TRY path fixed and ready for normalization.

I used 2" BS at R=50 and R=98 to reflect the Y arm transmission at QPD-Y and TRY PD respectively. The residual beam transmitted by the BS is now steered by a Y1mirror to the camera. With Y arm locked, transmission currently measures 40mW against the expected 70mW. TRY shows 0.45 counts in dataviewer.

I'm fixing the TRY path.

I misaligned PRM and restored ETMY; but did not see the Y arm flashing. I am going ahead and moving the optics to get Y arm flashing again.

The slider values on the medm screen before touching any of them (for the record):

       tt1        tt2      itmy        etmy

p    -1.3886    0.8443     0.9320    -3.2583

y     0.3249    1.1407    -0.2849    -0.2751

I made another estimation assuming that PRCL RIN is caused by translation of the cavity axis:

• calibrated RIN to translation, beam waist = 4mm
• measured PRM yaw motion using oplev
• estimated PR3 TT yaw motion: measured BS yaw spectrum with oplev OFF, divided it by pendulum TF with f0=0.9 Hz, Q=100 (BS TF), multiplied it by pendulum TF with f0 = 1.5 Hz, Q = 2 (TT TF with eddy current damping), accounted for BS local damping that reduces Q down to 10.

PRM and TT angular motion to cavity axis translation I estimated as 0.11 mm/urad and 0.22 mm/urad assuming that TTs are flat. We can make a more detailed analysis to account for curvature.

I think beam motion is caused by PR3 and PR2 TT angular motion. I guess yaw motion is larger because horizontal g-factor is closer to unity then vertical.

 Maybe its equivalent, but I would have assumed that the input beam is fixed and then calculate the cavity axis rotation and translation. If its small, then the modal expansion is OK. Otherwise, the overlap integral can be used.

For the ETM motion, its a purely translation effect, whereas its tilt for the ITM. For the PRM, it is also a mostly translation effect as calculated at the PRC waist position (ITM face).

 I assume that pointing noise and dc misalignment couples 00 to 01 by a factor theta / theta_cavity

Inside the cavity 01 is suppressed by 2/pi*F*sin(arccos(sqrt(g_cav))).

For the XARM this number is 116 taking g-factor to be 0.32. So all pointing noise couples to power RIN.

Suppression factor inside PRC is 6.5 for g-factor 0.97. This means that 85% of jitter couples to RIN, I accounted for this factor while converting RIN to angle.

I did not consider translational motion of the beam. But still PRC RIN can not be explained by oples readings as we can see exciting optics in pitch and yaw. I suspect this RIN is due to PR3, as it can create stronger motion in yaw than in pitch due to incident angle and translational motion of the mirror. I do not have a number yet.

General ISS Design

Signals through the ISS are directed as follows:  an error signal is obtained by summing the ~5 V signal from the PD with a -5 V signal from a high precision voltage regulator (which is first filtered with an ~ 30 mHz low-pass Sallen-Key filter).  It is this signal that is processed/amplified by the servo. The output from the servo is then used to drive an AOM (it is not known exactly how this is done and whether or not any preamplifier/extra circuitry is necessary). The resulting modulation, hopefully, reduces fluctuations in the laser intensity incident on the PD, lowering the relative intensity noise.

Servo Design

Almost the entirety of my focus has been directed toward designing the servo portion of the ISS. Speaking in general terms, the currently proposed design consists of stages of active op-amp filters, but now the stages will have internal switches that allow them to switch between ‘flat’ gain buffers and more complicated filters with our desired behavior. Consider some Example Filter Stages where I have demonstrated a typical switching filter with the switch open and closed. When the switch is closed, the capacitor is shorted and we simply have a variable gain buffer (variable in the sense that its gain can be tuned by proper choice of the resistances) with no frequency dependence. When the switch is open, the capacitor introduces a pole at ~100 Hz and a zero at ~1 kHz.

CircuitLab has decent analysis capabilities and attached are plots generated by CircuitLab. The first plot corresponds to a frequency analysis of the voltage gain of op-amp U1 and the ‘flat’ ~20 dBV gain filter with the switch closed and the capacitor shorted. The second plot is the same frequency analysis, but now with op-amp U2 and the filter with the switch open and the capacitor introduced into signal processing. This particular combination of resistors and capacitors produce a DC gain of 60 dBV, a pole at ~100 Hz, a zero at ~10 kHz and high frequency behavior of ~constant gain of 20 dBV. In this simulation, the gain-bandwidth product of the simulated op-amp (the standard op-amp CircuitLab uses) was artificially increased in order to see more ideal behavior in the higher frequency domain.

Switches like the above can be used to add boosts to some initial filter state (which could be like the above or possibly a simple integrator to achieve high DC gain) and change it into a more complex and more useful filter state advantageous for desired noise suppression. Cascades of these switching filters could be used to create very complicated transfer function behavior. No general servo has yet been designed as the exact details of the intensity noise requirements are still being determined.

With regards to the implementation of the switches, some ‘smart’ signal will be used to trigger a switch opening and the boost being introduced to the signal processing. The switches will be opened (open corresponds to adding the boost) in a manner that maintains stability of the servo circuit. Essentially, some sort of time delay or power monitor induced signal (power from the PD output) will be used to modify the servo's behavior.

AOM

How exactly the signal will drive the AOM for correct noise suppression is unknown currently.

 How is the cavity g-factor accounted for in this calculation?

I compared PCRL and XARM angular motions by misaligning the cavities and measuring power RIN. Divergence angles for both cavities I calculated to be 100 urad.

XARM pointing noise sums from input steering TTs, PR2 and PR3 TTs, BS, ITMX, ETMY.

PRCL noise - from input TT, PRM, PR2 and PR3 TT, BS, ITMX, ITMY.

I would expect these noises to be the same as angular motion of different optics measured by oplves is simular. We do not have oplves on TT but they are present in both passes.

I measured RIN and converted to angle. Sharp 1 Hz resonance at XARM pointing spectrum is due to EMTX, it is not seen by PRCL. Other then that XARM is much quiter, especially at 3 - 30 Hz.

As PRM  is the main difference in two passes, I checked its spectrum. When PRCL was locked I excited PRM in pitch and yaw. I could see this excitation at RIN only when the peak was 100 times higher then background seismic noise measured by oplev.

 This is the tentative box placement per optical table. The toolboxes are going to be color-coded by a combination of two colors (the order won't matter). The side of each toolbox will have a little panel to let you know which box corresponds to which set of colors.

On the diagram, the set of colors is simply the color of the box border and the color of the text.

If anyone has a problem with any of the colors or the box placement let me know before they are installed and become an annoyance:

Box Placements:

ETMY: Box will be attached to the underside of the table by magnets. The box will be on the north side of the optical table.

POY: Box will be attached to the side of the optical table by magnets. The box will be on the west side of the optical table.

BSPRM: Box will be attached to the side of the optical table by magnets. The box will be on the west side of the optical table.

AS: Box will be attached to the side of the optical table by magnets. The box will be on the north side of the optical table.

PSL1: Box will be inside the optical table, in the northeast corner.

PSL2: Box will be inside the optical table, in the southwest corner.

POX: Box will be attached to the side of the optical table by magnets. The box will be on the south side of the optical table.

MC2: Box will be attached to the side of the optical table by magnets. The box will be on the south side of the optical table.

ETMX: Box will be attached to the side of the optical table by magnets. The box will be on the east side of the optical table.

The big hold-up with getting the LSC whitening triggering ready has been a problem with running the c-code on the front end models.  That problem has now been solved (Thanks Alex!), so I can move forward.

The background:

We want the RFPD whitening filters to be OFF while in acquisition mode, but after we lock, we want to turn the analog whitening (and the digital compensation) ON.  The difference between this and the other DoF and filter module triggers is that we must parse the input matrix to see which PD is being used for locking at that time.  It is the c-code that parses this matrix that has been causing trouble.  I have been testing this code on the c1tst.mdl, which runs on the Y-end computer.  Every time I tried to compile and run the c1tst model, the entire Y-end computer would crash.

The solution:

Alex came over to look at things with Jamie and me.  In the 2.5 version of the RCG (which we are still using), there is an optimization flag "-O3" in the make file.  This optimization, while it can make models run a little faster, has been known in the past to cause problems.  Here at the 40m, our make files had an if-statement, so that the c1pem model would compile using the "-O" optimization flag instead, so clearly we had seen the problem here before, probably when Masha was here and running the neural network code on the pem model.  In the RCG 2.6 release, all models are compiled using the "-O" flag.  We tried compiling the c1tst model with this "-O" optimization, and the model started and the computer is just fine.  This solved the problem.

Since we are going to upgrade to RCG 2.6 in the near-ish future anyway, Alex changed our make files so that all models will now compile with the "-O" flag.  We should monitor other models when we recompile them, to make sure none of them start running long with the different optimization. 

The future:

Implement LSC whitening triggering!

See   Feb 2012 PRM yaw transferfunctions, also check Valera's modified  side sensor may effect yaw motion

Spectra of BS, PRM, ITMX, ITMY are attached with oplevs ON and OFF (in units of urad). Loops reduce RMS from ~2urad to ~0.3urad but phase margin should be increased. REF traces show loop OFF. <-- really?

Note how PRM pitch and yaw spectra are different in the frequency range 0.5 - 7 Hz; yaw is factor of 50 larger then pitch at 2 Hz.

We have calibrated the overall actuators of each suspension independent of the optical levers. So, we know how much we are 
moving the optic in POS in real units as a result of the dither we inject for the lockin measurement. The amount the oplev beam 
appears to move if there is only POS motion is
d/cos(theta)
where theta is the oplev's angle of incidence and d is the distance the optic has moved in POS.  None of the of the steering mirrors in the 
oplev path matter. 

I propose that I will add an option in the lockin path to subtract away the apparent angle from the oplev output just before the signal 
goes into the lockin module.  Then we will be balancing the actuators based on only the actual angular motion.

The success of this technique depends on how well we know our actuator calibration and the oplev angle of incidence. This also 
assumes that the oplev beam is centered on the optic, so we don't have beam displacement from A2L of the oplev beam, which then 
makes another apparent angular motion.  I suspect that we are close enough that we won't have to worry about this effect.

MC down script is too slow to block MC_L when the cavity goes out of lock. As a result the loop strongly kicks MC2. We decided to make a threshold inside MCS model on MC TRANS that will block MC_L during lock loss. This is a lower threshold. Upper threshold can be slow and is implemented inside MC up script.

Fast threshold can be set inside MC2 POS. I did not correct MC2 top level medm screen as it is the same for all core optics.

Note: Fast trigger will also block ALS signal if MC loose lock.

Jenne, Den

We suspect PRM shows significant length to angle coupling due to large oplev beam angle in yaw.  Tonight we locked PRCL with ITMs.

We could lock PRCL on carrier to power recycling gain of 15. Lock continued for a few hours but power rin RMS was 0.15.

We triggered and normalized on POP_DC. MICH gain was -1 (filters FM3-5), PRCL gain was -8 (filters FM2,4,5,6,9).

MC_L was OFF during locking.

TRY signals are all gone!  Both the PD and the camera show no signal.  I went down there to turn off the lights, and look to see what was up, and I don't see any obvious things blocking the beam path on the table.  However, Steve has experimentally bungeed the lids down, so I didn't open the box to really look to see what the story is.

Absent TRY, I redid the IFO alignment.  Yarm locked, so I assumed it was close enough.  I redid Xarm alignment pretty significantly.  Transmission was ~0.5, which I got up to ~0.85 (which isn't too bad, since the PMC transmission is 0.74 instead of the usual 0.83).  I then aligned MICH, and PRM.  After fixing up the BS alignment, the POP beam wasn't hitting the POP PD in the center any more.  I centered the beam on the PD, although as Gabriele pointed out to me a week or two ago, we really need to put a lens in front of POP, since the beam is so big.  We're never getting the full beam when the cavity flashes, which is not so good.

Den is still working on locking, so I'll let him write the main locking report for the night.

We see that the PRC carrier lock seems to be more stable when we lock MICH with +1 for ITMY and -1 for ITMX, and PRCL with -1 for both ITMs.  This indicates that we need to revisit the systematic problem with using the PRM oplev to balance the coils, since that oplev has a relatively wide opening angle.  I am working on how to do this.

 I made a Simulation with COMSOL for the Yend table. Mainly, I tried to see how the lower eigenmode changes with the number and the size of the posts inside.

The lateral frame is just sitting on the table, it is fixed by its weight. I also put a couple of screws to fix it better, but the resulting eigenfrequency didn't change so much (less than 1 Hz). 

In Fig. 1 I didn't put any post. Of course, the lowest eigenfrequency is very low (around 80 Hz).

Then I added 2 posts, one per side (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3), with different diameter.

In some cases posts don't have a base, but they are fixed to the table only by a screw. It is just a condition to keep them fixed to the table

Eventually I put 4 posts, 2 per side. 

The lowest eigenfrequency is always increasing.

At the end I also put a simulation for 4 1.6 inch diameter posts without base, and the eigenfrequency is slightly higher. I want to check it again, because I would expect that the configuration shown in Fig.5a could be more stable.

P.S.: All the post are stainless steel.

I measured the beam profile of the Alberto laser (that will be the ETMY end laser) as I found the data inconsistent with the measurements done earlier.

Method

The laser was set to nominal current (ADJ =0) and the output measured 330mW. I used a 99% BS and measured the beam profile of the transmitted light at several points along propagation using Beamscan. I am attaching the data and matlab script for the fit for future reference.

 PMC locked.

 I think if we make MCL UGF higher then 20 Hz, arm cavity spectra will feel it. It might be possible to use a combination of feedback and feedforward control from ground seismometers. I made MCL UGF at 3 Hz to reduce 1 Hz motion of the pendulum; feedforward OAF subtracted the stack at 3.3 Hz. Once OAF converged, I blocked adaptation and the filter became static FIR. MC length RMS was reduced by a factor of 10 and arm cavity spectra was not affected at frequencies >20 and became better at low frequencies. We'll see if this enough.

On the attached plot red color shows MC_F with MC_L OFF, blue - MC_L is ON, green - MC_L and OAF are ON.

Then I locked PRCL (using AS_Q and REFL55_I) to carrier and aligned the cavity. Power RIN was 50-70% and 00 beam on the POP camera was moving significantly. BS oplev was shaking the optics at 5 Hz. I fixed it, but there should be something else as RIN was still high.

I have gone through the different individual degrees of freedom on the IFO_CONFIGURE screen (I haven't done anything to the full IFO yet), and updated the burt snapshot request files to include all of the trigger thresholds (the DoF triggers were there, but the FM triggers and the FM mask - which filter modules to trigger - were not).  I also made all of the restore scripts (which does the burt restore for all those settings) the same.  They were widely different, rather than just different optics chosen for misaligning and restoring.

Before doing any of this work, I moved the whole folder ..../caltech/c1/burt/c1ifoconfigure to ..../caltech/c1/burt/c1ifoconfigure_OLD_but_SAVE , so we can go back and look at the past settings, if we need to.

I also changed the "C1save{DoF}" scripts to ask for keyboard input, and then added them as options to the CONFIGURE screen.  The keyboard input is so that people randomly pushing the buttons don't overwrite our saved burt files.  Here's the secret:  It asks if you are REALLY sure you want to save the configuration.  If you are, type the word "really", then hit enter (as in yes, I am really sure).  Any other answer, and the script will tell you that it is quitting without saving.

I have also removed the "PRM" option, since we really only want the "PRMsb" for almost all purposes.

Also, I removed access to the very, very old text file about how to lock from the screen.  That information is now on the wiki:  https://wiki-40m.ligo.caltech.edu/How_To/Lock_the_Interferometer

I have noted in the drop-down menus that the "align" functions are not yet working.  I know that Den has gotten at least one of the arms' ASSes working today, so once those scripts are ready, we can call them from the configure screen.

Anyhow, the IFO_CONFIGURE screen should be back to being useful!

 To take this into account, last night, I reduced the TRY gain by a factor of 2.  This is not exactly correct - when the layout is finalized we need to figure out what the pickoff situation used to be (we think, based on the Xend, that it could have been 0.5*0.9), and do the correct normalization.

Folks were complaining that they were getting zeros whenever they tried to open fast channels in DTT or Dataviewer.  It turned out that the problem was that all available test points were in use in the c1lsc model:

There is a limit to how many test points can be open to a single model (in point of fact I think the limit is on the data rate from the model to the frame builder, not the actual number of open test points).  In any event, they was all used up.  The grid at the bottom right of the C1LSC GDS screen was all full of non-zeros, and the FE TRATE number was red, indicating that the data rate from this model had surpassed threshold.

The result of this overbooking is that any new test points just get zeros.  This is a pretty dumb failure mode (ideally one would not be able to request the TP at all with an appropriate error message), but it is what it is.  This usually means that there are too many dtt/dataviewers left with open connections.

We tried killing all the open processes that we could find that might be holding open test points, but that didn't seem to clear them up.  Stuck open test points is another known problem.  Referencing the solution in #6968 I opened the diag shell and killed all test points everywhere:

controls@pianosa:~ 0$ diag -l -z
Set new test FFT
NDS version = 12
supported capabilities: testing  testpoints  awg  
diag> tp clear * *
test point cleared
diag> quit
EXIT KERNEL
controls@pianosa:~ 0$

Temporary  acrylic wind guard added between enclosure and ETMY transmission window to help IFO locking

 PMC locked

Again.

The TRY path on the end table is temporarily in place to help IFO locking.
The Y arm transmission was steered to get TRY back on the PD and the camera. I found that TRY is a couple of inches off in yaw at the end table (comparing to the CAD layout and the earlier layout) and I believe it is because of the changes in input pointing.
I've used a Y1 mirror to steer the Y transmission to an R98% BS. The reflected beam falls on PDA520 and the transmitted beam is steered to the camera. The earlier normalization of TRY is no more valid as the power distribution at the PD has changed.

 Listening to the free swinging Y-arm, its clear that the fringe velocity is higher with the MCL path off, than on. I checked that the default gain of -300 was too high and changed it to -100 in the mcup script. With the higher gain value, there was clear gain peaking at just under 60 Hz (where the 60 Hz comb filter starts). We basically want the UGF to be between 20 and 60 Hz so that we can have the Bounce mode RG at 16.25 Hz and also the notch filter at 60 Hz.

Den is measuring and setting the UGF to be ~45 Hz.

With the MCL path on there is a high frequency horn-like noise in the Yarm when it locks. Its reduced a little by reducing the loop gain, but clearly this is just noise introduced by the MCL loop as Den noted before (and also tonight). He is cleaning up the whole MCL MEDM situation so that its useable by us. At the moment I've re-enabled it in the mcup.

My belief is that the frequency noise from the unstabilized MC is making the PRC locking harder. This will be investigated by tuning the shape of the MCL/MCF crossover so that we can turn it on without ruining the arm cavity spectra. Since the PRC length is ~2x smaller than the MC, we would expect it to be less sensitive to the MC frequency noise. But, since there is some common mode rejection in there, this may not be true. We'll only know by measuring PRC control signal with MCL on/off.

[Den, Annalisa, Manasa]

The Alberto laser was moved from the PSL table. The height of the heat sink rendered a beam height of only 3 inches. I did not want to deal with changing beam height at the table. So, we went ahead and used the old heat sink. I used the beam scan to make measurements of the beam width to match my mode-matching calculations and found some mismatch with the measurements done earlier. So I will measure the beam width again before alignment.

I will also have to change the layout because of the supporting posts that have come up with the new box. Annalisa is doing a COMSOL model to check what the thickness of these supporting posts should be so that the box stays stiff.

The MC seemed to be losing lock recently quite a bit. I noticed that the PC Drive RMS signal was red.

This means that the high frequency drive to the Pockels cell was too high by a factor of 2-3 and sometimes saturating and breaking the lock.

I fiddled with the gains on the FSS screen until this value went down. It looks like there is some kind of high Q oscillation; it takes a couple minutes for the PC Drive RMS to settle to its new position after changing the gains.

The attached trend plot show the last 2 hours. The mean is now back to ~1 V and seems OK. We should really examine the FSS or MC error point spectra with the RF analyzer while exploring this gain space.

 Enclosure cover #1 transmission measured  in 1064 nm,  156 mW,  P polarization and beam size ~ 1 mm

As condition:  fully assembled, protective layer removed, tinted- adhesive activated on yellow acrylic on top of each other.

T = 1.2 % in 20 minutes exposure test. This agrees with the test measurement of 6-18-2012

There is a reflected  2-3 cm circular glare that is barely visible on sensor card. It is well below 1 mW level

As we are installing the NPRO with ~350 mW of power we have to address what additional shield should be installed.

The June 2012 test with 1W power burned through of the 3 layer  IR coated films in 3-4 hours.

We 'll use Aluminum shields in the high power path till we come up with better solution.

 Note: The TRY PD isn't installed and normalized properly yet, so the IFO OVERVIEW screen indicates lock for the Yarm constantly, which is not true.  Hopefully in the next day or so the screen will be back to telling the truth.

Also, the LSC Locking was left ENABLED (presumably over the weekend).   This is not so good.  It can kick optics around, so we should all take a look when we walk through the control room, and if no one is locking, please disable the LSC master switch. 

The PMC locked manually. MC  grabbed lock instantaniously

with the script, as it was down.

 1) We still need to drill and install the thumbscrew latches which secure the lids to the table. We cannot use the tables as an acoustic enclosure with loose lids.

2) For the camera issue, the idea is to put the longpass filters on the front of the cameras: then they are only sensitive to light with wavelength > 800 nm.

3) Whenever any interferometer work is happening the light switches must be in the positions which have been marked on them (and which most everyone ignores foolishly). We have never been insensitive to the room lights; the black table enclosures just give us a false sense of security. Room lights impact the interferometer noise.

I started populating the end table; the TRY path to start with. I found that I need to redo the cables/electronics layout around the table as we have only one cable feedthrough hole with the new box right now. I need another hand with this and will have Annalisa help me tomorrow.

P.S. I misaligned PRM and restored ETMY to get TRY flashes. I tweaked ETMY to see strong TEM00 flashes.

Old slider positions on medm screen in case we need to restore them:

        TT1    TT2     ITMY    ETMY

P   -1.3586  0.8443   0.9114   -3.7693

Y   0.3049   1.1507  -0.2823  -0.2761

While I did think that the plastic boxes were cool; I am not happy with the new enclosure on several aspects as I am setting up the TRY PDs/camera.

1. I strongly feel the o-rings should be glued/fixed to the plastic box atleast at some points. Even if we replace the current thin one with a thicker tubing, it takes forever to get the o-ring into the groove when it slips out. Also if it slips from the groove, it falls through the optical path and there are chances of burning the tubing when the NPRO is ON.

2. With the transparent tables, the cameras are sensitive to the room lights. I had to switch off the room lights/use ND filters to see a nice beam at the TRY camera.

3. The lids are heavy...might be a good way to train....but removing and putting them back will definitely increase the pain in getting the green aligned to the arms atleast until we have the PZTs set up.

 Glued surgical latex tubing with super glue into O-ring shape. The existing in place tubing K-100, OD 0.125" (actual size 0.140"), wall 0.031", ID 0.062".

I have just found out that tolerances on tubing OD are + - 0.026" by the manufacturer. I'm getting larger tubing for better fit.

The table is ready for optics.

Things left to do:

1, finalize o-ring size  2, finish cable feedthrough  3, finalize window connection 4, IR-Thermashield strips for bridge sides 5, replace bridge support post with solid one

I'm having Steve order the following:

2x  SXBP-100+
2x  SCLF-135+
2x  PSCQ-2-120+

If you want him to add anything to the order let him know ASAP.

Graph Limits: The limits on graphs have been problematic.  They often reflect too large of a range of values, usually because of dropouts in data collection.  Thus, they do not provide useful information because the important information is washed out by the large limits on the graph.  For example, the graph below shows data over an unnecessarily large range, because of the dropout in the 300-1000Hz pressure values.

The limits on the graphs can be modified using the config file found in /40m-summary/share/c1_summary_page.ini.  At the entry for the appropriate graph, change the amplitude-lim=y1,y2 line by setting y1 to the desired lower limit and y2 to the desired upper limit.  For example, I changed the amplitude limits on the above graph to amplitude-lim=.001,1, and achieved the following graph.

The limits could be tightened further to improve clarity - this is easily done by modifying the config file.  I modified the config file for all the 2D plots to improve the bounds.  However, on some plots, I wasn't sure what bounds were appropriate or what range of values we were interested in, so I will have to ask someone to find out.

Next:  I now want to fix all the funny little problems with the site, such as scroll bars appearing where they should not appear, and graphs only plotting until 6PM.  In order to do this most effectively, I need to restructure the code and factor it into several files.  Otherwise, the code will not only be much harder to edit, but will become more and more confusing as I add on to it, compounding the problems that we currently have (i.e. that this code isn't very well documented and nobody knows how it works).  We need lots of specific documentation on what exactly is happening before too many changes are made.  Take the config files, for example.  Someone put a lot of work into them, but we need a README specifying which options are supported for which types of graphs, etc.  So we are slowed down because I have to figure out what is going on before I make small changes.

To fix this, I will divide the code into three main sectors.  The division of labor will be:
- Sector 1: Figure out what the user wants (i.e. read config files, create a ConfigParser, etc...)
- Sector 2: Process the data and generate the plots based on what the user wants
- Sector 3: Generate the HTML

Beautiful double peaks. I don't see the triple zero-crossings. Is this because you adjusted the phase correctly (as predicted)?

Don't you want to have a positive number for POP22? Should we set the demod phase in the configuration script for the positive POP22, shouldn't we?

The attached plot shows that also the behaviour of the REFL11 and 55 signals is qualitatively equal to the simulation outcome.

I had a look at the POP110 signal, with the PRMI flashing.

1) The LSCoffset script does not zero any more POP22_I_ERR offset. I did it by hand

2) The gain of POP22 is changed a lot, as well as the sign: now sidebands are resonant when POP22_I is negative

3) POP110 seems to deliver good signals. The plot attached shows that when we cross the sideband resonance, there is a clear splitting of the peak. If we rely on the simulations I posted in entry 8401, the full width at half height of the POP_22 peak is of the order of 5 nm. Using this as a calibration, we find a splitting of the order of 7 nm, which is not far from the simulated one (5 nm)

 There are some tips for how to appy nail polish on YouTube from MKNails and MissJenFABULOUS. Their tips on how to prepare the site for a strong bonding strength are probably helpful for our gold/nickel coated tools. For chrome tools we may need to abrade the surface with a stone or fine sandpaper for it to take the layer better. IF the YouTube videos don't do it for you, then I suggest contacting Tom Evans at LLO to find out what kind of nail polish he uses.

 For the 110 MHz demod boards, we would ideally have a plugin bandpass filter. If you have some specs in mind, you can email mini-circuits or pulsar microwave about making a custom part; its not too expensive usually.

For the meantime, you should remove the onboard one and replace with a combination of low/high pass filters from Mini-Circuits. If you put a SLP-150 and a SHP-100 in series, the insertion loss should be less than 1 dB.

I think the ERA amps are OK for now, but they die with time, so they just need to be tested and replaced if necessary.

 Ok.

So the new tentative plan on the boxes is to bolt them (magnetic strips were proposed but overruled on the grounds that they're not strong enough to withstand being knocked down by accidents).

The boxes are going to be a mix of the Thorlabs Benchtop Organizer (http://www.thorlabs.com/thorProduct.cfm?partNumber=BT17) and the original box. The box will have a region covered in mesh, so tools can be placed and held there. The box will also have a spacer at the bottom, with another mesh right above it, lined up. However, this double-mesh will only cover half of the box. The other half of the box will be compartmentalized to hold things such as screws, connectors, etc. I will talk to Steve about building the boxes.

Also, using nail-polish to coat the Allen wrenches is not going to work. Nail polish does not stick easily enough. The tentative new plan is oil paint, but this is to be reviewed.

Finally, the diagram with the placement of the boxes relative to the optical tables has been put on paper, but needs to be computerized so it's easier to read. This will be done as soon as possible.

This SCPQ-150+, which is surface mount, might also work in place of the PSCQ-2-120, which is through-mount.  Would need to be reconciled with the board layout.

Breadboards may not be suitable for a reliable work. Why don't you switch to any protoboard and real soldering?

I have re-implemented POP110.  The cable coming from the AS110 diode is disconnected, labeled, and sitting in the cable tray next to the LSC rack. 

Now the POP diode path is:

Thorlabs 10CF ----many meters of heliax cable-----> Bias Tee ------> RF amplifier ------> Splitter ------> Bandpass 21.7MHz --------> POP22 demod board

                                                                                                                   |                                                                                    |

                                                                                                                   |                                                                                    |

                                                                                                                   V                                                                                  V

                                                                                                            POP DC                                                                        High pass 100MHz

                                                                                                                                                                                                        |

                                                                                                                                                                                                        |

                                                                                                                                                                                                       V

                                                                                                                                                                                              Lowpass 150MHz

                                                                                                                                                                                                       |

                                                                                                                                                                                                       |

                                                                                                                                                                                                      V

                                                                                                                                                                                        POP110 demod board

I started to look into putting together a 110 MHz demod board to be used as POP110 (see #8399).

We have five spare old-skool EuroCard demod boards (LIGO-D990511).  From what I gather (see #4538, #4708) there are two modifications we do to these boards to make them ready for prime time:

• appropriate LP filter at PD RF input (U5 -> MC SCLF-*)
• swap out T1 transformer network with a commercial phase shifting power splitter (MC PQW/PSCQ)

#4538 also describes some other modifications but I'm not sure if those were actually implemented or not:

• removal of the attenuator/DC block/ERA-5 amp sections at the I/Q outputs
• swap ERA-5 amp with "Cougar"(?) amp at LO input.

What we'll need for a 110 demod:

• U5 -> SCLF-135
• T1 network -> PSCQ-2-120

I'll scrounge or order.