I'm leaving the lab now for less than 2 hours. I should be back in time for when the pumping is finished so that I can measure the finesse again.

 Seems like very strange cable loss numbers. The Heliax is lossier than the RG-174? I wonder how these compare with the specs in the cable catalog?

Wait, Wait, Wait. You are moving too fast. Go one by one.

Check the PZTs, the MC, initial pointings, IFO mirrors, some of the partial locks, and maybe some momentary full locks?
Once the recover of the IFO is declared, you can proceed to the measurements.

I hope the grad students can take this precious opportunity to have their fun time for restoring everything by themselves.

 Pump down is completed. Valve configuration is VACUUM NORMAL. CC1 pressure is in the ~8 e-5 torr   PSL output shutter is opened.

I did the measurement on a 4.33 meter long cable with SMA connectors at the ends.

In order to enable 'set terminal pdf' in gnuplot on Rosalba/Allegra, I installed PDFlib lite and gnuplot v4.2.6. to them.
(PDFlib lite is required to build the pdf-available version of gnuplot)

Installation of PDFlib lite:

• Building has been done at rosalba
• Download the latest distribution of PDFlib lite from http://www.pdflib.com/products/pdflib-7-family/pdflib-lite/
• Expand the archive. Go into the expanded directory
        tar zxvf PDFlib-Lite-7.0.4p4.tar.gz
      cd ./PDFlib-Lite-7.0.4p4
• configure & make
        ./configure
      make
• install the files to the system / configure the dinamic linker
        sudo make install
      sudo ldconfig

Installation of gnuplot:

• Building has been done at rosalba
• Download the latest distribution of gnuplot form http://www.gnuplot.info/
• Expand the archive. Go into the expanded directory
        tar zxvf gnuplot-4.2.6.tar.gz
      cd ./gnuplot-4.2.6.tar.gz
• configure & make
        ./configure --prefix=/cvs/cds/caltech/apps/linux/gnuplot
      make
      make install
• Create symbolic links of the executable at
        /cvs/cds/caltech/apps/linux/bin
      /cvs/cds/caltech/apps/linux64/bin
• Note: Although the original (non-PDF) gnuplot is still at
        /usr/bin/gnuplot
new one is active because of the path setting
      rosalba:linux>which gnuplot
      /cvs/cds/caltech/apps/linux64/bin/gnuplot


Sometimes back we modified /cvs/cds/caltech/chans/daq/C1ASS.ini to save some of the channels. The file was reverted to default after the recent changes in ASS.

We again uncommented and made acquire=1 to save the following three channels using daqconfig:

C1:ASS-TOP_ERR_MCL_IN1_2048

C1:ASS-TOP_PEM_15_IN1_2048

C1:ASS-TOP_PEM_18_IN1_2048

The script automatically created a back up in /cvs/cds/caltech/chans/daq/archive

We restored the good state of the ITMY camera and neatened both the MC2 and ITMY camera.

The MC2 camera was driving a triple T jungle into some random cables and spoiling the image. We removed all T's and the MC2 camera now drives only The Matrix.

The ITMY camera was completely unmounted and T'd. So it was misaligned just by the force of gravity acting on its BNC cable. We swapped the lens for a reasonable sized one and remounted it in its can. We then used orange cable ties to secure the power and BNC cable for the MC2 and ITMY cameras so that tugging on the cables doesn't misalign the cameras. This is part of the camera's SOP.

No more driving 50 Ohm cables and T's with video cables, Steve! If you need a portable video, just use a spigot of the Matrix and then you can control it with a web browser.

I also wiped out the D40's memory card after uploading all of the semi-useful files to the Picasa page.

Tobin & Keith pointed out in the LLO ilog that there was a code bug in the autoburt.pl script for autoburts.

I edited the autoburt.pl script so that it will work from now until 2099 (by which time we may no longer be using this version of perl):

nodus:autoburt>diff autoburt.pl~ autoburt.pl
234c234
<     $thisyear = "200".$timestamp[5];
---
>     $thisyear = "20".$timestamp[5];

The autoburt has not been working ever since 11PM on New Year's eve.

I ran it by hand and it seems to run fine. I noticed along the way that it was running on op340m (our old Sun Blade 150 machine). The autoburt.pl was pointing at /cvs/cds/bin/perl

which is Perl v5.0. I changed it to use '/usr/bin/env' and now points at '/usr/bin/perl' which is perl 5.8. It runs fine with the new perl:

op340m:scripts>time perl /cvs/cds/scripts/autoburt.pl >> /cvs/cds/caltech/logs/autoburtlog.log
5.37u 6.29s 2:13.41 8.7%

Also ran correctly, via cron, at 9AM.

I fixed up the ITMX camera like we did for ITMY recently (removed T's and added strain relief - the lens was already OK).

I also updated the .SCAN field for the RMTEMP and RCTEMP channels to 0.1 second. This had been done via probe but was wiped out after reboot previously, because I forgot to update the psl.db file.

I think I have finally found a Mode Matching solution for our new Input Mode Matching Telescope!  And after looking at the layout diagram with Koji and Raffaele, it seems like all of the optics will fit into the chambers / onto the tables (not true as of last week). 

3. RoCMMT1 is -5m
   RoCMMT2 is 8m,
   with the MMTs 1.89m apart.
   This is a 1.6x telescope.
   MMT2 is 2.2641m from the PRM
   MMT1 is 2m from MC3.
   The Condition Number for this optical chain is 89219047.5781.

This layout is very similar to the one that Koji posted on the wiki yesterday:  Upgrade09/Optical Layout.  The difference is that I want to move MMT1 ~20cm closer to the MC13 table, so just on the other side of the main red beam that goes directly to PRM.  There is plenty of space there, so it should be all good.  The tricky bit is that the flat steering mirrors fit into things now while they are piezos, but they will be trickier to fit if we make them into Tip Tilts.  But I have full faith in Koji's amazing optical table layout skills, that he can make it happen. 

Unless there are major objections, I think this is the MMT that we're going to go with. (So speak now or forever hold your peace.)  The angle between tilt and translation isn't quite what we'd like it to be (at ~18deg), but it's not too terrible.  And we still have 99.5% overlap which is very important.

I am in the way to get a reasonable optical layout.
Please calculate the final results with the following conditions.

"Result" =
- mode overlapping with astigmatism
- alignment matrix (m/rad, rad/rad) for Pitch and Yaw
- alignment orthogonality
- sensitivity of the mode overlapping to the perturbations
  * histgram
  * individual scan of the optic positions

Optics chain: MC3 - SM1(flat) - MMT1(f=-5m) - MMT2(f=+8m) - SM2(flat) - PRM

Incident angles: SM1 24deg, MMT1 3deg, MMT2 1deg, SM2 44.5deg

Distances:
MC3 HR - SM1: 884mm
SM1 - MMT1: 1058.2mm
MMT1 - MMT2: 1890mm
MMT2 - SM2: 2007.9mm
SM2 - PRM HR: 495.6mm

It has ~200mm deviation from the solution. I can move only MMT1 for final optimization.
Give us the numbers if it can improve the performance.
Note that this move changes SM1-MMT1 and MMT1-MMT2 simultaneously.

With Dave Barker's help, I changed the elog startup script. Instead of running as a Daemon with the -D option,

it now runs in the background with the unix "&". I think that the stdout and stderr are now redirected to a log file called elog.log.

We can 'tail -f' this file to see what its up to and debug any future crashing.

I turned the StripTool and ALARMS and BLRMS back on on op540m. Looks like it has been rebooted 5 days ago and no one turned these back on. Also, there was a bunch of junk strewn around its keyboard which I restrained myself from throwing in the trash.

The BLRMS trends should be active now.

This morning the LSC scripts wheren't running properly. I had to reboot c1iscey, c1iscex, c1lsc, c1asc .

I burtrestored to Monday January 25 at 12:00. 

The electrical shop has to connect the new power transformer at CES. This means we will have no AC power for ~8 hrs on Saturday, February 20

Is this date good for us to power down ALL equipment in the lab?

Rana:  Yes

I have installed a slow start throttle valve in front of V3  This spring loaded valve will cut down on the flow at high pressures. There will be no more sand storme

and static built-up during pump down.

IN VACUUM beam heights are ALL 5.5"  This is measured from the top of the optical table to the center of all TMs, mirrors and other optical components. This beam is ~36" above the floor.

PSL (inside of enclosure) main-output  beam: PMC, MZ, RC and ISS  are at 3" heights. IOO Angle & Position, MC-Trans and RFAM qpds are at 4"

ALL OTHER beam heights at atmosphere and  different ISCT (interferrometer sensing, control optical table)s are at 4"

Joe and Alex are working on the computers. Our vacuum system is temporary "All off" condition: meaning all valves are closed, so there is no pumping. cc1 = 1.6e-6 Torr

 Designated vacuum control lap top is trouble some to use. Joe finally fixed it and I switched valve configuration back to vacuum normal. Shutter is open

Since last Friday either the arms or the PRC can't lock.

The montors show the beam flashing on the end mirrors, but the cavity can't get locked. The error signal looks fine. I suspect a computer problem.

Also PRC can't lock. SPOB is suspiciously stuck at about -95. Although that's not a fixed number, but covering the by hand the SPOB PD on the ITMY table doesn't change the number. I check the DC output of the photodetector and it is actually seen the beam.

Suspecting computer problems started after last Thursday's IP switch, I rebooted the frame builder, c1dcuepics, c1daqctrl and all the front ends. I then burtrestored to February 1st at 1:00 am.

Before I burtrestored c1iscepics, SPOB had gone back to more typical numbers around 0, as it usually read when PRC wasn't locked.

But burtrestoring c1iscepics, return it to the -95 of earlier.

Burterestoring to other times or dates didn't solve the problems.

 Koji and I started poking around, trying to understand what was going on.  At first, we thought it might be related to a computer error, as it seemed.

Fortunately, Rob stopped by and explained that the boost stage of the filter comes under c1lsc control, and will be turned on or off depending on the power in the arms.  Although if you turn it off, it will remain off, it just if its manually selected on, it may go on or off.

Similarly, the output from the Xarm filter bank to the ETMX  filter input will be turned on or off depending on the power in the arm.

Anyways, the locking trouble turns out to be due to no RF sidebands at 33 MHz.  The output of the Marconi was unplugged.  I don't know who, or why did it, but I've plugged it in for now, so we can lock the arms.  Let us know if you need in unplugged.  Thanks.

Only the 40m cranes are running on 480VAC The electricians are rewiring this transformer on the mezzanine so it was shut down.

I tested all three cranes before the 480V power was turned off. The last thing to do with the cranes to wipe them down before use.

It will happen on next Tuesday morning.

As preparation for the upcoming planned power outage we turned turbos, RGA off and closed valves.

IFO chamber is not pumped now. Small leaks and out gassing will push the pressure up slowly. At 3 mTorr of P1 the PSL output shutter

will be closed by the interlock.

It is OK to use light in the IFO up to this point.

I set up instant green oplevs for ITMs.

A green laser pointer has been set on each end table. It illuminates the ITM center. The beam goea through the ETM substrate.
The reflected green beam returns to the ETM if the ITMs are aligned. Even though the reflected beam to the end is too big, this can
be a rough reference for each ITM.

Note: The green laser pointer at the ETMX were borrowed from Frank. We must return it to him when we finish the work.

Morning condition: vacuum rack power is still off, no MEDM screen reading.....meaning unknown vacuum pressure.We closed PSL shutter immediately.

Joe restored c1iscepis and Jenne powered up the vac-rack UPS. Now the rest of the vac-rack power were restored from starting at the top to bottom.

P1 was reading 15 mTorr.  We restarted pumps and  set vacuum valve positions. V1 opening required Rob's recipe of elog # 1863 to defeat interlock that

has a non communicating gauge: PTP1

CC1 pressure just reached 1e-6 Torr at VAC NORMAL configuration.

Kiwamu and Steve have started venting the 40m vacuum envelope.

Preparation:

centered oplevs at resonating cavities,

ITM references were set by green pointer from the ends by Koji,

closed  PSL shutter and placed manual block into beam path,

checked  jamnuts in locked positions on bellows,

turned  HV off at PZT-Jena "steering mirror" power supply and OMC HV ps

checked  particle counts,

switched oplev servos off,

set up N2 cylinder to start vent from 1e-6 Torr to 25 Torr,

have ~ 6 cylinders of instrument grade compressed air to bring envelope from 25 Torr to 760 Torr

All three cranes were wiped off today.

 Our vacuum was not pumped for 4 days. The computers were not up when we started pumping again. The manual reading on P1 was 15 mTorr.

This means that our outgassing plus leakrate is  ~3.8 mTorr /day 

3-5 mTorr / day is normal

I ran the start Apache script as described by Yoichi in the WIki. SVN back up.

The vent has been finished.

Now the pressure inside the chamber is 760 torr, and it's getting equilibrium with the atmospheric pressure.

Therefore we are ready and can open the door of the chamber tomorrow.

 Kiwamu has completed the vent.

Koji, Steve

ITMX OSEM CONFIGURATION

There is a planned power outage tomorrow, Saturday from 7am till midnight.

I vented all annulies and switched to ALL OFF configuration. The small region of the RGA is still under vacuum.

The vac-rack: gauges, c1vac1 and UPS turned off.

 Vac- rack is powered back up.  UPS first, than all other power switches from top to bottom of the rack, except Maglev

Manually started one by one TP2 and TP3  to accelerate to 50 KRPM

Brought up vac.control screen on lap-top at /cvs/cds/caltech/medm/c0/ve/VacControl_BAK.adl

V5 and VM3 were opened so TP3 can pump on the RGA

V4 was opened so TP2 can pump on the Maglev-TP1. The Maglev power was  turned on and started acceleration.

The vac control screen positions indicators were checked for true position and annulies vent valves were opened.

RGA manual on/off switch was turned at the top of the RGA-head. Ubuntu copmuter was started at cc4 1.1e-6 Torr

The RGA communication was started with:  ssh c0rga from control room

The rga-script was started ./RGAset.py     This script turns on the filament, rs-232 and scan parameters etc

Vac -configuration: IFO-P1 at atm, RGA is pumped and running in background mode, all annulos at atm

RGA scan of rga-region only at day 18   This is the back ground of the rga with some calibration gas.

We changed the pointer on /cvs/cds/caltech/target/gds/bin/awgtpman from

/opt/gds/awgtpman    to

/cvs/cds/caltech/target/gds/bin/awgtpman.091215.

Then killed the megatron framebuilder and testpoint manager (daqd, awgtpman), restarted, hit the daq reload button from the GDS_TP screen. 

This did not fix everything. However, it did seem to fix the problem where it needed a rtl_epics under the root directory which did not exist.  Alex continued to poke around.  When next he spoke, he claimed to have found a problem in the daqdrc file.  Specifically, the cvs/cds/caltech/target/fb/ daqdrc file.

set gds_server = "megatron" "megatron" 10 "megatron" 11;

He said this need to be:

set gds_server = "megatron" "megatron"  11 "megatron" 12;

However, during this, I had looked file, and found dataviewer working, while still with the 10 and 11.  Doing a diff on a backup of daqdrc, shows that Alex also changed

set controller_dcu=10  to set controller_dcu=12, and commented the previous line. 

He also changed set debug=2 to set debug=0.

In a quick test, we changed the 11 and 12 back to 10 and 11, and everything seemed to work fine.  So I'm not sure what that line actually does.  However, the set controller_dcu line seems to be important, and probably needs  to be set to the dcu id of an actually running module (it probably doesn't matter which one, but at least one that is up).  Anyways, I set the gds_server line back to 11 and 12, just in case there's numerology going on.

I'll add this information to the wiki.

Modified one of the PD assemblies carrying a large SI-Diode (~10mm diameter).

Removed elements used for resonant operation and changed PD readout to transimpedance

configuration. The opamp is a CLC409 with 240 Ohm feedback (i.e. transimpedance) resistor.

To prevent noise peaking at very high frequencies and get some decoupling of the PD,

I added a small series resistor in line with the PD and the inverting opamp input.

It was chosen as 13 Ohm, and still allows for operation up to ~100MHz.

Perhaps it could be smaller, but much more bandwith seems not possible with this opamp anyway.

Changes are marked in the schematic, and I list affected components here.

(Numbers refer to version 'PD327.SCH' from 30-April-1997):

-removed L4

-connected L3 (now open pad) via 100 Ohm to RF opamp output. This restores the DC sognal output.

-removed c17

-connected pin 3 of opamp via 25 Ohm to GND

-connected kathode of PD via 13 Ohm to pin 2 of opamp

-removed L6, C26, L5, C18, and C27

-shorted C27 pad to get signal to the RF output

Measured the optical TF with the test laser setup.

(Note that this is at 1064nm, although the PD is meant to work with green light at 532nm!)

Essentially it looks usable out to 100MHz, where the gain dropped only by about

6dB compared to 10MHz.

Beyond 100MHz the TF falls pretty steeply then, probably dominated by the opamp.

The maximal bias used is -150V.

If the bias is 'reduced' from -150V to -50V, the response goes down by 4dB at 10MHz and

by 9dB at 100MHz.

 The average output was 30mV at the RF output, corresponding to 60mV at the opamp output (50Ohm divider chain).

With 240 Ohm transimpedance this yields 250µA photo-current used for these transfer functions.

The periscope design for beam elevation of the green beams is posted. The design for the 90 deg steering version is also coming.

(2010-03-29: update drawings by daisuke)

90deg version: http://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8080/40m/2725

Here the design of the periscope for the 90 deg steering version is posted.

straight version http://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8080/40m/2709

Steve and Koji

WE started to build 5 TTs. 4 of them are used in the recycling cavities. One is the spare.

We built the structure and are building the cantilever springs.

[Rana, Alberto]

This evening we measured the noise spectrum of the reference cavity PD used in the FSS loop. From that we estimated the transimpedance and found that the PD is shot-noise limited. We also found a big AM oscillation in correspondence of the FSS modulation sideband which we later attenuated at least in part.

1. Supposing that the laser beam hitting the PD was shot noise limited, we measured 1.1V at the DC output. That let us estimate the photocurrent at DC of 20mA, for a 50Ohm output impedance.
2. The shot noise for 20mA is 80 pA/rtHz
3. From the nosie spectrum, we measured 3e-7 v/rtHz at 21.5MHz
4. The impedance at RF is then Z_rf = 3e-7 V/rtHz / 80e-12 pA ~ 4000 Ohm
5. Since the RF path inside the PD has a gain of 10, the transimpedance is ~400Ohm, which is about as we (ie Rana) remembered it to be.
6. The PD seems to be working fine.

Some more words about the RFAM: I noticed that there was an excess RFAM by unlocking the RC and just looking at the RF out with the 50 Ohm input of the scope. It was ~100 mVp-p! In the end our method to minimize the AM was not so sensible - we aligned the waveplate before the EOM so as to minimize the p-pol light transmitted by the PBS cube just ahead of the AOM. At first, this did not minimize the RFAM. But after I got angry at the bad plastic mounting of the EOM and re-aligned it, the AM seemed to be small with the polarization aligned to the cube. It was too small to measure on the scope and on the spectrum analyzer, the peak was hopping around by ~10-20 dB on a few second timescale. Further reduction would require some kind of active temperature stabilization of the EOM housing (maybe a good SURF project!).

For the EOM mount we (meaning Steve) should replace the lame 2-post system that's in there with one of the mounts of the type that is used in the Mach-Zucker EOMs. I think we have spare in the cabinet next to one of the arms.

After the RFAM monkeying, I aligned the beam to the RC using the standard, 2-mirror, beam-walking approach. You can see from the attached plot that the transmission went up by ~20% ! And the reflection went down by ~30%. I doubt that I have developed any new alignment technique beyond what Yoichi and I already did last time. Most likely there was some beam shape corruption in the EOM, or the RFAM was causing us to lock far off the fringe. Now the reflected beam from the reference cavity is a nice donut shape and we could even make it better by doing some mode matching! This finally solves the eternal mystery of the bad REFL beam (or at least sweeps it under the rug).

At the end, I also fixed the alignment of the RFPD. It should be set so the incident angle of the beam is ~20-40 deg, but it was instead set to be near normal incidence ?! Its also on flimsy plastic legs. Steve, can you please replace this with the new brass ones?

The units on this plot are completely bogus - we know that the thermal noise from the resonant part of the circuit is just V = sqrt(4*k*T*Z) ~ 3nV/rHz. Then the gain of the MAX4107 stage is 10. The output resistor is 50 Ohms, which forms a divide by 2 with the input impedance of the spectrum analyzer and so the bump in the dark noise should only be 15 nV/rHz and not microVolts.

 I was aware of a problem on those units since I acquired the data. Then it wasn't totally clear to me which were the units of the data as downloaded from the Agilent 4395A, and, in part, still isn't.

It's clear that the data was in units of spectrum, an not spectral density: in between the two there is a division by the bandwidth (100KHz, in this case). Correcting for that, one gets the following plot for the FSS PD:

Although the reason why I was hesitating to elog this other plot is that it looks like there's still a discrepancy of about 0.5dBm between what one reads on the display of the spectrum analyzer and the data values downloaded from it.

However I well know that, I should have just posted it, including my reserves about that possible offset (as I'm doing now).

All the details and data will be included in the wiki page (and so also the results for AS55). Here I just show the comparison of the transfer functions that I measured and that I modeled.

I applied an approximate calibration to the data so that all the measurements would refer to the transfer function of Vout / PD Photocurrent. Here's how they look like. (also the calibration will be explained in the wiki)

.

The ratio between the amplitude of the 55Mhz modulation over the 11MHz is ~ 90dB

The electronics TF doesn't provide a faithful reproduction of the optical response.

In order to measure the transfer function of the RC cavity's foam, I've turned off the servo so that the room temperature noise can excite it.

The attached plot shows a step response test from 2 weeks ago. Servo is nominally still working fine.

I went to Ottavia, and tried running yum update.  It was having dependancy issues with mjpegtools, which was a rpmforge provided package.  In order to get it to update, I moved the rpmforge priority above (a lower number) that of epel ( epel -> 20 from 10, rpmforge -> 10 to 20).  This resolved the problem and the updates proceeded (all 434 of them). yum update on Ottavia now reports nothing needs to be done.

I went to Rosalba and found rpmfusion repositories enabled.  The only one of the 3 repositories in each file enabled was the first one.

I then added priority listing to all the repositories on Rosalba.  I set CentOS-Base and related to priority=1.  I set CentOS-Media.repo priority to 1 (although it is disabled - just to head off future problems). I set all epel related to priorities to 20. I set all rpmforge related priorities to 10.  I set all rpmfusion related priorities to 30, and left the first repo in rpmfusion-free-updates and rpmfusion-nonfree-updates were enabled.  All other rpmfusion testing repositories were disabled by me.

I then had to by hand downgrade expat to expat-1.95.8-8.3.el5_4.2.x86_64 (the rpmforge version).  I also removed and reinstalled x264.x86_64.  Lastly I removed and reinstalled lyx. yum update was then run and completed successfully.

I installed yum-priorities on Allegra and made all CentOS-Base repositories priority 1. I similarly made the still disabled CentOS-Media priority 1.  I made all epel related repos priority 20.  I made all lscsoft repos priority=50 (not sure why its on Allegra and none of the other ones).  I made all rpmforge priorities 10.  I then ran "yum update" which updated 416 packages.

So basically all the Centos control room machines are now using the following order for repositories:

CentOS-Base > rpmforge > epel > (rpmfusion - rosalba only) > lscsoft (allegra only)

I'm not sure if rpmfusion and lscsoft are necessary, but I've left them for now.  This should mean "yum update" will have far fewer problems in the future.

I've added a new page in the wiki which describes the current naming scheme for the .mdl model files used for the real time code generator.  Note, that these model names do not necessarily have to be the names of the channels contained within.  Its still possible to make all suspension related channels start with C1:SUS- for example.  I'm also allocating 1024 8 byte channels for shared memory address space for each controller and each simulated plant.

The wiki page is here

Name suggestions, other front end models that are needed long term (HEPI is listed for example, even though we don't have it here, since in the long run we'd like to port the simulated plant work to the sites) are all welcome.