert1 channel always seemed good.

I now am suspicious of one or more of the cables: either the Gur1 cable from the seismometer to the box, or the Vert1 channel of the octopus cable.  I'm satisfied that the BNC cables running through the cable tray are okay (although it might not hurt to check that they all successfully send a sine wave...)  I opened up the backshell of the Gur1 cable, on the end that connects to the breakout box.  Nothing seemed amiss.  I still need to Beep the cable to check its connections, and look at the octopus cable. 

Recap / Current Status:  Breakout Box is reinstalled, both seismometers hooked up.  The Z channels on the seismometers are swapped at the ADC input. The dataviewer channels Gur1_X, Gur1_Y, Gur1_Z (which is actually Z of Gur2 seismometer) and Gur2_X, Gur2_Y are all good.  Nancy is going to leave the MC in a happy place, and note the time when she's done. Tomorrow I'll check out the cables for the Gur1Z seismometer channel. 

  3354   Tue Aug 3 11:50:16 2010 JenneUpdatePEMSeismometer Problem Tracked down

After some cable swapping this morning, I have determined which cable is bad.  It's the Gur1 cable between the seismometer and the breakout box.  This is a milspec -> 37pin d-sub cable.  I'll pull out the cable and have a look at it after lunch.

  3355   Wed Aug 4 01:44:56 2010 KojiConfigurationPEMAccelerometer located on and below the PSL table

[Jenne and Koji] 

In order to characterize the seismic vibration of the PSL table, we put the accelerometers on and below the PSL table.

On the PSL: MC2 Accelerometers (X, Y, Z) - being connected to CH1-3 of the preamps
East side of the PSL table. X, Y, and Z is directed to North, East, and Up.

On the ground: MC1 Accelerometers (X, Y, Z) - being connected to CH4-6 of the preamps
Beneath the West side of the PSL table. X, Y, and Z is co-aligned to the MC2 ACC.

I found that the C1:PEM-ACC_MC1_Z has large noise in the low freq (~1Hz) region. I tracked down the noise source
and found the noise is still present in the down stream even when the CH17 (C1:PEM-ACC_MC1_Z) of the ADC IF BNC
(@1Y7) was terminated.

I consulted with Jenne and decided to connect this channel to CH14, which is vacant and has name
C1:PEM-AUDIO_MIC2 (16k).
(for the details of the channel configurations, see /cvs/cds/caltech/chans/daq/C1ADCU_PEM.ini)

I first tried magnetometer channels to steal, but they didn't seem reacting (and the connected to the wrong channels).
I am feeling that we should once entirely check the I/F box.

Note that there looks the difference of the gain by x10 between C1:PEM-ACC_MC* channels and C1:PEM-AUDIO_MIC2.

[From Jenne:  The gain difference is because the C1:PEM-ACC_MC* channels have gain=10 in the .ini file, while C1:PEM-AUDIO_MIC2 uses the default gain=1. ]

  3356   Wed Aug 4 03:01:56 2010 JenneUpdatePEMCatastrophic Cable Failures

Quote:

After some cable swapping this morning, I have determined which cable is bad.  It's the Gur1 cable between the seismometer and the breakout box.  This is a milspec -> 37pin d-sub cable.  I'll pull out the cable and have a look at it after lunch.

 So, I was wrong about which cable it was, probably in my rush to get some lunch.  The actual culprit was the octopus cable that Bob made waaay back in the day (~2 years ago) to go from the "ADC out" of the breakout box (37pin Male Dsub) to 9 BNCs.  As it turns out, the Gur1Z channel of that cable was broken on both ends!!! 

On one end, we have the 37 pin Dsub.  The cable used was so thick (way too thick for this application) that it made a super rigid connection between the wires and the connector, and any bending of the cable stressed this connection, despite the strain-relief of the backshell.  The Gur1Z connection snapped off when I was gently wiggling the connections to check them out.  Also, since the wires were all so thick, they didn't really fit into the hole in the backshell, so 2 or 3 of them were squished.....straight through the insulation so that several channels were shorted together / potentially shorted to ground.  This may explain some of the nasty behavior that Rana and I had seen (although I might have forgotten to elog? My bad.) that even with the inputs of the breakout box all terminated, there was high coherence between the channels.  Terminated inputs should give random noise, so this was fishy. 

On the other end of the cable we have the 9 BNCs.  I had finished redoing the 37pin end of the cable, and was 'beeping' it to check it out, when to my dismay I found that the Gur1Z channels (the inside and the outer shield of the BNC connector) were shorted together.  I removed these 2 wires from the Dsub connector to confirm that the BNC was at fault.  Koji looked at the BNC with me after I chopped it off of the cable.  Bad news strikes again.  To get the wires to fit in the inner pin of the BNC connector, the cable-maker had cut off several strands of the wire to make it skinnier.  It appears that over the years these cut-off strands wiggled their way to touching the outer shield.  This appears to be a danger for all of the BNCs on this cable: a little bit of torque (which one might expect during plugging and unplugging a BNC) and the 2 sides of the differential measurement will be shorted together.

I then decided to start afresh and make my own cable.  I found some AWG26 8-twisted-pair cable laying around underneath the Yarm (since this was all I could find, I was just going to do the Gur1 and Gur2 channels, and leave out the Gur3's).  The 37 Dsub side was easy, but I seem not able to connect such skinny wire to the BNC connectors in a robust way.  Since this bad cable has so far cost me ~2.5 16-hour days of grief, I don't want my new version of it to also be bad.  At this point, I await the advice of one wiser than I. I think BNC connectors are designed for something a little closer to ~20AWG, but I could be wrong.  Also, they are obviously optimized for coax cable. So what I have now is never going to be great.  Maybe tomorrow I can go to the Electronics Shop / Store and buy BNC connectors that are meant to be soldered-to.  That would be awesome.

Since I currently have no functional cable to go from Breakout box to ADC, the Guralps are unplugged for tonight.

Conclusions for the day / evening:  Frank, Alastair and Jenna are mostly absolved of blame, although the traveling to Bridge and opening and closing the box (which usually involves more plugging and unplugging of cables) probably didn't help this cable out too much.  Also, Bob definitely owes me a Sugar Napoleon or something.

 In other news, since the Gur2Z ADC channel is totally wacked, I have taken over (but not renamed) the Ranger channel for Gur2Z for now.  Jan still has the Ranger hostage over in Bridge, so this is okay for now.

  3362   Wed Aug 4 20:15:07 2010 JenneUpdatePEMYay! Guralps work again!

After much hassle, the Guralp cable from the ADC Out of the breakout box to the ADC is fixed, and everything is plugged in and working again.  The seismometers are back in their regular positions at the ends of the MC, ready for some excellent seis/MC combo data. 

I solidified the change of putting the Gur2Z channel into a different BNC input on the ADC.  The C1ADCU_PEM.ini file has been changed so that what used to be the Ranger's channel is now recognized as Gur2Z. 

Also, I changed the same .ini file to reflect Koji's move of ACC_MC1_Z to the old AUDIO_MIC2 channel, so now all 6 Accelerometer channels have the same calibrations again.

Another big change is the change from old-left-handed convention to new-right-handed convention.  The seismometers are aligned the same way they always have been (with the North-South markers aligned with the MC), but now the North-South output is plugged into the BNC on the ADC that is associated with Gur*_X, and the East-West output is plugged into the ADC channel associated with Gur*_Y.  This is true for both Guralp Seismometers. 

So, now we have:

Gur1_X = Gur1_NS = ADC#10

Gur1_Y = Gur1_EW = ADC#11

Gur1_Z = Gur1_Vert = ADC#12

Gur2_X = Gur2_NS = ADC#2

Gur2_Y = Gur2_EW = ADC#3

Gur2_Z = Gur2_Vert = ADC#24

SEIS_Ranger_Y = no longer in the .ini file

  3395   Tue Aug 10 22:40:55 2010 KojiSummaryPEMAccelerometer located on and below the PSL table

Result of the accelerometer measurement

Introduction

We wanted to characterize the PSL table before the work before its lifting up.
We put a set of three-axis Wilcoxon accelerometers on the ground and another set on the PSL table through the weekend.

Result

- The data at 9th Aug 00:00(UTC) is used. This was Sunday 5PM in the local time.
- The freq resolution was 0.01Hz. The # of avg was 50.

- The accelerometer signals were calibrated by the value 1.2e-7 V/(m/s^2). We use this absolute value of the spectrum for the comparison purpose.

- The accelerometers were aligned to North(X), East(Y), and Up(Z). There was the coherence observed from 2~20Hz.
  The transfer functions are valid only this frequency region although we still can set the lower bound of them.

- The transfer functions in the horizontal directions show huge peaks at around 20Hz. The Q of the peaks are ~30 to ~100.
  The vertical transfer function shows somewhat lower peak at around 50Hz with Q of ~10.

Some thoughts

- The low resonant freq and the high Q of the horizontal mode comes from the heaviness of the table.

- We are going to raise the table. This will usually mean that we get the lower resonant freq. This is not nice.

- So, the decision to use 6 tripods rather than 4 was right.
- The steel tripods are expected to give both more rigidity and more damping than the chep-looking hollow Newport legs.
- Concrete grouting of the tripods will also lower the effective height and will benefit for us.

 

  3422   Fri Aug 13 18:32:48 2010 steveUpdatePEM new legs attached to optical table

Koji, Rana and Steve

 

The floor preparation continued today. The really messy part of drilling and jack-hammering the concrete were done in controlled manner.

Particle counts peaked at 106K of 0.3 micron and 13 K of 1.0 micron particles/ cfmin at the top of SP table.

Legs were installed with the help of Koji and strongman Rana. Professor Rana was very useful lifting the 85 lbs legs. 

 

Atm1, Drilling holes for ribbed bar reinforcement of concrete

Atm2, Koji and Rana are playing hide and seek while installing legs

Atm3-4, 6 Rigid tripod legs attached by 6x3 of 1/4-20x 7/8 screws. The top plates of the legs were torqued to 108 ft/lbs by Rana

  3430   Tue Aug 17 14:09:15 2010 steveUpdatePEMPSL optical table schedule

Tuesday, 17 August : fill tunnel, set table height, level table and balance load

Wednesday : grout tripod legs and leave it alone

Thursday : built  guide-form for concrete

Friday :  pour concrete

Monday, 23 August : remove guide forms and clean up

  3435   Wed Aug 18 16:42:14 2010 steveUpdatePEMPSL optical table legs load balanced

 

 Rana, Koji, Alberto and Steve, Tuesday afternoon

 

Atm3, Part of the tunnel under the table was filled with quick drying concrete this morning  to give solid support for tripod legs.

          PVC tube 6 " ID with TEE will able us to connect AP table, PSL table and Control room if needed

Atm4, Table height set to equal AP at  ~32.75 " on copper plates using 5/8-11 x 4.5" set screw-bolt in tripod foot

           Rough leveling was done by 4 individual levels at the four corners with 9" long Stanley cast aluminum levels.

          Load balancing of the total weight  ~ 3000 lbs over  6 legs x3 = ~170 lbs on each jack screw with Snap-On torque wrench at 140 lbs/ft

Atm1, Three crew members at work. Prof. Rana's calibrated right hand was used at jack screws where insufficient space was available for socket head wrench.

Atm2, Table is ready for no shrink grouting now.

         

 

 

 

 

  3444   Thu Aug 19 16:03:59 2010 steveUpdatePEMgrouting of PSL tripod legs

The 10' x 6' optical table is seating on 6 tripods. Each tripod leg has 3 feet. They are supported by jack screws against copper plates on the concrete floor.                            These set screws allowed us to set the height,  level and distribute the load of the table.

To lock this position of the table grouting is used around the jack screws and between the concrete floor and the tripod feet.

Once the grout set the load will be carried by the hole feet  of 4" x 3.25" x3 = 39 sq inches per tripod leg

 

These ~4" thick grouted islands of 8-9" OD will be covered by 4" concrete. The area between the legs will be filled with 8" thick concrete.

http://www.fivestarproducts.com/techinfo/GroutHandbook.pdf

 

Atm1, http://www.fivestarproducts.com/cementgrouts/specsheets/grout_ss.pdf

         Cement based grout, early height change 0 - 4%, hardened height change 0 - 0.3%

Atm2-3,  pouring grout

Atm4,  south west leg is done

 

Tomorrow: setting up ribbed bars, building frame to hold concrete and pour concrete

  3448   Fri Aug 20 15:49:14 2010 steveUpdatePEMgrouting is done

The preparation for pouring concrete is continuing. The grout forms were removed. Half inch ribbed steel bars were epoxied into our 4" thick floor.

The concrete holding sides- forms are cut to size. They will be installed on Monday morning and pouring concrete should follow.

We can be planning for cleaning up on Tuesday

 

Atm1, epoxy used bars

Atm2, south west tripod feet grouted

Atm3, ribbed bars are getting ready

  3449   Fri Aug 20 16:17:35 2010 steveUpdatePEMPEM-count channels are not working

C1: PEM-count channels are dead since August 12, 2010

  3462   Tue Aug 24 11:23:32 2010 steveUpdatePEMtripod leg installation completed

Bertine Robby, Bertin and Jerry completed the installation by pouring concrete yesterday and cleaning up today.

Atm1-2, steel bars, grouted feet and side forms are ready

Atm3,    bounding agent is applied for better bounding

Atm4,    pumping concrete

Atm5,    shaker is used to fill-all

Atm6,    late after noon the forms- sides were removed,     NOTE: actual table to concrete distance is 12.75"

Atm7,    construction people left and the tile man is on the way

 

The tile patching should complete today so tomorrow we can remove plastic covers.

 

  3472   Wed Aug 25 16:13:32 2010 steveSummaryPEMPSL optical table is back into operation at 32.75" level

The tile work was done yesterday after noon.

This morning Mike Gerfen and me lowered the enclosure frame to normal height.

Keven- janitor and I removed plastic covers from chambers, racks, SP, MC2 and clean tool boxes.

 

The afternoon Jenne, Kiwamu, Joe and Aiden cleaned the enclosure inside out. The particle count measured zero inside the enclosure with HEPAs on when the covers were

removed. The MOPA and all other components were happy to see us in excellent condition.

This table height is very user friendly!

 

Safety grounds were reconnected.

 

Atm1, new tiles around the concrete slab

Atm2, frame lowered with low cross bars reinstalled

Atm3, the enclosure frame's north west foot is connected to ground

Atm4, PSL optical table is connected to ground at the north east corner through 1 Mohm

Atm5, PSL optical table level at a stimulating, back-friendly height

  3477   Fri Aug 27 11:27:33 2010 steveUpdatePEMcrane safety document

I posted the crane safety document on the 40m wiki, vacuum page as 26 August 2010

Please add your comments and corrections.

 

The South End Crane will be balanced on Tuesday,  31 August 2010

This will mean that the back door of the south arm will be open on and off. Air quality will bad.

Please plan accordingly.

  3493   Tue Aug 31 10:44:17 2010 steveUpdatePEMconcrete sealed

The PSL -leg concrete was sealed with a single coat of SCOFIELD Cureseal-S to minimize shedding of particles.

The optical table was covered  and optics were removed from the shelf. Accelerometers were turned off.

  3495   Tue Aug 31 13:31:00 2010 steveUpdatePEMroom temp lowered

I lowered room 101 thermostat setting from 74F to 72F

  3496   Tue Aug 31 14:47:53 2010 steveConfigurationPEMtoilet upgrade

Our toilets were replaced by a green Gerber 1.6 gpf ( 6 lpf ) last week.

  3497   Tue Aug 31 15:26:46 2010 ranaUpdatePEMroom temp lowered

And I raised it back to 73F. The thermometers on the wall show 74-75F as the actual room temp. The dial on the temperature controller is not calibrated.

  3505   Wed Sep 1 10:54:15 2010 steveUpdatePEM more crane balancing

Crane balancing at the south end is continuing today.

  3513   Thu Sep 2 14:11:17 2010 steveSummaryPEMsouth end crane balancing is completed

The crane I -beam now leveled at all degrees of rotation.  The lower hinge was moved southward  about 1/4 of an inch.  Performance was tested at 2000 lbs

 

Atm1, work in progress

Atm2, load test at 1 Ton

Atm3, service report

  3547   Wed Sep 8 16:17:58 2010 steveUpdatePEMparticle counter problem

I played with the particle counter this morning. Now it's running and reading the correct numbers on the old COCHECKLIST.adl medm screen.

However, it can not be seen with dataviewer.

Koji just rebooted the frame builder and the problem was solved.

  3551   Thu Sep 9 11:31:54 2010 steveUpdatePEMaccelerometer cable connection

I turned off/on the power to the accelerometers in order to re rout their connections. I found cable connector body-nut  #3 loose to Accelerometer 2X This connector should be checked for solid performance.

  3585   Fri Sep 17 17:35:35 2010 steveUpdatePEMcleaned up at 1Y1 PSL rack

Cleaned up cables on the top and bottom. Vacuumed both areas. We still have some remaining shading from the MOPA umbilical and more unknown BNC cables hanging around.

ELOG V3.1.3-