Summary of this week's activities:

7/14: Analytical calculation of Viton spring constant; updated Viton values in models; experimental confirmation of COMSOL eigenfrequencies (single stack layer)

7/15: Extensions to 2-, 3-, and 4-layer stack legs. Eigenfrequency characterizations performed for each level. Meshing issues with 4-layer stack prevented completion.

7/19: Debugged the 4-layer stack. Turned out to be a boundary condition issue because of non-sequential work-plane definitions. Successful characterization of single-leg eigenfrequencies.

7/20: Prototype three-legged stack completed, but dimensions are incorrect. Read Sievers paper for details of triple-legged stack. Sorted through many stack design binders in efforts to distinguish IOC/OOC, BSC/ITMX/ITMY, MC1/MC3, and MC2 dimensions.

7/21: Researched frequency domain analysis testing in COMSOL. Attempting to first find transfer function of a single-layer stack --> currently running into some run-time errors that will need some more debugging in the afternoon.

Summary of this week's activities:

7/21: Frequency Domain Analysis of rectangular bar; discussed with Koji how to convert complex eigenfrequencies into phase factors.

7/23: Created Wiki page about FDA; Journal Club

7/26: Recreated Stack_1234.mph due to boundary value issues; FDA for 1,2,3,4,5 Hz

7/27: Discovered MC2 logbooks for later design; ran the complete x-translational FDA for Stack_1234.mph

7/28: Finished y-translational FDA (posted previously); "Tapered Cantilever" COMSOL tutorial for gravity-load analysis.

Summary of this week's activities:

7/28:    Finished Y-Translational 4-Stack Analysis

"Tapered Cantilever" COMSOL tutorial

Tried (and failed) isolating gravity from oscillation

7/29:    Developed tilt/rotation load combinations for torsional inputs and showed these to work in the model

Tried using Normal Vector mode on top plate to obtain output tilts; worked for the rectangular bar, but not for the full stack

Talked to Jan about a 1st-order alternative to gravity - requires Weak Form (only found in COMSOL 3.5 right now)

Began Z-Translational 4-Stack Analysis -- Ran Overnight

7/30:    Progress Report 1st Draft

Completed Z-Translational 4-Stack Analysis

8/1:      Progress Report 2nd Draft

8/2:      Progress Report 3rd Draft

Submitted Progress Report

8/3:      Finalized Eigenfrequency Analysis for MC1/MC3 Stack

24 Physical Eigenmodes plotted and recorded, as expected

Should be good enough for the final report --> focus on transfer function analysis for the remainder of the SURF

8/4:      Prescribed Displacement Tests on Simple Rectangular Block --> shown to better produce displacement-displacement transfer functions

X-to-X Transfer Function seems much better when plotted

Should now be able to do the Displacement portion of Transfer Function Analysis on MC1/MC3 for Translational Modes

(I apologize that this update is a little late)

Summary of this Week's Activities:

Wed. 7/7: COMSOL Busbar tutorials; began stack design; began base; Viton rubber research

Thurs. 7/8: Completed Viton rubber research; updated materials; finished designing the base layer

Fri. 7/9: Research model coupling papers; extensive eLog entry about base design and troubleshooting

Sun. 7/11: Played around with Busbar to find first eigenfrequency; continued crashing COMSOL

Mon. 7/12: Intrusions in COMSOL eLog tutorial entry; research eigenfrequency analysis; successfully got first eigenmode of rectangular bar

Tues. 7/13: Updated Poisson ratio of Viton and subsequently succeeded in running eigenfrequency tests on base stack layer. Systematic Perturbation Tests were documented in the most recent elog entry. Discussed results with Rana and decided this didn't make sense. Analytical study required.

Wed. 7/14: Went over to machine shop to experimentally extrapolate spring constant of Viton. Calculations to be done in the afternoon.

The parts Jenne and I ordered arrived today, so we made a long cable for Guralp 1 using a 24 + 1 wire 70 meter long cable, a female 37-pin DSub, and a 26-pin milspec. The pin map is the same as the one I specified in my previous E-log. I soldered both the milspec attachment and the DSub attachment, and used a Multimeter to check the connectivity of the cables. 20 of 20 connections worked (beeped), so I plugged  the cable into the Gurlap 1 seismometer and the Guralp box.

The time series comparison for the two cables

Old cable:

New cable: (I had to move GUR 1, so it's still stabilizing in the X and Y time series)

 New

The current signal spectrum

The BLRMS on the seismic strip also look similar using the two cables - it's more visible on the wall, but I will include a StripTool picture:

New Cable BLRMS (similar to old cable BLRMS)

[Kiwamu, Katrin]

As reported earlier an oscillation around 7kHz is an the PDH error signal. The lower spectrum show that there is a peak from 6-7kHz.

This peak is somehow dependent on the modulation frequency. This means the peak can be shifted to a higher frequency when the modulation frequency is increased (see for comparsion f_mod=279kHz).

If the power supply for the green PD is switched of the peak vanishes. The same happens if the LO is switched of.

Good 8 hours

Summary of this Week's Activities:

Thursday, August 5:

X-Displacement Transfer Function Measurement

JPL Tour

Friday, August 6:

Y-Displacement Transfer Function Measurement

Z-Displacement Transfer Function Measurement

Monday, August 9:

Worked on COMSOL/MatLab Interface --> problems may be due to older version

Discussed with Koji options for calling our COMSOL sales representative

Jan and I decided that there is in fact something wrong with the installations on both my Mac and Kallo

Reinstalled on both machines, but the problem was not solved

Jan said we'd go see Larry tomorrow

Tuesday, August 10:

Attempted to figure out Time-Dependent Modal Analysis --> don't think it's what we need

Began reading the LiveLink for MatLab documentation --> even the directions in this produced issues

Discovered "Prescribed acceleration" option for gravity:

A test with it on the simplest stack eliminated the unwanted oscillation, which I guess is a partial success...

Trying the same thing with Koji on a simple pendulum, however, didn't produce the expected increase in resonant frequency

(Jan was unable to see Larry today, but we're meeting on Wednesday instead).

Wednesday, August 11 (morning):

Some background research on multiple-layer stack theory

Began working on presentations

I measured the open loop transfer function of the 80MHz VCO's PLL while locking it to Marconi.

 This measurement is for a health check and a characterization of the PLL

The transfer function looks good, it agrees with the designed filter shape.

(measurement setup) 

 The frequency of Marconi is set to 79.5MHz which is the center frequency of the VCO.

The signal from Marconi is mixed down with the VCO signal at a mixer ZLW-3SH.

Then the demodulated signal goes to a 80MHz LPF to cut off high frequency components.

And it goes through a control filter which has 1Hz pole and 40Hz zero (see this entry).

The 80MHz LPF, the controls filter, the VCO and the RF amplifier are all built in the box.

 In order to measure the open loop transfer function I inserted SR560 before the 80MHz LPF.

Using T-splitters the input and the output of SR560 are connected to a spectrum analyzer SR785.

(results)

 Exciting the system using a source channel of SR785, I measured the open loop transfer function.

The unity gain frequency was measured to about 20 kHz.

It agrees with the designed filter shape (though the gain factor is a little bit underestimated).

Apparently there is a phase delay at high frequency above 10kHz, but it is okay because the phase margin is quite acceptable up to 100kHz.

However I found that the control range was quite narrow.

The PLL was able to be kept in only +/- 1MHz range, this fact was confirmed by shifting the frequency of Marconi during it's locked.

I will post another elog entry about this issue.

 (notes)

 Marconi power = 6dBm

 VCO power after RF amp. = -0.6 dBm

 Marconi frequency = 79.5 MHz

 Phase detection coefficient = 0.4 V/rad (measured by using an oscillo scope)

Bad; there should be a passive ~1 MHz LP filter between the mixer and anything that comes after. The SR560 + mixer does not equal a demodulator.

The hold-in range of the PLL must be greater than +/- 4MHz in order to bring the arm cavity to its resonance. 

(Hold-in range is the range of frequencies over which the PLL can track the input signal.)

However as I mentioned in the past elog (see this entry), the PLL showed a small hold-in range of about +/- 1MHz which is insufficient.

In this entry I explain what is the limitation factor for the hold-in range and how to enlarge the range.

(Requirement for hold-in range )

 We have to track the frequency of the green beat signal and finally bring it to a certain frequency by controlling the cavity length of the arm.

For this purpose we must be able to track the beat signal at least over the frequency range of 2*FSR ~ +/- 4MHz.

Then we will be able to have more than two resonances, in which both the end green and the PSL green are able to resonate  to the arm at the same time. 

And if we have just two resonances in the range, either one of two resonances gives a resonance for both IR and green. At this phase we just bring it to that frequency while tracking it.

  Theoretically this requirement can be cleared by using our VCO because the VCO can drive the frequency up to approximately +/- 5MHz (see this entry)

 The figure below is an example of resonant condition of green and IR. The VCO range should contain at least one resonance for IR.

(In the plot L=38.4m is assumed)

(an issue) 

However the measured hold-in range was about +/- 1MHz or less. This is obviously not large enough.

According to a textbook[1], this fact is easily understandable.

The hold-in range is actually limited by gains of all the components such as a phase detector's, a control filter's and a VCO's gain.

Finally it is going to be expressed by,

                         [hold-in range] = G_pd * G_filter * G_vco

 At the PD (Phase Detector which is a mixer in our case) the signal does not exceed G_pd [V] because it appears as G_pd * sin(phi).

When the input signal is at the edge of the hold-in range, the PD gives its maximum voltage of G_pd to maintain the lock.

Consequently the voltage G_pd [V] goes through to G_filter [V/V] and G_vco [Hz/V].

This chain results the maximum pushable frequency, that is, hold-in range given above equation.

In our case, the estimated hold-in range was 

                      [hold-in range] ~ 0.4 [V] * 3 [V/V] * 1 [MHz/V]

                          = 1.2 [MHz]

This number reasonably explains what I saw.

In order to enlarge the hold-in range, increase the gain by more than factor of 5. That's it.

* reference [1]  "Phase-Locked Loops 6th edition" Rolan E. Best

In order to enlarge the hold-in range I modified the control filter and increased the gain by factor of 25 in the PLL.

It successfully enlarged the range, however the lock was easily broken by a small frequency change.

So I put a low frequency boost (LFB) and it successfully engaged the PLL stiffer.

Now it can maintain the lock even when the frequency disturbance of about 1MHz/s is applied.

(enlargement of the hold-in range)

I modified the control filter by replacing some resistors in the circuit to increase the gain by factor of 25.

        - R18 390 [Ohm]  => 200 [Ohm]

    - R20 1000 [Ohm] => 5000 [Ohm]

    - R41 39 [Ohm] => 10 [Ohm]

 This replacement also changes the location of the pole and the zero

    - pole 1.5 [Hz] => 0.3 [Hz]

    - zero 40 [Hz] => 159 [Hz]

 Note that this replacement doesn't so much change the UGF which was about 20 kHz before.

It becomes able to track the input frequency range of +/- 5MHz if I slowly changes the frequency of the input signal. 

However the PLL is not so strong enough to track ~ 1 kHz / 0.1s frequency step.  

(make the PLL stiffer : a low frequency boost)

One of the solution to make the PLL stiffer is to put a boost filter in the loop.

I used another channel to more drive the VCO at low frequency. See the figure below.

The 80MHz VCO box originally has two input channels, one of these inputs was usually disabled by MAX333A.

This time I activated both two input channels and put the input signal to each of them.

Before signals go to the box, one of the signal path is filtered by SR560. The filter has G=20000, pole=0.3Hz. So it gives a big low frequency boost.

Once the PLL was achieved without the boost, I increased the filter gain of SR560 to 20000 because locking with the boost is difficult as usual.

 I calibrated the VCO frequency as a function of the applied input voltage.

The range is approximately +/- 5 MHz, which is large enough to cover the arm's FSR of 3.75MHz.

======== measured parameters ======

center frequency: 79.5 MHz

VCO range: 74MHz - 84MHz

coefficient : 1.22MHz/ V (+/- 2V range)

nominal RF power: -0.66 dBm

(Note: The measurement was done by using Giga-tronics hand-hold power meter.)

 I did a health check for a 80MHz VCO box. 

I started taking care with the black VCO box, which has been sitting on the SP table and will be used for converting the green beat signal from frequency to voltage.

The circuit in the box basically consists of three parts: low pass filters (LPFs), a VCO and RF amplifiers.

Today I checked the LPF stage. It looks pretty healthy.

Tomorrow I will check the VCO part, especially I am curious about the VCO range.

 (soldering)

 Since somebody ( surf students ?) removed some resistors, the VCO was just freely running without being applied any voltage.

I put some resistors back on the circuit board by soldering them.

Now the resistors are placed in the same configuration as the original schematic (link to LIGO DCC) except for the wideband signal path, which has a differential input.

I left the wideband path disconnected from the VCO.

(transfer function measurement)

The LPF part in 'external mod' path contains two stages in series:

one is for cutting off demodulated signals above fc=80MHz and the other one is for PLL servo with pole=1Hz, zero=40Hz.

In order to activate this path I shorted 10th pin of the analog switch: MAX333A.

During the transfer function measurement I injected signals to 'external mod' input and took the output signal from a test point pin TP7.

The plot below shows a fitting result of the measured transfer function of the whole LPF stage. I used liso for the fitting.

The measured filter's shape agreed with the design. (though I haven't checked 80MHz cut off)

The freq divider was built and installed in the beat detection path.

Attachment 1: Circuit diagram

• Input stage:  Wideband RF amp with DC block at the input and the output. The gain is 10dB typ.
• 2nd stage: Ultra fast comparator AD9696. Note: AD9696 is an obsolete IC and there are only a few extra at Wilson house.
  The output is TTL/CMOS compatible.
• 3rd stage: 14bit binary ripple counter (fmax~100MHz.)

Note: I have added 7805/7905 regulators to the circuit as I could not find -5V supply on the 1X1/2 racks.

Attachment 2: Packaging

• The box is german made Eurocard size box from Techno-Isel Linear Motion http://www.techno-isel.com/lmc/Products/EnclosureProfiles11055.htm
  The box is excellent but I didn't like the fixing bolts as they are self-tapping type. I tapped the thread and used #6-32 screws.
   
• The prototyping board is BPS's (BusBoard Prototype System http://www.busboard.us/)  SP3UT. The card size is 160mm x 100mm.
  The other side is a ground plane and the small holes on the board are through holes to the ground plane.
  This particular card was not easy to use.
   
• The input is SMA. Unfortunately, it is not isolated. The output is an isolated BNC.
   
• The supply voltage of +/-15V is given by the 3pin D-connector. The supply voltages have been obtained from the cross connect of 1X1.

Attachment 3: Input specification

• The input frequency is 10MHz~85MHz. At lower frequency chattering of the comparator against the multiple zero crossing of the (relatively) slow sinusoidal waves.
• The input amplitude. There are no apparent degradation of the freq jitter when the input power was larger than -30dBm.

[ericq, Gautam]

Despite our best efforts, the grappa remains out of reach: the DRFPMI was not locked tonight. 

We spent a fair amount of time with the AUX X laser, as it was glitching madly again.

DRMI was finicky until I found some more reliable triggering settings; namely aquiring with AS110Q, but after that transitioning the trigger to the same POP22+POPDC combo as PRCL and MICH. With this in place, the DRMI lock seems really indefinite no matter what CARM seems to do; or at least, I always lost lock due to CARM shenanigans after this. 

The most frustrating part was the fact that I just couldn't cross over the AO path stably. It never "clicked" into high circulating power as it normally does (either in PRFPMI, or how it was last week). Various crossover filters and tweaks were attempted to no avail. Morning traffic starts soon, so we're calling it a night. 

Lock acquisition is proceeding smoothly for the most part, but there is a very consistent failure point near the end of the cm_step script.

Near the end of the procedure, while in RF common mode, the sensing for the MCL path of the common mode servo is transitioned from a REFL 166I signal which comes into the LSC whitening board from the demodulator, to another copy of the signal which has passed through the common mode board, and is coming out of the Length output of the common mode board.  We do this because the signal which comes through the CM board sees the switchable low-frequency boost filter, and so both paths of the CM servo (AO and MCL) can get that filter switched on at the same time.

The problem is occurring after this transition, which works reliably.  However, when the script tries to remove the final CARM offset, and bring the offset to zero, lock is abruptly lost.  DARM, CM, and the crossover all look stable, and no excess noise appears while looking at the DARM, CARM, MCF spectra.  But lock is always lost right about the same offset. 

Saturation somewhere?

 I've seen this before. At that time, the problem was gone spontaneously the next day.

You could stop just before the offset reaches zero and then try to slowly reduce the offset manually to see where is the threshold.

Well, it hasn't gone away yet.  It happened Sat, Mon, and Tues afternoon, as well as Friday.  The threshold varies slightly, but is always around ~200-300 cnts.   I've tried reducing the offset with the signal coming from the CM board and the signal not going through the CM board, I've also tried jumping the signal to zero (rather than a gradual reduction). 

Tonight we'll measure the MC length and set the modulation frequencies, and maybe try some MZ tweaking to do RFAMMon minimization.    

 We are almost at atm.  P1 750 Torr,  We are slowly reaching equilibrium.

Opening of ETMY has been put on hold to deal with the computer situation.  Currently all front end computers are down.  The DAQ AWGs are flashing green, but everything else is red (fb40m is also green).  Anyhow, we'll deal with this, and open ETMY as soon as we can.

The computers take priority because we need them to tell us how the optics are doing while we're in the chambers, fitzing around.  We need to be sure we're not overly kicking up the suspensions. 

[Jenne, Suresh]

Today has been a downright miserable day in the world of suspension work. Thumbs down to that: 

Yesterday, we had glued 2 full sets of magnets to dumbbells.  Today, half of those broke.  I think I put too thin of a layer of glue on the magnets when gluing them to the dumbbells.  All magnet/dumbbell assemblies should pass the test of being picked up by the dumbbell while the magnet is stuck to the optical table or a razor blade.  6 of the 12 magnets failed this test. Suresh soaked the dumbbells that had been used in acetone, and scrubbed them, so we can reuse them when we reglue things tomorrow.  By some miracle, we have exactly one full set intact (for each set of 6, we need 4 of one direction and 2 of the other).  This was frustrating, but not yet a deal-breaker.  That part comes next....

I got ETMU05 nicely aligned in the magnet gluing fixture, and then was on my last check of whether the side magnets would be glued in the correct place when I realized that the fixture is all wrong for the ETMs.  This final check was added to the procedure after the drama with the ITMs of having the side magnets glued incorrectly as a result of the fixture being specific to the wedge angle of the optic.  Kiwamu and I had set the fixture to be just right for the ~1deg wedge corner station optics, but the ETMs have a 2.35deg wedge (according to the Coastline spec sheet, which is consistent with our measurements when placing the guiderod and standoffs).  Suresh and I need to reset the height of the optic in the fixture using more teflon sheets, but we don't have a whole lot of options ready in the cleanroom.  We're going to cut some more pieces and ask Bob to clean them tomorrow.  Since the way the fixture holds the teflon is a little hoaky, Suresh suggested just resting the optic on teflon pads, rather than screwing the teflon to the fixture, and then putting the optic on the pads.  We'll try Suresh's method tomorrow, and hopefully it will be pretty easy. 

At least the guiderods and standoffs were successfully glued to the optics....

Here's the updated Status Table.  I don't think we're going to be able to have an ETM ready for the chambers early next week, but we should still be able to have both ready for the Monday after Thanksgiving.  The spring plungers arrived today, and were given immediately to Bob and Daphen for cleaning.

We now have green light at the Y end. 

The set-up (with careful instructions from Kiwamu) - setting up with 100mW of IR into the oven.

Input IR power = 100mW measured.

Output green power = 0.11mW

(after using 2 IR mirrors to dump IR light before the power meter so losing a bit of green there light too)

And it's pretty circular-looking too. Think there might be a bit more efficiency to be gained near the edges of the crystal with internal reflections and suchlike things but that gives us an UGLY looking beam.  Note - the polarisation is wrong for the crystal orientation so used a lambda/2 plate to get best green  power out.

Efficiency is therefore 0.11/100 = 0.0011 (0.11%) at 100mW input power.

Temperature of the oven seems to be around 35.5degC for optimal conversion.

Took a picture. Ta-dah! Green light, and lots more where that came from! Well... about 3x more IR available anyway.

[Rana Zach Koji]

We tracked down the MC locking issue to be associated with the power supply problem.
Replacing a fuse which had incomplete connection with the new one, the MC started locking.

We still have the MC autolocker not running correctly. This is solely a software problem.

We went down to the IOO electronics rack to investigate the electronics there. After spending
some time to poking around the test points of the MC servo board, we noticed that the -24V
power indicator on the MC demodulator module was not lit. In fact, Steve mentioned on Wednesday
that the -24V Sorensen supply had lower current than nominal. This actually was a good catch
but should have been written in the ELOG!!!

We traced the power supply wires for the crate and found one of the three -24V supply has no
voltage on it. Inspection of the corresponding fuse revealed that it had a peculiar failure mode.
The blown LED was not lit. The connection was not reliable and the -24V power supply was flickering.

We then replaced the fuse.This simply solved all of the issues on the MC servo board. The electronics
should be throughly inspected if it still has the nominal performance or not, as the boards were exposed
to the single supply more than a week. But we decided to try locking ability first of all.

Yes, we now can lock the MC as usual.

Now the newly revealed issue is MC autolocker. It was running on op340m but op340m does not want to run it now.
It should be closely investigated.

Also turning on WFS unlocks the MC. Currently the WFS outputs are turned off.
We need usual align MC / check spot position / adjust WFS QPD spots combo.

Todd provided us a bunch of electronics. I went to Downs to pick them up this afternoon and checked the contents in the box. Basically, the boxes are pretty comprehensive to produce the following chassis

• 8 HAM-A coil driver chassis
• 7 16bit Anti-Aliasing chassis
• 4 18bit Anti-Imaging chassis
• 5 16bit Anti-Imaging chassis

Some panels are missing (we cannibalized them for the WFS electronics). Otherwise, it seems that we will be able to assemble these chassis listed.
They have placed inside the lab as seen in the attached photo.

HAM-A COIL DRIVER (Req Qty 28+8)

- 8 Chassis
- 8 Front Panels
- 8 Rear Panels
- 8 HAM-A Driver PCBs
- 8 D1000217 DC Power board
- 8 D1000217 DC Power board

16bit AA (Req Qty 7)
- 7 CHASSIS
- 6 7 Front Panels (1 missing -> [Ed 2/22/2021] Asked Chub to order -> Received on 3/5/2021)
- 7 Rear Panels
- 28 AA/AI board S2001472-486, 499-511
- 7 D070100 ADC AA I/F
- 7 D1000217 DC Power board

18bit AI (Req Qty 4)
- 4 CHASSIS
- 4 Front Panels
- 4 Rear Panels
- 8 AA/AI board S2001463-67, 90-92
- 4 D1000551 18bit DAC AI I/F
- 4 D1000217 DC Power board
- bunch of excess components

16bit AI (Req Qty 5)
- 5 CHASSIS
- 4 5 Front Panels (D1101522) (1 missing -> [Ed 2/22/2021] Asked Chub to order -> Received on 3/5/2021)
- 3 5 Rear Panels (D0902784) (2 missing -> [Ed 2/22/2021] Asked Chub to order -> Received on 3/5/2021)
- 10 AA/AI board S2001468-71, 93-98
- 5 D1000217 DC Power board
- 5 D070101 DAC AI I/F

Internal Wiring Kit

[Ed 2/22/2021]
Asked Chub to order:
- Qty 12 1U Hamilton Chassis
- Qty 5 x Front/Rear Panels/Internal PCBs for D1002593 BIO I/F (The parts and connectors to be ordered separately)
  -> Front/Rear Panels received (3/5/2021)
  -> PCBs (unpopulated) received (3/5/2021)
  -> Components ordered by KA (3/7/2021)

Will we also be receiving the additional 34 Satellite Amplifier PCBs?

We received currently available sets. We are supposed to receive more coil drivers and sat amps, etc. But they are not ready yet.

Received additional front/rear panels. Updated the original entry and Wiki [Link]

The PCBs for the D1002593 BIO I/F (5pcs ea of D1001050 and D1001266) were received (from JLCPCB) today. idk what the status of the parts (digikey?) is.

The parts will be ordered by Koji The components for the additional BIO I/F have been ordered.

We have received 9x 18bit DAC adapter boards (D1000654)

A correction on the previous elog about the REFL33Q noise:

Summary:

Over the last couple of days, I've been working towards getting the infrastructure ready to test out the scheme of sensing (and eventually, controlling) the homodyne phase using the so-called RF44 scheme. More details will be populated, just quick notes for now before I forget.

• LO beam with RF sidebands needed to be re-coupled into collimator, it wasn't seated tightly and just touching the fiber completely destroyed the alignment.
• HWP installed before said collimator - IMC wants s-polarized light whereas the IFO field is p-polarized.
• After my work, the numbers were: ~1.47mW input to collimator, ~1.07mW out of collimator on AS table, ~1mW making it to the BHD board. All seem like reasonable numbers to me.
• 44 MHz signal synthesis - for now, I use a Marconi (10 MHz synced to Rb clock), I think we could also use a mixer+SLP50 to mix 11 and 55 MHz signals (which are easily available at the LSC rack) to generate this. I looked at Wenzel quadruplers, the specs don't suggest a quadrupler will do much better.
• CDS model was modified to accept the phase-tracker output as an error signal for the homodyne phase control servo. Compile and install went smooth but I opted against a model restart tonight, I'll do it tmrw.
• Some trials were done with the Michelson locked to a dark fringe (as was done for the case of the DC LO field beating with the 55 MHz sideband). While the overall spectrum lines up fairly well with earlier trials, the signal looks somewhat more "discontinuous" in its traversal of I/Q space, and it never quite goes to 0. Some offset? What does this mean for locking? More investigations needed....

- Loose fiber coupler: Sorry about that. I could not detect something was loose there, although some of the locks were not tightened.

- S incident instead of P: Sorry about that too. I completely missed that the IMC takes S-pol.

I made a noise budget for the ALS noise measurement that I did a week ago (see #4352).

I am going to post some details about this plot later because I am now too sleepy.

• DitherLock_sweep: Sweep of the IN2/IN1 for the dither lock error point showing 600 Hz UGF
  
• HiResPZTDither_sweep: Sweep of the PZT dither input compared to the PDH error signal. I restarted the front end before the sweep was finished accounting for the blip.
  
• HiResPZTDither_sweep2: Finish of the PZT dither sweep
  

Trawling through some past elogs, I saw that the ALS noise increase as a function of CARM offset reduction is not really a new thing (see e.g. this elog). In the past, when we were able to lock, when the CARM offset is reduced to zero, the arms would "buzz" through resonance. It just wasn't clear to me how much the buzzing was - in all the plots we presented, we were not looking at the fast 16k output, so it looked like the arm powers had stabilized. But today, looking at the frame data at 16k from back in 2016, it is clear to me that the arm transmission was in fact swinging all the way from 0 to some maximum. Once the IR signal (=REFL11) blending is turned on, we were able to stabilize the arm power somewhat. What this means is that we are in a comparable state as to when we were able to lock in the past (since I'm able to sit at 0 CARM offset with the PRMI locked almost indefinitely).

So, I think what I'll try for the next 3 days is to get this blending going, I think I couldn't enable the CM_slow path because when I was experimenting with the high bandwidth Y arm cavity locking, I had increased the whitening gain of this channel, but REFL11 has much more optical gain (=larger signal) than POY11, and so I'll start from 0dB whitening gain and see if I can turn the magic integrator on. Long term, we should try and compensate the optomechanical plant that changes as our CARM offset gets reduced, as this would further reduce the lock acquisition time and simplify the procedure (no need to fiddle with the integrator, offsets etc). A relevant thread from the past.

Here’s a quick summary of the Tip-Tilt Design updates (all files are in the dropbox in [TipTiltSus>TT_New]) that I have been working on with Koji and Steve's help.

1. Plate on top to hold mirror in place:

The plate is 0.5 mm thick. I did a rough FEA with 10 N force on the point of pressure on it, and it bent easily.

2. Weighted screw rod at the bottom for tilting the mirror-holder:

I did a very simplified free body analysis to calculate the required length of the rod to achieve a +/- 15 mRad tilt, and got around 1.5 inches.

3. Set-screws on both side of wire clamp to adjust its horizontal position:

• Front view (showing set screws on either side of the clamp to push it into the desired position, and the clamp in the middle with screws on top and bottom to fix its position):

• Exploded view showing protrusion in clamp that sits in the mirror holder inset:

• Exploded view showing inset in the mirror holder to slide protrusion in:

Comments:

1. Used the same screw size in most places to reduce complexity.

2. The mirror holder I have worked on is a little different from the actual piece I have on my table. Which one do you prefer (Koji)?

> 2. Weighted screw rod at the bottom for tilting the mirror-holder:

Too long. The design of the holder should be check with the entire assembly.
We should be able to make it compact if we heavier weights.
How are these weights fixed on the shaft?
Also can we have options for smaller weights for the case we don't need such a range?
Note the mass of the weights.

> 3. Set-screws on both side of wire clamp to adjust its horizontal position:

How much is the range of the clamp motion limited by the slot for the side screws and the slot for the protrusion? Are they matched?
Can you show us the design of the slot made on the mirror holder?

>>

Where is the center of mass (CoM) for the entire mirror holder assy and how much is the height gap between the CoM and the wire release points. Can you do this with 3/8" and 1/2" fused silica mirrors?

To get the angle to length signal before the c1ioo processor gets going, we need a length signal. We can use either the error signal or the control signal.

I recommend using the control signal since its not puny. The 4-pin LEMO inputs to the OSEM ADC that Suresh has wired are differential so we can, in principle, use either the BNC output of the SERVO plug or the 2-pin LEMO output.

The analog whitening on the OSEM Whitening board should be engaged via the SUS MEDM screen so that we get a good SNR at the A2L dither frequencies.

If the ADC saturates, then we should use a pomona box RC low pass to cut everything off above 100 Hz.

Also, a comment about Yuta's elog: we estimated that the seismic motion was ~1e-7 - 1e-6 meters. The MC linewidth ought to be ~lambda/(2*Finesse) ~ 1e-9.

So, the MC servo as it was was not giving us enough gain (1/f above 50 Hz; UGF ~5-10 kHz) to get the error signal to stay in the linear PDH region. Kevin's filter gave us ~10x more gain at the seismic frequencies (1-3 Hz) of concern.

We would like to increase the UGF of the PRC loop so as to allow more suppression of the PRC signal and less pollution of the MICH signal (remember that the PRC/MICH optical gain ratio is huge).

We were already losing phase because of delay in the LSC - SUS digital link. In addition to that, a major source of delay is the analog anti-aliasing (on the LSC error signals before they enter the ADC) and the analog anti-imaging (between the SUS DAC and the coil driver).

 IN addition to these, the other major sources of phase lag in the system are the FM5 filter in the LSC-PRC filter bank, the digital upsampling and downsampling filters, and the DAC sample and hold.

In the near term, we want to modify these analog filters to be more appropriate for our 64 kHz ADC/DAC sample rate. Otherwise, we are getting the double phase lag whammy.

Staring at the schematics for the AA (D000076-01) and the AI (D000186-A), we determined a plan of action.

For the AA, we want to remove the multi-pin AA chip filter from Frequency Devices, Inc. and replace it with a passive LC low pass. Hopefully, these chips are socketed. Rana will design an appropriate LC combo and elog; we should make the change on a Wednesday afternoon so that we have enough soldering help.

For the AI, the filter is a dual bi-quad using discrete components and LT1125 opamps. Not so clear what to do with these. The resistors are all the noisy thick film kind and maybe should be replaced. Koji will find some online design tool for these or do it in LISO. Changing the TF is easy; we can just scale the capacitors. But we also want to make sure that the noise of the AI does not destroy the noise reduction action of the dewhitening board which precedes it.

Jenne should figure out how low the noise needs to be at the input to the coil driver.

P.S. the matlab code which defines these filters

>> [z,p,k] = ellip(4,4,60,2*pi*7570,'s');
>> misc.ai = zpk(z,p,k*10^(4/20)) * zpk([],-2*pi*13e3,2*pi*13e3);
>>
>> % Fudged Anti-Imaging Filter
>> [z,p,k] = ellip(8,0.001,80,2*pi*7570,'s');
>> misc.aa = zpk(z,p,k*10^(0.001/20)) * zpk([],-2*pi*32768,2*pi*32768);

We fixed the anti-aliasing board in its aluminum black box,  the box couldn't be covered entirely because of the outgoing wires of the BNC connectors, so we drilled additional holes on the top cover to slide it backwards by 1cm and then screw it.

We had to fix the AA board box in rack 1X7, but there wasn't enough space, so we tried to move the blue chassis (ligo electro-optical fanout chassis 1X7) up with the help of a jack. We removed the blue chassis' screws but we couldn't move it up because of a piece of metal screwed above the blue chassis, then we weren't able to screw the two bottom screws again anymore because it had slided a bit down. Thus, the blue chassis (LIGO ELECTRO-OPTICAL FANOUT CHASSIS 1X7) is still not fixed properly and is sitting on the jack.

To accommodate the AA board (along with the panel-mounted BNC connectors) in rack 1X7 we removed the sliding tray (which was above the CPU) and fixed it there. Now the sliding tray is under the drill press.

 This could come from AA board, its range is +/- 2.5 V, RMS of the ETMX table motion is a few times higher then ground motion, so ETMX accelerometer signal was corrupted.

As this small AA range has already caused problems before, I decided to increase it. I've looked through the board scheme and found that all its differential line receives and output amplifiers have absolute maximum range of 40V. We used KEPKO power supply for this board with a voltage range up to 6 V. So I've replaced it with a BK PRECISION power supply and set it to +/- 15 V. Now AA board range is 7.5 V.

I'll leave accelerometers near ETMX table. It's interesting to measure table motion in the morning when trucks drive by.

 That low frequency effect was due to AA board, now it is gone.

The AA board shown in attachment 1 will be used in the seismometer hardware setup. A cartoon of this setup is shown in attachment 2.

BNC connectors are required for the seismometer breakout boxes. So the four-pin LEMO connectors present in the AA board were removed and panel mount BNC connectors were soldered to it. Red and blue colored wires were used to connect the BNC connectors to the board. Red wire connects the center of the BNC connector to a point on the board and that connection leads to the third leg (+IN) of the IC U### and the blue wire connects the shield of the BNC connector to the second leg (-IN) of the IC U###.

All the connections (including BNC to the AA board and in the AA board to all the filters) were tested using a multimeter by the beeping method and it was found that channel 10 (marked as C10) had a wrong connection from the point where the red wire (+ve) was connected to the third leg (+IN) of IC U91  and channel 32 (marked as C32) had opposite connections meaning the blue wire is connected to the third leg (+IN) of IC U311 and red wire is connected to the second leg (-IN) of IC U311.

We used a function generator, an oscilloscope and the Data Viewer to check the gain of the new AA board (used for the seismometers). Putting a sine wave of 0.3V (using a function generator) to the AA board, we could see about 500 counts in the Data Viewer. The calibration of the ADC is 2¹⁴ counts/volt, so the AA board gives to the ADC an output of 0.03V. This proves that the AA board has a gain of 0.1. Guralp1 and STS1 (Bacardi), both have a gain of 10 now, that balance the AAboard gain of 0.1. If we consider the gain of AA board in our calibrated power spectrum plot of seismic signals from Guralp1 and STS1 (Bacardi), we get the following plot:

Koji fixed the problematic channel - the issue was a bad solder joint on the input resistors to the THS4131. The board was re-installed. I also made a custom 2x4-pin LEMO-->DB9 cable, so we are now recording the PMC and FSS ERR/CTRL channel diagnostics again (spectra tomorrow). Note that Ch32 is recording some sort of DuoTone signal and so is not usable. This is due to a misconfiguration - ADC0 CH31 is the one which is supposed to be reserved for this timing signal, and not ADC1 as we currently have. When we swap the c1ioo hosts, we should fix this issue.

I also did most of the work to make the MEDM screens for the revised ASC topology, tried to mirror the site screens where possible. The overview screen remains to be done. I also loaded the anti-whitening filters (z:p 150:15) at the demodulated WFS input signal entry points. We don't have remote whitening switching capability at this time, so I'll test the switching manually at some point.