ELOG 40m

ETMY damping / watchdogs

Steve has noted that ETMY was often tripping its watchdog. I saw this again today.

So I checked the damping settings. Someone had set the SIDE gain to +1. The gain which gives
it a Q of ~10 is +10. I set the SIDE gain to +20. I checked and the ETMX gain is -16 so now
they're at least similar. I have updated the snapshot to reflect the new value.

Hopefully now it will be more well behaved.

137

Wed Nov 28 21:51:52 2007

I replaced the front-end differential receivers for the ISS's "inner-loop" sensor and monitor diode inputs with lower-noise THS4131's (formerly THS4151's). I verified operation by taking the transfer function from the "PD+" and "PD-" inputs (separately) to the testpoint following the differential receiver; the surgery appears successful.

I measured the dark spectra at the ISS's DC PD BNC ports and found a noise floor of ~ 16 nV/rtHz, compared with a floor of ~ 22 nV/rtHz last week. This seems to add up, assuming the DC PD port has 0dB gain: the 4131 has a rated noise of 1.3 nV/rtHz and the 4151 a noise floor of 7.6 nV/rtHz, a difference of 6 nV/rtHz. The other change made in that time was to add a larger power supply bypass capacitor in the PD.

There are two of the old 4151 chips still on the ISS board on the two "outer-loop" channels that we don't use. If I dig up any more 5131's I will replace these too for completeness.

There is currently no light on the ISS diodes; I'm not sure where it's intended to come from.

138

Thu Nov 29 10:36:47 2007

alberto

Agilent 82357B GPIB to USB Interface Installation Procedeure

To run the Agilent Automation-Ready CD provided with the interface is only the first step of the installation. Apparently there should be also a second CD with the drivers for Windows XP but I couldn't find it. So, after Installaing the IO Libraries Suite from the CD, I had to install the drivers with an executable downloaded from the Agilent's website at:

http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/editorial.jspx?cc=US&lc=eng&ckey=1188958&nid=-35199.0.00&id=1188958

and only then I could plug in the interface.
Anyway, I burned a cd with the file and put it together with the other one.

140

Thu Nov 29 14:29:22 2007

tobin

linux1 httpd/conlogger fixed

I think I fixed the conlogger web interface on linux1.

Steps necessary to do this:
0. Run "/etc/init.d/httpd start" to start up httpd right now
1. Run "/usr/sbin/ntsysv" and configure httpd to be started automatically in the future
2. Copy /cvs/cds/caltech/conlogger/bin/conlog_web.pl to /var/www/cgi-bin and chown to controls
8. Hack the conlog_web.pl to (0) use /usr/bin/perl (1) not use Apache::Util, and (2) function with the newer version of CGI.pm
9. Enjoy!

The following steps are optional, and may be inserted between steps 2 and 8:
3. Try to install Apache::Util (via "perl -MCPAN -e shell" followed by "Install Apache::Util")
4. Notice that the installation dies because there is no C compiler installed
5. Bang head in disgust and abomination over a Linux distribution shipping without a C compiler installed by default
6. "yum install gcc"
7. Annoyed by further dependencies, go to step 8

141

Thu Nov 29 15:17:53 2007

I put some ISS beam on the diode on the PSL table. In the previous layout, this was the monitor diode (and it's labeled monitor) but I plugged it into the sensor jack anyways so we can run with the loop closed for now; we can just switch the cables later. The reason the beam was unclear is because someone popped up a flipper mirror which redirects the beam from the ISS into an OSA.

With the ISS gain slider at 15 dB the UGF is around 40kHz.

Why do we have such short cables for the ISS diodes?

145

Fri Nov 30 11:44:57 2007

In the interests of getting the Xarm alignment script working again, I reset the local damping gains for the test masses to their previous known working values (1), then I noticed that the ETMX oplev was dead. Since the scripts use the oplev motion as a readback for the optic motion, this means the script was basically blindly swinging the optics around. Some monkeying around with swapping HeNe power supplies eventually led to the conclusion that the power strip is funky, since the laser works when plugged into another power strip. Even weirder, the HeNe and the power supply indicator light have some sort of XOR relationship going on. When one works, the other doesn't. Steve will sort out this confusion later; we're good for now.

146

Fri Nov 30 13:46:50 2007

Electronics

ETMX oplev dead again

Quote:

Ech. The HeNe quit again. Let's replace it and see what happens.

147

Fri Nov 30 19:11:05 2007

rana

Electronics

ETMX oplev dead again

I removed the ETMX HeNe and put in on a test table and it fired up fine. In its
previous location the light on the HeNe power supply was not lighting up. If
that's still on over the weekend we'l blame the power strip; the HeNe is a JDS
2.7 mW laser from 2002.

148

Fri Nov 30 19:29:14 2007

Andrey is working on a new screen to show us the drift of the optics by alarming on
their osem values. You can find it under SUS as 'Drift Mon' from the site map.

To aid in this I ran the following csh commands which effect all optics:

foreach opt (ETMX ETMY ITMX ITMY MC1 MC2 MC3 BS PRM SRM)
  foreach dof (POS PIT YAW)
     ezcawrite C1:SUS-${opt}_SUS${dof}_INMON.PREC 0
  end
end

This should make the DOF readouts more readable.

149

Fri Nov 30 19:46:58 2007

The time on the EPICS screens is off by 10 minutes again. Por Que?

Its because the ntpd on scipe25 wasn't restarted after the last boot. If someone
knows how to put the ntpd startup into that machine, please do so.

This time I started it up by just going sshing in as controls and then entering:

sudo /usr/sbin/ntpd -c /etc/ntp.conf

which runs it as root and points to the right file.

It takes a few minutes to get going because all of the martian machines have to first fail to
connect to the worldwide pool servers (e.g. 0.pool.ntp.org) before they move on and try linux1
which has a connection to the world. Once it gets it you'll see the time on the EPICS screens
freeze. It then waits until the ntp time catches up with its old, wrong time before updating
again.

According to the Wikipedia, this time is then good to 128 ms or less.

151

Fri Nov 30 20:17:26 2007

Accelerometers and alum.plates for them

All 6 accelerometers which were located near the ITMX are turned off and disconnected from the power cords.
Actually these accelerometers are now in the office area on the electronics bench (to the left from Steve Vass' place).

I made today 4 new aluminum mounting plates for the accelerometers (I drilled holes and made threads in them). On Monday I will buy short screws and install accelerometers on these new mounting plates. These mounting plates will be screwed directly into the metallic frame which is firmly cemented to the ground. Before yesterday accelerometers were mounted on top of blue stack towers, not on the ground directly, so we hope that new measurements of the ground noise will be more realistic.

The 4 mounting plates are on the same desk -> on the electronics bench (to the left from Steve Vass' place). Please do not displace them.

Attached is a drawing of the aluminum mountain plate.

Attachment 1: Scheme_Aluminum_Piece-inches.pdf

154

Sun Dec 2 21:02:12 2007

The spot on MC2 was not centered, so I put it back in the center:

Made sure MC trans was high with the WFS off.
Moved the Sliders on the MC Align screen until spot was centered (by eye)
Moved some more until power was maximized.
Unlock MC
Center spots on McWFS
Re-enable autolocker and McWFS loops.

155

Sun Dec 2 21:07:39 2007

you asked for:   diff 2007/12/01,4:58:48 2007/12/03,4:58:48 utc 'MC.*COMM'
LIGO controls: differences, 2007 12/01 04:58:48 utc vs. 2007 12/03 04:58:48 utc
__Epics_Channel_Name______   __Description__________   __value1____     __value2____
C1:SUS-MC1_YAW_COMM                                    -0.273460        -0.503460
C1:SUS-MC2_PIT_COMM                                     3.624020         3.632020
C1:SUS-MC2_YAW_COMM                                    -0.936800        -1.038800
C1:SUS-MC3_YAW_COMM                                    -3.129000        -3.369000

156

Sun Dec 2 21:13:16 2007

Attachment 1: e.png

Mon Dec 3 19:44:58 2007

Accelerometers on new mounts

I (Andrey) continued today working with new accelerometer mounting. (see entry #151 about my Friday work).

I bought screws/washers and attached those mounts with accelerometers to metallic frames which are firmly cemented to the floor.

One such mount with three accelerometers (in X-, Y-, Z-directions) is installed near the ITMX (in the previous location, but NOT on top of the unused stack as before Friday), the other mount with three accelerometers in three orthogonal directions is installed near ETMX in the east end of the room (this set of accelerometers was installed between MC and BS before Friday). I uncoiled the cables, put them into the cable tray towards the ETMX, and hooked-up the three accelerometers near ETMX in the east end of the room.

Now all six accelerometers are hooked-up (that is, connected to power supply board with cables).

We decided with Steve Vass to put red cones (similar to those that are on highways in the road construction zones) in order to prevent people from bumping into accelerometers. Please use caution when walking along the X-arm.

I took several pictures of the new accelerometer setup. Picture "DSC_0194.JPG" shows the mount with accelerometers near the the ITMX and the beamsplitter chamber,
picture "DSC_0195.JPG" is the "zoomed-in" view of the same accelerometers, while picture "DSC_0196.JPG" shows the mount with accelerometers near ETMX in the east end of the room.

Many thanks to Mr. Steve Vass for his thorough explanation/showing me how to drill the metal and put threads in the holes.

Attachment 1: DSC_0194.JPG

Attachment 2: DSC_0195.JPG

Attachment 3: DSC_0196.JPG

162

Mon Dec 3 22:20:09 2007

I replaced the painfully short 1' cables on the ISS photodiodes with luxurious five foot cables, made by chopping a ten foot Amphenol cable (P/N:CS-DSPMDB09MM-010) in half and using each half for one of the diodes. All of the ISS GND connections are wired to the PD GND, as is the PD- differential signal. The diodes are installed on the PSL table, but I have not tested them beyond looking at the DC values as I blocked/unblocked the beam.

172

Wed Dec 5 23:19:03 2007

Accelerometers are turned on

All accelerometers have been turned on, as Alan asked during Wednesday meeting.

Typical power spectra and coherence plots are attached below.

"East" in the name means that the previous location of accelerometrs was to the east from "Beamsplitter" (the location for "east" accelerometers was not changed, actually, it is still near ITMX), while "west" means that previously accelerometers were to the west from the BS, but now their new location is near the ETMX.

I will change the names of the channels tomorrow (Thursday) when someone (Tobin?) will show to me how to do it.

P.S. (addition made on Dec. 19th, 2007, by Andrey) I intended to change the names of accelerometers the next day, Thursday Dec. 06,
but I did not do it that day (did not understand how to do it), then I fell ill, and eventually
I changed the names of accelerometers on December 19th, see entry to ELOG #204)

Attachment 1: Power_Sp_and_Coh_XY-EAST.pdf

Attachment 2: Coherence-ZX_East.pdf

Attachment 3: Coherence-ZY_East.pdf

Attachment 4: Power_Sp_WEST.pdf

Attachment 5: Coherence-ZX_West.pdf

Attachment 6: Coherence-XY_West.pdf

Attachment 7: Coherence-YZ_West.pdf

176

Thu Dec 6 19:19:47 2007

Suspension damping Gain was restored

Suspension damping gain was disabled for some reason (all the indicators in the most right part of the screen C1SUS_ETMX.adl were red), it is now restored.

186

Mon Dec 10 19:08:03 2007

tobin

PSL

The MZ seems finicky today--it keeps unlocking and relocking.

I've temporarily blocked one of the MZ arms while I work on the ISS.

187

Mon Dec 10 20:35:59 2007

tobin

autolocking scripts

I added this tidbit of csh code to the MZ autolocker to prevent multiple copies from running (on one computer):

if (`pgrep lockMZ | wc -l` > 1) then
   echo lockMZ is already running! 
   exit
endif

Similarly, here's some bash code that does something similar; I'll add it to the other autolocker scripts:

if                                                                                                                       
  pgrep `basename $0` | grep -v $$ > /dev/null                                                                           
then                                                                                                                     
  echo Another copy of this program is already running.  Exiting!                                                        
  exit 1                                                                                                                 
fi

This code searches for all processes with the same name as this script ($0) and then use grep to exclude (-v) the current process ID ($$).

191

Thu Dec 13 23:56:02 2007

Overnight measurements

After my disease (fever, vomitting, nose problem, overall weakness) I returned to LIGO today for the first time after the weekend, and I am running the script for the XARM-measurements over this night.

So, suspension dumping gains should undergo changes in the interval from 1 to 10 in both ITMX and ETMX.

XARM has been of course locked.

I started running the script for the first time at about 10PM, but I realized after an hour and a half that my step of gain increase 0.2 was too shallow, too small to execute my program during one night. Therefore, I needed to terminate the program, change my program so that it increases the gain with increment 0.5, not 0.2, and started it again around midnight.

Going home.

P.S. The red pump that I borrowed from the lab (Steve's pump?) is back at its previous place. The tire-worker tells me that I absolutely need to change all four tires for almost 500 dollars. I regret a lot about that huge money loss.

194

Mon Dec 17 23:42:08 2007

Overnight measurements in X-arm

I am making overnight measurements this night (from Monday to Tuesday) in XARM.

The X-arm is now locked, and the values for suspension damping gain will be changed in the interval from 1 to 7 with the step 0.5 in both ITMX and ETMX.

This is the second, repeated measurement. The results of the first measurement from Saturday to Sunday night will be reported in the separate ELOG entry (sorry, I did not make an ELOG entry on Saturday evening about running the program overnight).

The very first attempt to run the script in the night from Thursday to Friday was not successful.

198

Tue Dec 18 23:27:36 2007

New overnight measurements (this night from Tue to Wed)

I am making overnight measurements in XARM tonight.

This is the third night of measurements in XARM, but tonight I am scanning the narrower region between values of damping gain 1.00 and 4.50 with the smaller step 0.25. (for comparison, during two previous measurements the region was between 1.0 and 7.0 with the step 0.5).

I have relocked the XARM before the start of the measurements.

I started running the program at 9.30PM, and it should collect all the data by 9.00AM wednesday morning.

Below are explanations why I chose these different parameters for the interval and step:

I am going to put the results of previous night measurements into the next ELOG entry, and it we be pretty obvious from those graphs that results in XARM from the two previous (different) nights agree well with each other, and the approximate positions of minima and areas of "big growth" of the surfaces are pretty obvious from those graphs. It is clear that RMS are too big for the values of the damping gain bigger than 4.0, and that minima are somewhere near the values of 2.0. But those graphs were too rough to locate a somewhat precise value for the minima. Therefore, I am studying tonight the interval of gains between 1.00 and 4.50 with a smaller step.

A short note how I estimate time that is necessary to collect the experimental data.

there are 15 experimental points for each ETMX and ITMX suspension gains in the interval between 1.00 and 4.50 with the step 0.25. They are: 1.00, 1.25, 1.50, 1.75, 2.00, ..., 3.75, 4.00, 4.25, 4.50. As I am changing both ETMX and ITMX gains, I have an array of 15*15=225 elements.
It takes 3 minutes for each point to collect the data (I wrote the program that way). Therefore, the total time it takes to run the program is: 225*3=675 minutes, or 675/60=11.25 hours, almost 11 and a half hours.

211

Sat Dec 22 00:52:57 2007

In an attempt to quell oscillations in the (unused) outer loop portion of the ISS, I shorted the "PD+" and "PD-" signals from the (nonexistent) outer-loop diodes, and soldered in 47pf compensation capacitors in C92 and C220. This seems to have eliminated oscillations seen at TP41 and TP42. There's still something amiss at TP30 and maybe TP20. Otherwise, the ISS seems happy. I can turn the gain slider to +15dB without saturation (with the HEPA off), though there seems to be less light on the diode (~3.9V) than a week or two ago.

238

Mon Jan 14 23:11:26 2008

John and I removed the fiber that ran from the SP table to the cleanroom. We plan to build a MZ interferometer with this fiber inserted into one of the arms, for the purpose of measuring its phase noise.

243

Wed Jan 16 19:57:49 2008

Here's a photo of the ISCT_EX table, for the purpose of planning our auxiliary laser arm locking scheme. Note the (undumped!) beam from the beamsplitter before QPDX (the leftmost gold-colored box); perhaps we could inject there.

Attachment 1: trx-annotated-small.jpg

250

Fri Jan 18 20:53:56 2008

I monkeyed around with the ETMY oplev, adding a folding mirror and moving the HeNe so that John, Sam, and I have more room for our auxiliary laser setup. (The ISCT-EY has more room than ISCT-EX; the latter has an extra photodiode for IP ANG.) I believe I successfully recommissioned the oplev, though it might not be up to the SV standard. I verified that wiggling the ETMY alignment sliders showed corresponding wiggles in the oplev signals. However, it seems poorly diagonalized.

Our current plan is to have an NPRO, EOM, and fiber coupler on the SP table. This fiber will take light to ISCT-EY where we'll have a mode-matching telescope and inject light to the Y arm via a polarized beamsplitter. This auxiliary beam will have polarization orthogonal to the beam from the PSL.

260

Thu Jan 24 20:03:40 2008

Changes to Dataviewer channels (XARM)

1) Good news. I added a chanel "C1:SUS-ETMX_POS" to Dataviewer.

I followed the instructions from WIKI-40:

modify the file "C1SUS_EX.ini" in /cvs/cds/caltech/chans/daq,
then telnet to fb40m,
then "click the appropriate blue button on the DAQ MEDM screen".

So, I can now read a signal from the channel "C1:SUS-ETMX_POS" in Dataviewer,

and this allows me to measure Q-factors of ETMX this evening (make similar work for what I did on Tuesday for ITMX).

2) BAD NEWS. While "clicking the appropriate blue button" on the DAQ MEDM screen,
namely CODAQ_DETAIL,adl screen, I obviously clicked some blue button that I should not have clicked,
and as a result the signal in Dataviewer from the channel "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS" has disappeared (it is now a straight line).

Description of what has happened and of my wrong actions:
I had two channels opened in Dataviewer simultaneously (both "C1:SUS-ETMX_POS" and "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS"),
and after clicking some blue button on CODAQ_DETAIL,adl screen, the signal from "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS" became
a straight line, while signal from "C1:SUS_ETMX_POS" continued to be a random noise.

I was scared that I made worse for the channels and for Dataviewer, and I started clicking random blue buttons chaotically hoping that it will restore the signal from "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS". Random clicking on arbitrary blue buttons did not return the signal.

As the channel "C1:SUS-ETMX_POS" works normally, I will be measuring Q-factors of ETMX tonight,
but it is obvious that someone else (Rana, Robert,Steve?) needs to restore the correct settings for "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS".

Moreover, as I was clicking chaotically all the blue buttons on CODAQ_DETAIL,adl screen, someone else (Rana, Robert, Steve?) will need to check somehow that I did not destroy signals from some other channels.

I apologize for the negative consequences of my channel adding,

but Rana asked me in the very beginning in September to let others know if I spoil something, so that others would be aware of it and could fix the problem.

Again, I apologize and hope that the problem is not very serious.

261

Thu Jan 24 22:10:49 2008

Problem with channels - help of Rana, Robert or Steve is needed

I definitely spoiled something (changes some settings) by chaotically clicking those blue buttons (see my previous entry # 260).

Unfortunately, I cannot use standard library of functions for reading from channels from mDV directory.

Although I see the curve of a noise in the Dataviewer from the channel "Ch1:SUS_ETMX_POS", when I try to read data from the channel using the program "get_data" from MDV directory, I get the error message
"Warning: No data available for [numbers representing "gps_start_time" and "gps_end_time"].
In new_readframedata at 136
In new_fetch_shourov at 71
In get_data at 98"

I checked, both gps-times are in the past from now, so as far I understand, nothing is recorded into the channels.
Of course, I added two hours ago to the directory "mDV", that is I used addpath(pwd) in that directory.

And I also cannot run the program that I used on Tuesday evening which takes data from "C1:SUS_ITMX_POS" (no data from that channel), which worked perfectly on Tuesday.

I again apologize for clicking the wrong blue button (see my explanation in my previous message #260). I ask someone who knows how to return normal working of channels (normal interaction of computer and channel memory) to do that.

Before that I cannot take data. I do not know how to restore the initial settings which existed before I started adding the channel to Dataviewer.

Andrey.

263

Fri Jan 25 08:55:26 2008

Changes to Dataviewer channels (XARM)

General

As a general rule,

Quote:

clicking random blue buttons chaotically

is not a good problem solving technique. It is thus now explicitly discouraged as an option in the LIGO 40m Lab.

265

Fri Jan 25 10:14:35 2008

Changes to Dataviewer channels (XARM)

Quote:

2) BAD NEWS. While "clicking the appropriate blue button" on the DAQ MEDM screen,
namely CODAQ_DETAIL,adl screen, I obviously clicked some blue button that I should not have clicked,
and as a result the signal in Dataviewer from the channel "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS" has disappeared (it is now a straight line).

Description of what has happened and of my wrong actions:
I had two channels opened in Dataviewer simultaneously (both "C1:SUS-ETMX_POS" and "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS"),
and after clicking some blue button on CODAQ_DETAIL,adl screen, the signal from "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS" became
a straight line, while signal from "C1:SUS_ETMX_POS" continued to be a random noise.

I was scared that I made worse for the channels and for Dataviewer, and I started clicking random blue buttons chaotically hoping that it will restore the signal from "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS". Random clicking on arbitrary blue buttons did not return the signal.

As the channel "C1:SUS-ETMX_POS" works normally, I will be measuring Q-factors of ETMX tonight,
but it is obvious that someone else (Rana, Robert,Steve?) needs to restore the correct settings for "C1:SUS-ITMX_POS".

Moreover, as I was clicking chaotically all the blue buttons on CODAQ_DETAIL,adl screen, someone else (Rana, Robert, Steve?) will need to check somehow that I did not destroy signals from some other channels.

I apologize for the negative consequences of my channel adding,

but Rana asked me in the very beginning in September to let others know if I spoil something, so that others would be aware of it and could fix the problem.

I eventually resolved the situation by restarting the c1susvme1 processor, which had somehow got confused by the clicking random blue buttons chaotically. The data acquisition should be working again.

266

Fri Jan 25 11:38:16 2008

Working GiGE video on Linux - sort of

1)I have been able to compile the SampleViewer program which can stream the video from the Prosilica 750C camera. This was accomplished on my 64-bit laptop running Ubuntu, after about 3 hours of explicitly converting strings to wxStrings and back again within the C++ code. (There was probably an easier way to simply overload the functions that were being called, but I wasn't sure how to go about doing so). By connecting it to the CDS network, I was able to immediately detect the camera and display the images.

Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to get it to compile on Mafalda with the x86 architecture. This may be do the fact that it has wxWidgets version 2.8.7 while my laptop has 2.8.4. Certainly the failure at compile time looks different from the errors earlier, and seem to be within the wxWidget code rather than the SampleViewer code. I may simply need to uninstall 2.8.7 and install 2.8.4 of wxWidgets.

The modified code that will compile on my machine has been copied to /cvs/cds/caltech/target/Prosilica/examples/SampleViewer2b.

2)The Snap program (under /cvs/cds/caltech/target/Prosilica/examples/Snap) also will now take full resolution images even on Mafalda. This was achieved by reducing the packet size to 1000 and also increasing the wait until timeout time up to 400 ms, which originally was at 100. Apparently, it takes on the order of 1 ms per packet as far as I can tell. So full resolution at 752x480 required something of order 360 packets.

To Do:
1) Get sample viewer to compile on Mafalda, and then statically compile it so it can be run from any Linux based machine.
2) Get a user friendly version of Snap up and running, statically compiled, with options for a continuous loop every X seconds and also to set desired parameters (such as height, width, file name to save to, save format, etc).
3) Figure out data analysis with the images in Matlab and an after the fact image viewer.

Attached is an example .tiff image from the Snap program.

Attachment 1: snap.tiff

267

Fri Jan 25 13:36:13 2008

Working GiGE video on Mafalda

Finally got the GiGE camera sample viewer video running on Mafalda by updating to the latest API (version 1.16 from Dec 16, 2007) from Prosilica and then using the modified Sample Viewer code I had written. The API version previously in cvs was 1.14.

It can currently be run by ssh -X into Mafalda and going to /cvs/cds/caltech/target/Prosilica/bin-pc/x86 and running the SampleViewer executable found there.

269

Fri Jan 25 17:11:07 2008

Max , Andrey

NEW_FETCH_SHOUROV and GET_DATA do not work

General

The problem which started yesterday after Andrey's framebuilder restart still persists.

It is still impossible to read data in the past from the channels using "get_data" which in turn uses "new_fetch_shourov".

Max was trying to read data from the channel
"C1:LSC-DARM_CTRL",

and he got the same error messages as Andrey.

Andrey tried earlier today to read data from "C1:SUS-ITMS_SUS" or "C1:SUS-ETMX_SUS" with the error meassge
Error in ==> new_fetch_shourov at 22
at (start_time+duration) > stops(end)

So, it seems that Robert Ward fixed just one problem out of two problems.

Robert revived the realtime signals in Dataviewer,
but did not revive the memory of channels for new_fetch_shourov.

To be more precise, channels have memory (it is possible to see the "Playback" curves in Dataviewer"),
but "get_data" and "new_fetch_shourov" do not see the data from those channels. The problem appeared immediately after Andrey's clicking on blue buttons to restart the framebuilder.

Andrey again apologizes.

281

Mon Jan 28 17:16:54 2008

Matlab libraries DO NOT WORK properly sometimes

Working in Matlab, I encountered at two different times today the license distribution problem:

??? License checkout failed.
License Manager Error -4
Maximum number of users for Curve_Fitting_Toolbox reached.
Try again later.
To see a list of current users use the lmstat utility or contact your License Administrator.

Troubleshoot this issue by visiting:
http://www.mathworks.com/support/lme4a

288

Thu Jan 31 12:39:14 2008

John

General

Y arm test mass cameras

I've adjusted the test mass cameras on the y arm to make the beam injected through ETMY more visible.

289

Thu Jan 31 16:53:41 2008

Improving camera user interface

There's a new and improved version of Snap program at the moment people are free to play with.

Located in /cvs/cds/caltech/target/Prosilica/40mCode/

The program Snap now has a -h or --help option which describes some basic command line arguments. The height (in pixels), width (in pixels), exposure time (in micro seconds), file name to be saved to (in .tiff format), and packet size can all be set. The format type (i.e. pixel format such as Mono8 or Mono16) doesn't work at the moment.

At the moment, it only runs on mafalda.

Currently in the process of adding a loop option which will take images every X seconds, saving them to a given file name and then appending the time of capture to the file name.

After that need to add the ability to identify and choose the camera you want (as opposed to the first one it finds).

Lastly, I've been finding on occassion that the frame fails to save. However if you try again a few seconds later with the exact same parameters, it generally does save the second time. Not sure whats causing this, whether on the camera or network side of things.

I've attached two images, the first at default exposure time (15,000 microseconds) and the second at 1/5th that time (3,000 microseconds).
The command line used was "./Snap -E 3000 -F 'Camera_exp_3000.tiff' "

Attachment 1: Camera_exp_15000.tiff

Attachment 2: Camera_exp_3000.tiff

292

Fri Feb 1 15:04:54 2008

Snap with looping functionality available

New GiGE camera code is available in /cvs/cds/caltech/target/Prosilica/40mCode/. Currently only runs on Mafalda.

Snap has expanded functionality to continuously loop infinitely or for a maximum number of images set by the user. File names generated with the loop option have the current Unix time and .tiff appended to them. So -f './test' will produce tiff files with format "test1234567.tiff". The -l option sets the number of seconds between images.

"./Snap -l 5 -i -f './test' " will cause the program to infinitely loop, saving images every 5 seconds. Using "-m 10" instead of "-i" will take a series of 10 images every 5 seconds (so taking a total of 50 seconds to run).

It also now defaults to 16-bit (in reality only 10 bit) output instead of 8 bit output. You can select between the two with -F 'Mono8' or -F 'Mono16'.

Use --help for a full list of options.

Note that if you ctrl-c out of the loop, you may need to run ./ResetCamera 131.215.113.104 (or whatever the IP is - use ./ListCameras to determine IP if necessary) in order to reset the camera because it doesn't close out elegantly at the moment.

297

Tue Feb 5 15:32:29 2008

PMC and the GigE Camera

The PMC transmission video camera has been removed and replaced with the GigE GC750 camera for the moment.

A ND4.0 filter has been added in the path to that camera to reduce saturation for the moment.

The old camera has been placed on the elevated section inside the enclosure, and the cable for it is still on the table proper.

The Gige camera is currently running the Snap code on Linux3 with the following command line:

./Snap -E 2000 -l 60 -m 1440 -f './pmc_trans/pmc_trans'

So its going to be taking tiff images every minute for the next 24 hours into the cvs/cds/caltech/target/Prosilica/40mCode/pmc_trans/ directory.

Attached is an example image with exposure set to 2000, loaded into matlab and plotted with the surf command. 2500 microseconds looked like it was still saturating, but this seems to be a good level (with a max of 58560 out of 65535).

Attachment 1: pmc_trans.jpg

298

Tue Feb 5 17:39:05 2008

jweiner

PEM-AS_MIC taken down from AS table, will put in PSL enclosure soon

I took down the microphone that Andrey hung above the AS table his first week in lab. I want to hang the microphone above the PMC to check the effect of acoustic noise on the PMC. The cables were a little more tangled than I thought so I've only taken the microphone down and haven't hung it back up yet, but on Thursday I'll have enough time to carefully put it up inside the PSL and see what I can find out about acoustic noise inside the PSL. I think the microphone should be sensitive enough for the frequencies we're interested in, and I'll hopefully find out if it's sufficient once I put it up in the PSL. The microphone cable and microphone are on top of the PSL for now.

300

Wed Feb 6 16:50:47 2008

Regions of Interest and max frame rate

The Snap code has once again been modified such that setting the -l option to 0 will take images as fast as possible. Also, the -H and -W options set the height and width, while in principle the -Y and -X options set the position in pixels of the top edge and left edge of the image. It also seems possible to set these values such that the saved image wraps around. I'll be adding some command checking so that the user can't do this in the near future.

Doing some timed runs, using a -H 350 and -W 350 (as opposed to the full 752x480), 100 images can be saved in roughly 8 seconds, and 1000 images took about 73 seconds. This corresponds to a frame rate of about 12-13 frames per second (or a 12-13 Hz display). The size of this area was sufficient to cover the current PMC transmission beam.

The command line I used was

time ./Snap -l 0 -m 1000 -f 'test' -W 350 -H 350 -Y 50 -X 350 -E 2000

Interestingly enough, there would be bursts of failed frame saves if I executed commands in another terminal (such as using ls on the directory where the files were being stored).

As always, this code is available in /cvs/cds/caltech/target/Prosilica/40mCode/.

301

Wed Feb 6 19:39:11 2008

rana

Regions of Interest and max frame rate

We really need to look into making the 40m CDS network have an all GigE backbone so that we can have cooler cameras as well as collect multiple datastreams...

303

Fri Feb 8 17:55:53 2008

josh

PEM-AS_MIC now in PSL enclosure

I have moved the microphone to the PSL enclosure, hanging near the south (Y) side from a support rod for the overhanging storage area so that it's reasonably close to the PMC. I've fastened it in many places using cable ties to make sure that it won't fall.

Alberto helped me solder together a female BNC-female 3.5 mm stereo adapter so that I can use the DAQ to output through BNC to PC speakers. My plan is do sweep sine output through PC speakers to find the transfer function of sound from outside the enclosure to inside the enclosure and by moving the microphone more centrally over the PSL table, check if there are any strong resonances. Hopefully I can use this technique at other places around the interferometer or measure the effect of installing acoustic foam.

307

Sun Feb 10 21:43:16 2008

I adjusted the alignment of the free hanging mode cleaner to best transmit the PSL beam.

309

Mon Feb 11 22:44:29 2008

Change in channel trending on C1SUS2

DAQ

I removed the MC2 optical lever related channels from trends, and the SRM POUT and YOUT (as these are redundant if we're also trending PERROR and YERROR). I did this because the c1susvme2 processor was having bursts of un-syncy lateness every ~15 seconds or so, and I suspected this might interfere with locking activities. This behaviour appears to have been happening for a month or so, and has been getting steadily worse. Rebooting did not fix the issue, but it appears that removing some trends has actually helped. Attached is a 50 day trend of the c1susvme2 sync-fe monitor.

Attachment 1: srm_sync.png

311

Tue Feb 12 16:18:29 2008

autoburt cron moved to op340m

I moved the autoburt cron job from op440m to op340m. For some reason, burtrb requires gcc to run (I gather it uses the C-preprocessor to parse input files), so I had to install that on op340m to get it to work properly.

There are no more cron jobs running on op440m now.

345

Thu Feb 28 16:19:37 2008

Mafalda rewired and multiple cameras running

1) Mafalda is now connected via an orange Cat5E ethernet cord to the gigabit ethernet switch in rack in the office space. It has been labeled at both ends with "mafalda".

2) Both the GC650M camera (from MIT) and the GC750M are working. I can run the sampleviewer code and get images simultaneously. Unforutnately, the fps on both cameras seems to drop roughly in half (not an exact measurement) when displaying both simultaneously at full resolution.

3)Discovered the Gigabit ethernet card in Mafalda doesn't support jumbo packets (packets of up to 9k bytes), which is what they recommend for optimum speed.

4)However, connecting the cameras through only gigabit switches to Mafalda did seem to increase the data rate anyways, roughly by a factor of 2. (Used to take about 80 seconds to get 1000 frames saved, now takes roughly 40 seconds).

5)Need to determine the bottleneck on the cameras. It may be the ethernet card, although its possible to connect multiple gigabit cards to single computer (depending on the number of PCI slots it has). Given the ethernet cards are cheap ($300 for 20) compared to even a single camera (~$800-1500), it might be worth while outfitting a computer with multiple.

346

Thu Feb 28 19:37:41 2008