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ID Date Author Typeup Category Subject
  13239   Tue Aug 22 15:17:19 2017 ericqUpdateComputersOld frames accessible again

It turns out the problem was just a bent pin on the SCSI cable, likely from having to stretch things a bit to reach optimus from the RAID unit.frown

I hooked it up to megatron, and it was automatically recognized and mounted. yes

I had to turn off the new FB machine and remove it from the rack to be able to access megatron though, since it was just sitting on top. FB needs a rail to sit on!

At a cursory glance, the filesystem appears intact. I have copied over the achived DRFPMI frame files to my user directory for now, and Gautam is going to look into getting those permanently stored on the LDAS copy of 40m frames, so that we can have some redundancy.

Also, during this time, one of the HDDs in the RAID unit failed its SMART tests, so the RAID unit wanted it replaced. There were some spare drives in a little box directly under the unit, so I've installed one and am currently incorporating it back into the RAID.

There are two more backup drives in the box. We're running a RAID 5 configuration, so we can only lose one drive at a time before data is lost.

  13240   Tue Aug 22 15:40:06 2017 gautamUpdateComputersOld frames accessible again

[jamie, gautam]

I had some trouble getting the daqd processes up and running again using Jamie's instructions.

With Jamie's help however, they are back up and running now. The problem was that the mx infrastructure didn't come back up on its own. So prior to running sudo systemctl restart daqd_*, Jamie ran sudo systemctl start mx. This seems to have done the trick.

c1iscey was still showing red fields on the CDS overview screen so Jamie did a soft reboot. The machine came back up cleanly, so I restarted all the models. But the indicator lights were still red. Apparently the mx processes weren't running on c1iscey. The way to fix this is to run sudo systemctl start mx_stream. Now everything is green.

Now we are going to work on trying the fix Rolf suggested on c1iscex.

Quote:

It turns out the problem was just a bent pin on the SCSI cable, likely from having to stretch things a bit to reach optimus from the RAID unit.frown

I hooked it up to megatron, and it was automatically recognized and mounted. yes

I had to turn off the new FB machine and remove it from the rack to be able to access megatron though, since it was just sitting on top. FB needs a rail to sit on!

At a cursory glance, the filesystem appears intact. I have copied over the achived DRFPMI frame files to my user directory for now, and Gautam is going to look into getting those permanently stored on the LDAS copy of 40m frames, so that we can have some redundancy.

Also, during this time, one of the HDDs in the RAID unit failed its SMART tests, so the RAID unit wanted it replaced. There were some spare drives in a little box directly under the unit, so I've installed one and am currently incorporating it back into the RAID.

There are two more backup drives in the box. We're running a RAID 5 configuration, so we can only lose one drive at a time before data is lost.

 

  13242   Tue Aug 22 17:11:15 2017 gautamUpdateComputersc1iscex model restarts

[jamie, gautam]

We tried to implement the fix that Rolf suggested in order to solve (perhaps among other things) the inability of some utilities like dataviewer to open testpoints. The problem isn't wholly solved yet - we can access actual testpoint data (not just zeros, as was the case) using DTT, and if DTT is used to open a testpoint first, then dataviewer, but DV itself can't seem to open testpoints.

Here is what was done (Jamie will correct me if I am mistaken).

  1. Jamie checked out branch 3.4 of the RCG from the SVN.
  2. Jamie recompiled all the models on c1iscex against this version of RCG.
  3. I shutdown ETMX watchdog, then ran rtcds stop all on c1iscex to stop all the models, and then restarted them using rtcds start <model> in the order c1x01, c1scx and c1asx. 
  4. Models came back up cleanly. I then restarted the daqd_dc process on FB1. At this point all indicators on the CDS overview screen were green.
  5. Tried getting testpoint data with DTT and DV for ETMX Oplev Pitch and Yaw IN1 testpoints. Conclusion as above.

So while we are in a better state now, the problem isn't fully solved. 

Comment: seems like there is an in-built timeout for testpoints opened with DTT - if the measurement is inactive for some time (unsure how much exactly but something like 5mins), the testpoint is automatically closed.

  13243   Tue Aug 22 18:36:46 2017 gautamUpdateComputersAll FE models compiled against RCG3.4

After getting the go ahead from Jamie, I recompiled all the FE models against the same version of RCG that we tested on the c1iscex models.

To do so:

  • I did rtcds make and rtcds install for all the models.
  • Then I ssh-ed into the FEs and did rtcds stop all, followed by rtcds start <model> in the order they are listed on the CDS overview MEDM screen (top to bottom).
  • During the compilation process (i.e. rtcds make), for some of the models, I got some compilation warnings. I believe these are related to models that have custom C code blocks in them. Jamie tells me that it is okay to ignore these warnings at that they will be fixed at some point.
  • c1lsc FE crashed when I ran rtcds stop all - had to go and do a manual reboot.
  • Doing so took down the models on c1sus and c1ioo that were running - but these FEs themselves did not have to be robooted.
  • Once c1lsc came back up, I restarted all the models on the vertex FEs. They all came back online fine.
  • Then I ssh-ed into FB1, and restarted the daqd processes - but c1lsc and c1ioo CDS indicators were still red.
  • Looks like the mx_stream processes weren't started automatically on these two machines. Reasons unknown. Earlier today, the same was observed for c1iscey.
  • I manually restarted the mx_stream processes, at which point all CDS indicator lights became green (see Attachment #1).

IFO alignment needs to be redone, but at least we now have a (admittedly rounabout way) of getting testpoints. Did a quick check for "nan-s" on the ASC screen, saw none. So I am re-enabling watchdogs for all optics.

GV 23 August 9am: Last night, I re-aligned the TMs for single arm locks. Before the model restarts, I had saved the good alignment on the EPICs sliders, but the gain of x3 on the coil driver filter banks have to be manually turned on at the moment (i.e. the safe.snap file has them off). ALS noise looked good for both arms, so just for fun, I tried transitioning control of both arms to ALS (in the CARM/DARM basis as we do when we lock DRFPMI, using the Transition_IR_ALS.py script), and was successful.

Quote:

[jamie, gautam]

We tried to implement the fix that Rolf suggested in order to solve (perhaps among other things) the inability of some utilities like dataviewer to open testpoints. The problem isn't wholly solved yet - we can access actual testpoint data (not just zeros, as was the case) using DTT, and if DTT is used to open a testpoint first, then dataviewer, but DV itself can't seem to open testpoints.

Here is what was done (Jamie will correct me if I am mistaken).

  1. Jamie checked out branch 3.4 of the RCG from the SVN.
  2. Jamie recompiled all the models on c1iscex against this version of RCG.
  3. I shutdown ETMX watchdog, then ran rtcds stop all on c1iscex to stop all the models, and then restarted them using rtcds start <model> in the order c1x01, c1scx and c1asx. 
  4. Models came back up cleanly. I then restarted the daqd_dc process on FB1. At this point all indicators on the CDS overview screen were green.
  5. Tried getting testpoint data with DTT and DV for ETMX Oplev Pitch and Yaw IN1 testpoints. Conclusion as above.

So while we are in a better state now, the problem isn't fully solved. 

Comment: seems like there is an in-built timeout for testpoints opened with DTT - if the measurement is inactive for some time (unsure how much exactly but something like 5mins), the testpoint is automatically closed.

 

  13244   Tue Aug 22 23:27:14 2017 ranaUpdateALSALS OLTFs

Didn't someone look at what the OLG req. should be for these servos at some point? I wonder if we can make a parallel digital path that we switch on after green lock. Then we could make this a simple 1/f box and just add in the digital path (take analog control signal into ADC, filter, and then sum into the control point further down the path to the laser) for the low frequency boost.

  13245   Wed Aug 23 10:11:46 2017 SteveUpdateVACvacuum valve specifications

The V1 gate valve specs installed at 40m wiki page. VAT model number 10846-UE44-0007 Our main volume pumping goes through this 8" id gate valve V1 to Maglev turbo  or Cryo pump to  VC1

The ion pumps have 6" id gate valves:VAT 10844-UE44-AAY1,  Pneumatic actuator with position indicator and double acting solenoid valve 115V 60Hz  Purchased 1999 Dec 22

UHV gate valves 2.5" id. VAT  10836-UE44    Pneumatic actuator with position indicator and double acting solenoid valve 115V 60 hz, IFO to RGA  VM1 &  RGA to Maglev  VM2

mini UHV gate valve 1.5" id.   VAT  01032-UE01      2016 cataloge page 14,   manual - no position indicator, VM4  next to manual adjustable fine leak valve to RGA

UHV angle valve 1.5" id, model VAT 28432-GE41, Viton plate seal, pneumatic actuator with position indicator & solenoid valve 115V & single acting closing spring  MEDM screen: VM3,VC2, V3,V4,V5,V6,VA6,V7 & annuloses Each chamber annulos has 2 valves.

UHV angle valve 1.5" id, model VAT 57132-GE05   go page 208,   Metal tip seal, manual actuating only with position indicator,   MEDM screen: roughing RV1 and venting VV1 hand wheel needed to close to torque spec

UHV angle valve  1.5" id. model VAT 28432-GE01           Viton plate seal, manual operation only at IT gauges Hornet & Super Bee and  ion pumps roughing  ports. These are not labeled.

                                                      

The Cryo pump interlock wiring was added too

Note: all moving valve plate seals are single.

  13246   Wed Aug 23 17:22:36 2017 gautamUpdateALSFiber ALS - reinstalled

I completed the revamp of the box, and re-installed the box on the PSL table today. I think it would be ideal to install this on one of the electronic racks, perhaps 1X2 would be best. We would have to re-route the fibers from the PSL table to 1X2, but I think they have sufficient length, and this way, the whole arrangement is much cleaner.

Did a quick check to make sure I could see beat notes for both arms. I will now attempt to measure the ALS noise with this revamped box, to see if the improved power supply and grounding arrangement, as well as fiber cleaning, has had any effect.

Photos + power budget + plan of action for using this box to characterize the green PDH locking to follow. 

For quick reference: here is the AM/PM measurement done when we re-installed the repaired Innolight NPRO on the new X endtable.

  13248   Thu Aug 24 00:39:47 2017 gautamUpdateLSCDRMI locking attempt

Since the single arm locking and dither alignment seemed to work alright after the CDS overhaul, I decided to try some recycling cavity locking tonight.

  • First, I locked single arms, ran dither alignment servos, and centered all test mass Oplevs. Note: the X arm dither alignment doesn't seem to work if we use the High-Gain Thorlabs PD as the Transmission PD. The BS loops just seem to pick up large offsets and the alignment actually degrades over a couple of minutes. This needs to be investigated.
  • Next, to get good PRM alignment, I manually moved the EPICS sliders till the REFL spot became roughly centered on the CCD screen.
  • Then I tried locking PRMI on carrier using the usual C1IFOConfigure script - the lock was caught within ~30 seconds.
  • The PRCL and MICH dither servo scripts also ran fine.
    • Centered PRM Oplev.
  • Next, I tried enabling the PRC angular feedforward.
    • OAF model does not automatically revert to its safe.snap configuration on model reboot, so I first manually did this such that the correct filter banks were enabled.
    • I was able to turn on the angular feedforward without disturbing the PRMI carrier lock. The angular motion of the POP spot on the CCD monitor was visibly reduced.
  • At this point I decided to try DRMI locking.
    • I centered the beam on the AS PDs with the simple Michelson.
    • Centered the beam on the REFL PDs with PRM aligned and PRC flashing through resonances.
    • Restored SRM alignment by eye with EPICS sliders.
    • Cavity alignment seemed alright - so I tried to lock DRMI with the old settings (i.e. from DRMI 1f locking a couple of months ago). But I had no success.
    • The behaviour of REFL55 (used for SRCL control) has changed dramatically - the analog whitening gain for this PD used to be +18dB, but at this setting, there are frequent ADC overflows. I had to reduce the whitening gain to +6dB to stop the ADC overflows. I also checked to make sure that the whitening setting was "manual" and not triggered.

Why should this have changed? I was just on the AS table and did re-center the beam onto the REFL 55 RFPD, but I had also done this in April/May when I was last doing DRMI locking. But I can't explain the apparent factor of ~4 increase in light level. I think I have some measurements of the light levels at various PDs from April 2017, I will see how the present levels line up.

Of course dataviever won't cooperate when I am trying to monitor testpoints.

I may be missing something obvious, but I am quitting for tonight, will look into this more tomorrow.


Unrelated to this work: looking at the GTRY spot on the CCD monitor, there seems to be some excess angular motion. Not sure where this is coming from. In the past, this sort of problem has been symptomatic of something going wonky with the Oplev loops. But I took loop measurements for ITMY and ETMY PIT and YAW, they look normal. I will investigate further when I am doing some more ALS work.

  13249   Thu Aug 24 17:36:11 2017 gautamUpdateCDSFSS Slow Python maintenance

A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to modernize the python version of the FSS Slow temperature control loops, when I accidentally ended up deleting it frown. There was no svn backup. So the old Perl PID script has been running for the last few days.

Today, I checked out the latest version that Andrew and co. have running in the PSL lab. I had to make some important modifications for the script to work for the 40m setup.

  1. The script is conveniently setup in a way that the channels it needs to read from / write to are read in from an .ini file. I renamed all the channels to match the appropriate 40m ones.
  2. We don't have a soft epics channel in which to define the setpoint for our PID servo (which is 0). Rather than poke around with slow machine EPICS records, I simply commented out this line in the script and included the hard-coded value of 0. When we modernize to the Acromag era, we can setup an EPICS channel + MEDM slider for the setpoint.
  3. The way the Perl script was setup, the error signal was pre-scaled by a factor of 0.01, supposedly to make the PID gains be of order 1. For consistency, I re-inserted this scaling, which awade and co. had removed.
  4. Modified the FSSslowPy.init file to call the script in accordance with the new syntax:
python FSSSlow.py -i FSSSlowPy.ini

Then I stopped the Perl process on megatron by running

sudo initctl stop FSSslow

and started the Python process by running

sudo initctl start FSSslowPy

I have now committed the files FSSSlow.py and FSSSlowPy.ini to the 40m svn.  Things seem to be stable for the last 20 mins or so, let's keep an eye on this though - although we had been running the Python PID loop for some months, this version is a slightly modified one. 

The initctl stuff still isn't very robust - I think both the Autolocker and the FSS slow servos have to be manually restarted if megatron is shutdown/restarted for whatever reason. It doesn't seem to be a problem with the initctl routine itself - looking at the logs, I can see that init is trying to start both processes, but is failing to do so each time. To be investigated. The wiki procedure to restart this process is up to date.

GV Edit 0000 25 Aug 2017: I had to add a line to the script that checks MC transmission before enabling the PID loop. Change has been committed to svn. Now, when the MC loses lock or if the PSL shutter is kept closed for an extended period of time, the temperature loop doesn't rail.

  13252   Fri Aug 25 01:20:52 2017 gautamUpdateLSCDRMI locking attempt

I tried some DRMI locking again tonight, but had no success. Here is the story.

  • I started out by going to the AS table and measuring the light level on the REFL55 photodiode (with PRM aligned and the PRC flashing, but LSC disabled).
    • The Ophir power meter reads 13mW
    • The DC output of the photodiode shows ~500mV on an oscilloscope.
    • Both of these numbers line up well with measurements I made in April/May.
  • Returned to the control room and aligned the IFO for DRMI locking - but LSC servos remained disabled.
    • At the nominal REFL55 whitening level of +18dB, the REFL 55 signals saturated the ADC (confirmed by looking at the traces on dataviewer).
    • But the signals still looked like PDH error signals.
    • Lowering the whitening gain to 6dB makes the PDH error signal horns peak around 20,000 counts.
    • Could this be indicative of problems with either the analog whitening gain switching or the LSC Demod Boards? To be investigated.
  • Tried enabling LSC servos with same settings with which I had success right up till a couple of months ago, but had no success.
    • If it is true that the REFL55 signal is getting amplified because of some gain stage not being switched correctly, I should still have been able to lock the SRC with a lowered loop gain - but even lowering the gain by a factor of 10 had no effect on the locking success rate.

Looks like I will have to embark on the REFL55 LSC electronics investigation. I was able to successfully lock the PRC on carrier and sideband, and the Michelson lock also seems to work fine, all of which seem to point to a hardware problem with the REFL55 signal chain.

I did a quick check by switching the output of the REFL55 demod board to the inputs normally used by AS55 signals on the whitening board. Setting the whitening gain to +18dB for these channels had the same effect - ADC overflow galore. So looks like the whitening board isn't to blame. I will have to check the demod board out.

 

  13253   Fri Aug 25 11:11:26 2017 gautamUpdateGeneralMC1 kicked again

Looks like MC1 got another big kick just under 4 hours ago. None of the other optics show any evidence of a glitch so it seems unlikely that this was some sort of global event. It's been well behaved for ~2weeks now. IMC was unlocked. I manually re-aligned MC1, at which point the autolocker was able to lock the IMC.

Looking at this plot, it seems that LR and UL coils seem to have the largest kicks. UR barely saw it. Not sure what (if anything) to make of this - apparently the optic moved by ~20urad with the UR magnet approximately the pivot.

  13254   Fri Aug 25 15:54:14 2017 gautamUpdateALSFiber ALS noise measurement

[Kira, gautam]

Attachment #1 - Photo of the revamped beat setup. The top panel has to be installed. New features include:

  • Regulated power supply via D1000217.
  • Single power switch for both PDs.
  • Power indicator LED.
  • Chassis ground isolated from all other electronic grounds. For this purpose, I installed all the elctronics on a metal plate which is only connected to the chassis via nylon screws. The TO220 package power regulator ICs have been mounted with the TO220 mounting kits that provide a thin piece of plastic that electrically insulates its ground from the chassis ground.
  • PD outputs routed through 20dB coupler on front panel for diagnostic purposes.
  • Fiber routing has been cleaned up a little. I installed a winding fixture I got from Johannes, but perhaps we can install another one of these on top of the existing one to neaten up the fiber layout further.
  • 90-10 light splitter (meant for diagnostic purposes) has been removed because of space constraints. 

Attachment #2 - Power budget inside the box. Some of these FC/APC connectors seem to not offer good coupling between the two fibers. Specifically, the one on the front panel meant to accept the PSL light input fiber seems particularly bad. Right now, the PSL light is entering the box through one of the front panel connectors marked "PSL + X out". I've also indicated the beat amplitude measured with an RF analyzer. Need to do the math now to confirm if these match the expected amplitudes based on the power levels measured.

Attachment #3 - We repeated the measurement detailed here. The X arm (locked to IR) was used for this test. The "X" delay line electronics were connected to the X green beat PD, while the "Y" delay line electronics were connected to the X IR beat PD. I divided the phase tracker Hz calibration factor by 2 to get IR Hz for the Y arm channels. IR beat was at ~38MHz, green beat was at ~76MHz. The broadband excess noise seen in the previous test is no longer present. Indeed, below ~20Hz, the IR beat seems less noisy. So seems like the cleaning / electronics revamp did some good. 

Further characterization needs to be done, but the results of this test are encouraging. If we are able to get this kind of out of loop ALS noise with the IR beat, perhaps we can avoid having to frequently fine-tune the green beat alignment on the PSL table. It would also be ideal to mount this whole 1U setup in an electronics rack instead of leaving it on the PSL table.

Quote:

Photos + power budget + plan of action for using this box to characterize the green PDH locking to follow. 

GV Edit: I've added better photos to the 40m Google Photos page. I've also started a wiki page for this box / the proposed IR ALS  system. For the moment, all that is there is the datasheet to the Fiber Couplers used, I will populate this more as I further characterize the setup.

  13255   Fri Aug 25 17:11:07 2017 ranaUpdateALSFiber ALS noise measurement

Is it better to mount the box in the PSL under the existing shelf, or in a nearby PSL rack?

Quote:

 

Further characterization needs to be done, but the results of this test are encouraging. If we are able to get this kind of out of loop ALS noise with the IR beat, perhaps we can avoid having to frequently fine-tune the green beat alignment on the PSL table. It would also be ideal to mount this whole 1U setup in an electronics rack instead of leaving it on the PSL table

 

  13257   Sun Aug 27 11:57:31 2017 ranaUpdateALSFiber ALS noise measurement

It seems like the main contribution to the RMS comes from the high frequency bump. When using the ALS loop to lock the arm to the beat, only the stuff below ~100 Hz will matter. Interesting to see what that noise budget will show. Perhaps the discrepancy between inloop and out of loop will go down.

  13260   Mon Aug 28 10:28:07 2017 SteveUpdateVACRGA scan 20 day after 17 Torr

The RGA was turned on 7 days ago.  It's 46 C now.   The X-arm room tem ~20 C

IFO pressure 6.5e-6 Torr at IT-Hornet gauge. Valve configuration vacuum normal.

  13261   Mon Aug 28 10:51:21 2017 steveUpdateSUSETMX damping recovered
  13262   Mon Aug 28 16:20:00 2017 gautamUpdateCDS40m files backup situation

This elog is meant to summarize the current backup situation of critical 40m files.

What are the critical filesystems? I've also indicated the size of these disks and the volume currently used, and the current backup situation. 

Name

Disk Usage

Description / remarks

Current backup status

FB1 root filesystem 1.7TB / 2TB
  • FB1 is the machine that hosts the diskless root for the front end machines
  • Additionally, it runs the daqd processes which write data from realtime models into frame files
Not backed up
/frames up to 24TB
  • This is where the frame files are written to 
  • Need to setup a wiper script that periodically clears older data so that the disk doesn't overflow.

Not backed up 

LDAS pulls files from nodus daily via rsync, so there's no cron job for us to manage. We just allow incoming rsync.

Shared user area 1.6TB / 2TB
  • /home/cds on chiara
  • This is exported over NFS to 40m workstations, FB1 etc.
  • Contains user directories, scripts, realtime models etc.

Local backup on /media/40mBackup on chiara via daily cronjob

Remote backup to ldas-cit.ligo.caltech.edu::40m/cvs via daily cronjob on nodus

Chiara root filesystem 11GB / 440GB
  • This is the root filesystem for chiara
  • Contains nameserver stuff for the martian network, responsible for rsyncing /home/cds
Not backed up
Megatron root filesystem 39GB / 130GB
  • Boot disk for megatron, which is our scripts machine
  • Runs MC autolocker, FSS loops etc.
  • Also is the nds server for facilitating data access from outside the martian network
Not backed up
Nodus root filesystem 77GB / 355GB
  • This is the boot disk for our gateway machine
  • Hosts Elog, svn, wikis
  • Supposed to be responsible for sending email alerts for NFS disk usage and vacuum system N2 pressure
Not backed up
JETSTOR RAID Array 12TB / 13TB
  • Old /frames
  • Archived frames from DRFPMI locks
  • Long term trends

Currently mounted on Megatron, not backed up.

Then there is Optimus, but I don't think there is anything critical on it. 

So, based on my understanding, we need to back up a whole bunch of stuff, particularly the boot disks and root filesystems for Chiara, Megatron and Nodus. We should also test that the backups we make are useful (i.e. we can recover current operating state in the event of a disk failure).

Please edit this elog if I have made a mistake. I also don't have any idea about whether there is any sort of backup for the slow computing system code.

  13263   Mon Aug 28 17:13:57 2017 ericqUpdateCDS40m files backup situation

In addition to bootable full disk backups, it would be wise to make sure the important service configuration files from each machine are version controlled in the 40m SVN. Things like apache files on nodus, martian hosts and DHCP files on chiara, nds2 configuration and init scripts on megatron, etc. This can make future OS/hardware upgrades easier too.

  13264   Mon Aug 28 23:22:56 2017 johannesUpdatePSLPSL table auxiliary NPRO

I moved the axuiliary NPRO to the PSL table today and started setting up the optics.

The Faraday Isolator was showing a pretty unclean mode at the output so I took the polarizers off to take a look through them, and found that the front polarizer is either out of place or damaged (there is a straight edge visible right in the middle of the aperture, but the way the polarizer is packaged prevents me from inspecting it closer). I proceeded without it but left space so an FI can be added in the future. The same goes for the broadband EOM.

There are two spare AOMs (ISOMET and Intraaction, both resonant at 40MHz) available before we have to resort to the one currently installed in the PSL.

I installed the Intraaction AOM first and looked at the switching speed of its first order diffracted beam using both its commercial driver and a combination of minicircuits components. Both show similar behavior. The fall time of the initial step is ~110ns in both cases, but it doesn't decay rapidly no light but a slower exponential. Need to check the 0 order beam and also the other AOM.

Intraaction Driver

   

Mini Circuits Drive

   

  13265   Tue Aug 29 01:52:22 2017 gautamUpdateSUSTest mass actuator calibration

[ericq, gautam]

Tonight, we decided to double-check the POX counts-to-meters conversion.

It is unclear when this was last done, and since I modified the coil driver electronics for the ITMs and BS recently, I figured it would be useful to get this calibration done. The primary motivation was to see if we could resolve the discrepancy between the current ALS noise (using POX as a sensor) compared to the Izumi et. al. plot.

Because we are planning to change the coil driver electronics further soon anyways, we decided to do the calibration at a single frequency for tonight. For future reference, the extension of this method to calibrate the actuator over a wider range of frequencies is here. The procedure followed, and the relevant numbers from tonight, are as follows.

Procedure:

  1. Set dark offsets on all DCPDs and LSC PDs.
  2. Look at the free swinging Michelson signal on ASDC.
    • For tonights test, ASDC was derived from the AS55 photodiode.
    • The AS110 photodiode actually has more light on it, but we think that the ADC that the DCPD board is interfaced to is running on 0-2V rather than 0-10V, as the signal seemed to saturate around 2000 counts. It is unclear whether the actual photodiode is saturating, to be investigated.
    • So we decided to use ASDC from AS55 photodiode with 15dB whitening gain.
    • There is also some issue with the whitening filter (not whitening gain) on ASDC - engaging the whitening shifts the DC offset. This has to be investigated while we get stuck into the LSC electronics.
  3. Look at the peak-to-peak swing of ASDC. Use algebraic expression for reflected power from Michelson interferometer to calibrate the ASDC slope at Michelson half-fringe. For the test tonight, ASDC_max = 1026 counts, ASDC_min = 2 counts.
  4. Lock the Michelson at half-fringe, with ASDC as the error signal.
    • Zero out the MICH elements in the RFPD input matrix.
    • Set the matrix element from ASDC to MICH in the DCPD LSC input matrix to 1.
    • The servo gain used was +0.005 on the MICH_A servo path.
    • A low-frequency boost was turned on.
  5. Use the sensing matrix infrastructure to drive a line in the optic of interest.
    • Tonight, we looked at ITMX and ITMY.
    • The line was driven at 311.1Hz, and the amplitude was 300 counts.
    • Download 60secs of ASDC data, demodulate at the driven frequency to find the peak height in counts, and using the slope of ASDC (in cts/m) at the Michelson half-fringe, calculate the actuator gain in m/cts.
    • ITMY: 2.55e-9 / f^2 m/count
    • ITMX: 2.65e-9 / f^2 m/count
    • These numbers kind of make sense - the previous numbers were ~5nm/f^2 /ct, but I removed an analog gain of x3 in this path. Presumably there has been some change in the N/A conversion factor - perhaps because of a change in the interaction between the optics' face magnets and the static magnetic field in the OSEMs?
  6. Lock the arms with POX/POY, and drive the newly calibrated ITMs.
    • So we know how many meters we are driving the ITMs by.
    • Looking at POX/POY, we can calibrate these into meters/count.
    • Both POX and POY were whitened.
    • POX whitening gain = +30dB, POY whitening gain = +18dB.
    • ITMX and ITMY were driven at 311.1Hz, with amplitude = 2counts.
    • Download 60 secs of data, demodulate at the drive frequency to find the peak height, and use the known ITM actuator gains to calibrate POX and POY.
    • POX: 7.34e-13 m / count (approx. 5 times less than the number in the Foton filter bank in the C1:CAL-CINV model).
    • POY: 1.325e-13 m / count
    • We did not optimize the demod phases for POX/POY tonight. 

Once these calibrations were updated, we decided to control the arms with ALS, and look at the POX spectrum. Y-arm ALS wasn't so stellar tonight, especially at low frequencies. I can see the GTRY spot moving on the CCD monitor, so something is wonky. To be investigated. But the X arm ALS noise looked pretty good.

Seems like updating the calibration did the job; see the attached comparison plot.

  13266   Tue Aug 29 02:08:39 2017 gautamUpdateALSFiber ALS noise measurement

I was having a chat with EricQ about this today, just noting some points from our discussion down here so that I remember to look into this tomorrow.

  • I believe that currently, the channels C1:ALS-BEATX_FINE_PHASE_OUT_HZ_DQ and the Y arm analog read out the frequency of the green beat, in Hz.
  • In the comparison I plotted, I WRONGLY divided the spectrum of the IR beat by 2, instead of multiplying in by 2, which is what should actually be done for an apples-to-apples comparison.
  • The deeper question is, what should this channel actually readout?
  • Looking at my codes from past arm scans etc, I see that I am dividing the downloaded data by 2 in order to convert the X-axis of these scans to "IR Hz". But this should really be all we care about.
  • So I think I will have to re-do the cts-to-Hz calibration in the ALS models. It should be possible to do ~10FSR scans with the IR beat, and then we can use the sideband resonances (presumably the sideband frequencies are known with better precision than the arm length, and hence the FSR) to calibrate the phase tracker.
  • I don't think this changes the fact that the Fiber ALS situation has been improved - but I will have to repeat the measurement to be sure. The improvement may not be as stellar as I tried to sell in my previous elog sad.

    Other thoughts: 

  • Can we make use of the Jetstor raid array for some kind of consolidated 40m CDS backup system? Once we've gotten everything of interest out of it...

  13267   Tue Aug 29 15:04:59 2017 gautamUpdateSUSETMY Oplev PIT loop gain changed

Last night, while we were working on the ALS, I noticed the GTRY spot moving around (in PITCH) on the CCD monitor in the control room at ~1-2Hz. The operating condition was that the arm was locked to the IR, and the PSL green shutter was closed, so that only the arm transmissions were visible on the CCD screens. There was no such noticable movement of the GTRX spot. When looking at the out-of-loop ALS nosie in this configuration (but now with the PSL green shutter open of course), the Y arm ALS noise at low frequencies was much worse than the X arm.

Today, I looked into this a little more. I first checked that the Y-endtable enclosure was closed off as usual (as I had done some tweaking to the green input pointing some days ago). There are various green ghost beams on the Y-endtable. When time permits, we should make an effort to cleanly dump these. But the enclosure was closed as usual.

Then I looked at the in-loop Oplev error signal spectra for the ITMY and ETMY Oplev loops. There was high coherence between ETMYP Oplev error signal and GTRY. So I took a loop transfer function measurement - the upper UGF was around 3.5Hz. I increased the loop gain such that the upper UGF was around 4.5Hz, with phase margin ~30degrees. Doing so visibly reduced the angular movement of the GTRY spot on the CCD. Attachment #1 shows the Oplev loop TF after the gain increase, while Attachment #2 compares the GTRX and GTRY spectra (DC value is approximately the same for both, around 0.4). GTRY still seems a bit noisier at low frequencies, but the out-of-loop ALS noise for the Y arm now lines up much more closely with its reference trace from a known good time. 

Quote:
 

Y-arm ALS wasn't so stellar tonight, especially at low frequencies. I can see the GTRY spot moving on the CCD monitor, so something is wonky. To be investigated.

 

  13268   Tue Aug 29 15:35:19 2017 SteveUpdateVACvacuum pump specifications & manuals

RP1 and RP3 roughing pump manual of Leybold D30A oily rotory pump

Fore pump of TP2 & TP3 Varian SH-100 Dry Scroll

TP2 and TP3 small turbo drag pump  Varian 969-9361 

TP2 and TP3 turbo controller Varian 969-9505

TP1 magnetically suspended turbo pump  Osaka TG390MCAB, sn360 and controller TC010M  and note : this  pump  running on 208VAC single phaseIt is not on the UPS !  

                                                             Osaka Maglev Manual        and Osaka Controller Communication Wiring                                                                                                                                

VC1 cryo pump CTI-Cryogenics Cryo Torr 8 sn 8g23925  SAFETY note: compressor single phase 208VAC and the head driver 3 phase 208VAC Compressor and driver have each separate power cord!

Installed at 40m wiki  also

Quote:

The V1 gate valve specs installed at 40m wiki page. VAT model number 10846-UE44-0007 Our main volume pumping goes through this 8" id gate valve V1 to Maglev turbo  or Cryo pump to  VC1

The ion pumps have 6" id gate valves:VAT 10844-UE44-AAY1,  Pneumatic actuator with position indicator and double acting solenoid valve 115V 60Hz  Purchased 1999 Dec 22

UHV gate valves 2.5" id. VAT  10836-UE44    Pneumatic actuator with position indicator and double acting solenoid valve 115V 60 hz, IFO to RGA  VM1 &  RGA to Maglev  VM2

mini UHV gate valve 1.5" id.   VAT  01032-UE01      2016 cataloge page 14,   manual - no position indicator, VM4  next to manual adjustable fine leak valve to RGA

UHV angle valve 1.5" id, model VAT 28432-GE41, Viton plate seal, pneumatic actuator with position indicator & solenoid valve 115V & single acting closing spring  MEDM screen: VM3,VC2, V3,V4,V5,V6,VA6,V7 & annuloses Each chamber annulos has 2 valves.

UHV angle valve 1.5" id, model VAT 57132-GE05   go page 208,   Metal tip seal, manual actuating only with position indicator,   MEDM screen: roughing RV1 and venting VV1 hand wheel needed to close to torque spec

UHV angle valve  1.5" id. model VAT 28432-GE01           Viton plate seal, manual operation only at IT gauges Hornet & Super Bee and  ion pumps roughing  ports. These are not labeled.

                                                      

The Cryo pump interlock wiring was added too

Note: all moving valve plate seals are single.

 

  13270   Tue Aug 29 20:04:09 2017 ranaUpdatePSLPSL table auxiliary NPRO

I don't understand why the 1st order diffracted beam doesn't go to zero when you shut off the drive. My guess is that the standing acoustic wave in the AO crystal needs some time to decay: f = 40 MHz, tau = 1 usec... Q ~ 100. Perhaps, the crystal is damped by the PZT and ther output impedance of the mini-circuits switch is different from the AO driver.

In any case, if you need a faster shut off, or want something that more cleanly goes to zero, there is a large (~1 cm) aperture Pockels cell that Frank Siefert was using for making pulses to damage photo diodes. There is a DEI Pulser unit near the entrance to the QIL in Bridge which can drive it.

  13271   Tue Aug 29 21:36:59 2017 johannesUpdatePSLPSL table auxiliary NPRO
Quote:

 there is a large (~1 cm) aperture Pockels cell that Frank Siefert was using for making pulses to damage photo diodes. There is a DEI Pulser unit near the entrance to the QIL in Bridge which can drive it.

I'll look for it tomorrow, but I haven't given up on the AOMs yet. I swapped in the ISOMET modulator today and saw the same behavior, both in 0th and 1st order. The fall time is pretty much identical. Gautam saw no such thing in the PSL AOM using the same photodetector.

1st order diffracted                                                          0th order

     

In the meantime I prepared the fiber mode-matching but realized in the process that I had mixed up some lenses. As a result the beam did not have a waist at the AOM location and thus didn't have the intended size, although I doubt that this would cause the slower decay. I'll fix it tomorrow, along with setting up the fiber injection, beat note with the PSL, and routing the fiber if possible.

  13273   Wed Aug 30 10:54:26 2017 gautamUpdateCDSslow machine bootfest

MC autolocker and FSS loops were stuck because c1psl was unresponsive. I rebooted it and did a burtrestore to enable PSL locking. Then the IMC locked fine.

c1susaux and c1iscaux were also unresponsive so I keyed those crates as well, after taking the usual steps to avoid ITMX getting stuck - but it still got stuck when the Sat. Box. connectors were reconnected after the reboot, so I had to shake it loose with bias slider jiggling. This is annoying and also not very robust. I am afraid we are going to knock the ITMX magnets off at some point. Is this problem indicative of the fact that the ITMX magnets were somehow glued on in a skewed way? Or can we make the situation better by just tweaking the OSEM-holding fixtures on the cage?

In any case, I've started listing stuff down here for things we may want to do when we vent next.

 

  13275   Wed Aug 30 15:00:06 2017 gautamUpdateGeneralEdgeswitch fiber swap

A couple of minutes ago, Larry W swapped the fibers to our 40m Edgeswitch (BROCADE FWS 648G) to a faster connection. This is the switch to which our gateway machine, NODUS, is connected. The actual swap itself happened at the core router in Bridge, and took only a few seconds. After the switch, I double checked that I was able to ssh into nodus from my laptop, and Larry informed me that everything is working as expected on his end.

Larry also tells us that the other edgeswitch at the 40m (Foundry Networks), to which most of our GC network machines are connected, is a 100MBPS switch, and so we should re-route the connections from this switch to the BROCADE switch at our convenience to take advantage of the faster connection.

  13276   Wed Aug 30 19:49:33 2017 gautamUpdateLSCREFL55 demod board debugging

Summary:

Today I tried debugging the mysterious increase in REFL55 signal levels in the DRMI configuration. I focused on the demod board, because last week, I had tried routing these signals through different channels on the whitening board, and saw the same effect. 

Based on my tests, everything on the Demod board seems to work as expected. I need to think more about what else could be happening here - specifically do a more direct test on the whitening board.

Details:

  • The demod board is a modified D990511 (marked up schematic + high-res photo to follow).
  • Initially, I tried probing the LO signal levels at various points with the board in the eurocrate itself, with the help of an extender card.
  • But this wasn't very convenient, so I pulled the board out to the office area for more testing.
  • The 55MHz LO signal going into the board is ~0dBm (measured with Agilent network analyzer)
  • I used the active probe to check the LO levels at various points along the signal chain, which mostly consists of attenuators, ERA-5SM amplifiers, and some splitters/phase rotators.
  • Everything seemed consistent with the expected levels based on "typical" numbers for gains and insertion losses cited in the datasheets for these devices.
  • I couldn't directly measure the level at the LO input to the mixer, but measuring the input to the ERA-5SM immediately before the mixer, barring problems with this amplifier, the LO input of the mixer is being driven at >17dBm which is what it wants.
  • Next, I decided to check the gain, gain imbalance and orthogonality of the demodulation.
  • For this purpose, I restored the board to the Eurocrate, reconnected the LO input to the board, and used a second Marconi at a slightly offset frequency to drive the PD input at ~0dBm.
  • Attachment #1 - The measured outputs look pretty balanced and orthogonal. The gain is consistent with an earlier measurement I made some months ago, when things were "normal". More bullets added after Rana's questions:
    • 300 MHz bandwidth oscilloscope used to acquire the data
    • I and Q outputs were from the daughter board
    • Data was acquired via ethernet data download utility
    • 20 MHz low-pass filter turned on on the Oscilloscope while downloading the data
Quote:

I did a quick check by switching the output of the REFL55 demod board to the inputs normally used by AS55 signals on the whitening board. Setting the whitening gain to +18dB for these channels had the same effect - ADC overflow galore. So looks like the whitening board isn't to blame. I will have to check the demod board out.

 


All connections have been restored untill further debugging later in the evening.

  13278   Thu Aug 31 00:19:35 2017 rana[^r]UpdatePSLIMC/FSS FAST gain

nominal changed from 22 to 23 dB to minimize PC drive RMS

previous loop gain measurement is sort of bogus (made on SR785); need some 4395 loop measurements and checking of crossover and error point spectrum

  13280   Thu Aug 31 00:52:52 2017 gautamUpdateLSCREFL55 whitening board debugging

[rana,gautam]

We did an ingenious checkup of the whitening board tonight.

  • The board is D990694
  • We made use of a tip-tilt DAC channel for this test (specifically TT1 UL, which is channel 1 on the AI board). We disconnected the cable going from the AI board to the TT coil driver board.
    • as opposed to using a function generator to drive the whitening filter, this approach allows us to not have to worry the changing offsets as we switch the whitening gain.
    • By using the CDS system to generate the signal and also demodulate it, we also don't have to worry about the drive and demod frequencies falling out of sync with each other.
  • The test was done by injecting a low frequency (75.13 Hz, amplitude=0.1) excitation to this DAC channel, and using the LSC sensing matrix infrastructure to demodulate REFL55 I and Q at this frequency. Demod phases in these servos were adjusted such that the Q phase demodulated signal was minimized.
  • An excitation was injected using awggui into TT1 UL exc channel.
  • We then stepped the whitening gains for REFL55_I and REFL55_Q in 3dB steps, waiting 5 seconds for each step. Syntax is z step -s 5 C1:LSC-REFL55_I_WhiteGain +1.0,15 C1:LSC-REFL55_Q_WhiteGain +1.0,15
  • Attachment #1 suggests that the whitening filter board is working as expected (each step is indeed 3dB and all steps are equal to the eye).
  • Data + script used to generate this plot is in Attachment #2.

I've restored all connections at that we messed with at the LSC rack to their original positions.

The TT alignment seems to be drifting around more than usual after we disconnected one of the channels - when I came in today afternoon, the spot on the AS camera had drifted by ~1 spot diameter so I had to manually re-align TT1. 

Quote:
 

Based on my tests, everything on the Demod board seems to work as expected. I need to think more about what else could be happening here - specifically do a more direct test on the whitening board.

  13281   Thu Aug 31 03:31:15 2017 gautamUpdateLSCDRMI re-locked!

After our Demod/Whitening electronics investigations suggested nothing obviously wrong, I decided to give DRMI locking another go tonight.

Surprisingly, there was no evidence of REFL55 behaving weirdly tonight, and I was able to easily lock the DRMI on 1f error signals using the recipe I've been using in the last few months.

Not sure what to make of all this frown.

I got in a ~15 minute lock, but I wasn't prepared to do any sort of characterization/ sensing / attempt to turn on coil-dewhitening, and I'm too tired to try again tonight. I was however able to whiten the error signals, as I have been able to do in the past. There is a ~45Hz bump in MICH that I haven't seen in the past.

I'll try and do some characterization tomorrow eve, but it's encouraging to at least get back to the pre-FB-failure state of locking.

  13282   Thu Aug 31 18:36:23 2017 gautamUpdateCDSrevisiting Acromag

Current status:

  • There is a single Acromag ADC unit installed in 1X4
  • It is presently hooked up to the PSL NPRO diagnostic connector channels
  • I had (re)-started the acquisiton of these channels on August 16 - but for reasons unknown, the tmux session that was supposed to be running the EPICS server on megatron seems to have died on August 22 (judging by the trend plot of these channels, see Attachment #1)
  • I had not set up an upstart job that restarts the server automatically in such an event. I manually restarted it for now, following the same procedure as linked in my previous elog.
  • While I was at it, I also took the opportunity to edit the Acromag channel names to something more appropriate - all channels previously prefixed with C1:ACRO- have now been prefixed with C1:PSL-

Plan of action:

  1. Hardware - we have, in the lab, in addition to the installed ADC unit
    • 3x 8 channel differential input ADC units
    • 2x 8 channel differential output DAC units
    • 1x 16 channel BIO unit
    • 2U chassis + connectors + breakout boards + other misc hardware that I think Johannes and Lydia procured with the original plan to replace the EX slow controls.
    • Some relevant elogs: Panel designs, breakout design, sketch for proposed layout, preliminary channel list.
      So on the hardware side, it would seem that we have everything we need to go ahead with replacing the EX slow controls with an Acromag system, although Johannes probably knows more about our state of readiness from a hardware PoV.
  2. Software
    • We probably want to get a dedicated machine that will handle the EPICS channel serving for the Acromag system
    • Have to figure out the networking arrangement for such a machine
    • Have to figure out how to set up the EPICS server protocol in such a way that if it drops for whatever reason, it is automatically restarted

 

  13283   Thu Aug 31 21:40:24 2017 gautamUpdateGeneralMC1 kicked again

There was a pretty large glitch in MC1 about an hour ago. The misalignment was so large that the autolocker wasn't able to lock the IMC. I manually re-aligned MC1 using the bias sliders, and now IMC locks fine. Attached is a 90 second plot of 2K data from the OSEMs showing the glitch. Judging from the wall StripTool, the IMC was well behaved for ~4 hours before this glitch - there is no evidence of any sort of misalignment building up, judging from the WFS control signals.

  13284   Fri Sep 1 08:25:08 2017 SteveUpdateSUSMC1 glitching

MC1, MC2 and MC3 damping turned off to see glitching action at 9:57am

Quote:

There was a pretty large glitch in MC1 about an hour ago. The misalignment was so large that the autolocker wasn't able to lock the IMC. I manually re-aligned MC1 using the bias sliders, and now IMC locks fine. Attached is a 90 second plot of 2K data from the OSEMs showing the glitch. Judging from the wall StripTool, the IMC was well behaved for ~4 hours before this glitch - there is no evidence of any sort of misalignment building up, judging from the WFS control signals.

 

  13285   Fri Sep 1 15:46:12 2017 KiraUpdatePEMtemp sensor update

I took off the AD590 and attached it to two long wires leading out from the board. This will allow us to attach the sensor to a metal block and not have to stick the whole board to it. I have also completed three identical copies of this and it's pretty much ready to be tested. According to Craig and Andrew's elog here, the sensor is very noisy and they added in a low pass filter to fix that, so that's something to consider for the final version of the circuit. I'll test what I have so far and see how that goes. We still need to figure out how to get readings from the sensors.

To attach the sensor to the metal block, I'll use some thermal paste and fasteners. I'll also put a thermometer on the block to record the actual temperature. I'll then wrap it in some insulation we have in the lab and have only some wires leading out of it to make measurements. I'll leave this setup overnight and record the outputs for about a full day. The fluctuations between the sensors will then indicate the noise of each individual sensor.

  13286   Fri Sep 1 16:27:39 2017 gautamUpdateSUSMC1 glitching

I re-enabled the MC SUS damping and IMC locking for some IFO work just now.

Quote:

MC1, MC2 and MC3 damping turned off to see glitching action at 9:57am

 

  13287   Fri Sep 1 16:55:27 2017 gautamUpdateComputersTestpoints now accessible again

Thanks to Jonathan Hanks, it appears we can now access test-points again using dataviewer.

I haven't done an exhaustive check just yet, but I have loaded a few testpoints in dataviewer, and ran a script that use testpoint channels (specifically the ALS phase tracker UGF setting script), all seems good.

So if I remember correctly, the major CDS fix now required is to solve the model unloading issue.

Thanks to Jamie/Jonathan Hanks/KT for getting us back to this point! Here are the details:

After reading logs and code, it was a simple daqdrc config change.

The daqdrc should read something like this:

...
set master_config=".../master";
configure channels begin end;
tpconfig ".../testpoint.par";
...


What had happened was tpconfig was put before the configure channels
begin end.  So when daqd_rcv went to configure its test points it did
not have the channel list configured and could not match test points to
the right model & machine.  Dave and I suspect that this is so that it
can do an request directly to the correct front end instead of a general
broadcast to all awgtpman instances.

Simply reordering the config fixes it.

I tested by opening a test point in dataviewer and verifiying that
testpoints had opened/closed by using diag -l.  Xmgr/grace didn't seem
to be able to keep up with the test point data over a remote connection.

You can find this in the logs by looking for entries like the following
while the daqd is starting up.  When we looked we saw that there was an
entry for every model.

Unable to find GDS node 35 system c1daf in INI fiels
  13288   Fri Sep 1 19:15:40 2017 gautamUpdateALSFiber ALS noise measurement

Summary:

I did some work today to see if I could use the IR beat for ALS control. Initial tests were encouraging.

I will now embark on the noise budgeting.

Details:

  • For this test, I used the X arm
  • I hooked up the X-arm + PSL IR beat to the X-arm DFD channel, and used the Y-arm DFD channels to simultaneously monitor the X-arm green beat.
  • I then transitioned to ALS control and used POX as an out-of-loop sensor for the ALS noise.
  • Attachment #1 shows a comparison of the measurements. In red is the IR beat, while the green traces are from the test EricQ and I did a couple of nights ago using the green beat.
  • I also wanted to do some arm cavity scans with the arm under ALS control with the IR beat - but was unsucessful. The motivation was to fix the ALS model counts->Hz calibration factors.
  • I did however manage to do a 10 FSR scan using the green beatnote - however, towards the end of this scan, the green beat frequency (read off the control room analyzer) was ~140MHz, which I believe is outside (or at least on the edge) of the bandwidth of the Green BBPDs. The fiber coupled IR beat photodiodes have a much larger (1GHz) spec'd bandwidth.

I am leaving the green beat electronics on the PSL table in the switched state for further testing...

 

  13289   Mon Sep 4 16:30:06 2017 gautamUpdateLSCOplev loop tweaking

Now that the DRMI locking seems to be repeatable again, I want to see if I can improve the measured MICH noise. Recall that the two dominant sources of noise were

  1. BS Oplev loop A2L - this was the main noise between 30-60Hz.
  2. DAC noise - this dominated between ~60-300Hz, since we were operating with the de-whitening filters off.

In preparation for some locking attempts today evening, I did the following:

  1. Added steeper elliptic roll-off filters for the ITMX and ITMY Oplevs. This is necessary to allow the de-whitening filters to be turned on without railing the DAC.
  2. Modified the BS Oplev loop to also have steeper high-frequency (>30Hz) roll off. The roll-off between 15-30Hz is slightly less steep as a result of this change.
  3. Measured all Oplev loop TFs - UGFs are between 4 Hz and 5 Hz, phase margin is ~30degrees. I did not do any systematic optimization of this for today.
  4. Went into the Foton filter banks for all the coil output filters, and modified the "Output" settings to be on "Input crossing", with a "Tolerance" of 10 and a "Timeout" of 3 seconds. These settings are to facilitate smooth transition between the two signal paths (without and with coil-dewhitening). The parameters chosen were arbitrary and not optimized in any systematic manner.
  5. After making the above changes, I tried engaging the de-whitening filters on ITMX, ITMY and BS with the arms locked. In the past, I was unable to do this because of a number of issues - Oplev loop shapes and Foton settings among them. But today, the switching was smooth, the single arm locks weren't disturbed when I engaged the coil de-whitening.

Hopefully, I can successfully engage a similar transition tonight with the DRMI locked. The main difference compared to this daytime test is going to be that the MICH control signal is also going to be routed to the BS.

Tasks for tonight, if all goes well:

  1. Lock DRMI.
  2. Use UGF servos to set the overall loop gains for DRMI DoFs.
  3. Reduce PRCL->MICH and SRCL->MICH coupling.
  4. Measure loop shapes of all DRMI DoFs.
  5. Make sensing matrix measurement.
  6. Engage coil-dewhitening, download data, make NB.

Unrelated to this work: the PMC was locked near the upper rail of the PZT, so I re-locked it closer to the middle of the range.

Quote:

Surprisingly, there was no evidence of REFL55 behaving weirdly tonight, and I was able to easily lock the DRMI on 1f error signals using the recipe I've been using in the last few months.

  13290   Mon Sep 4 18:18:29 2017 ranaUpdateLSCdewhite switching: FOTON settings

not immediately necessary, since you have already got it sort of working, but one of these days we should optimize this for real. In the past, we used to do this by putting a o'scope on the coil Vmon during the switching to catch the transient w/ triggering. We download the data/picture via ethernet. Run for loop on tolerance to see what's what.

  1. Went into the Foton filter banks for all the coil output filters, and modified the "Output" settings to be on "Input crossing", with a "Tolerance" of 10 and a "Timeout" of 3 seconds. These settings are to facilitate smooth transition between the two signal paths (without and with coil-dewhitening). The parameters chosen were arbitrary and not optimized in any systematic manner.

 

  13291   Tue Sep 5 02:07:49 2017 gautamUpdateLSCLow Noise DRMI attempt

Summary:

Tonight, I was able to lock the DRMI, turn on the whitening filters for the sensing PDs, and also turn on the coil de-whitening filters for ITMX, ITMY and BS. However, I didn't see the expected improvement in the MICH spectrum between ~50-300 Hz sad. Sad.

Details:

I basically went through the list of tasks I made in the previous elog. Some notes:

  • The UGF servos suggested that I had to lower the SRCL gain. I lowered it from -0.055 to -0.025. OLTF measurement using In1/In2 method suggested UGF ~120Hz. I don't know why this should be. Plot to be uploaded later.
  • Since we aren't actuating on the ITMs, I was able to leave their coils de-whitened all the time.
  • For the BS, it was trickier - I had to play around a little with the "Tolerance" setting in Foton while looking at transients (using DTT, not a scope for now) while switching the filters.
  • This transition isn't so robust yet - but eventually I found a setting that worked, and I was able to successfully turn on the de-whitening thrice tonight (but also failed about the same number of times). [GV Oct 6 2017: Remember that the PD whitening has to be turned on for this transition to be successful - otherwise the RMS from the high frequencies saturate the DAC.]
  • The locks were pretty stable. One was ~10mins, one was ~15mins, and I broke both deliberately because I was out of ideas as to why the part of the MICH error signal spectrum that I thought was due to DAC noise didn't improve.
  • I've made a bunch of shell scripts to help with the various switchings - but now that I think of it, I should make these python scripts.

Attachment #1: Comparison of MICH_ERR with and without the BS de-whitening. Note that the two ITMs have their coils de-whitened in both sets of traces.

Attachment #2: Spectra of MICH output and one of the BS coil outputs in both states. The DAC RMS increases by ~30x when the de-whitening is engaged, but is still well within limits.

So it looks like the switching of paths is happening correctly. The "CDS BIO STATUS" MEDM screen also shows the appropriate bits toggling when I turn the de-whitening on/off. There is no broadband coherence with MCF between 50-300 Hz so it seems unlikely that this could be frequency noise.

Clearly I am missing something. But anyways I have a good amount of data, may be useful to put together the post CDS/electronics modification DRMI noise budget. More analysis to follow.

 

  13293   Tue Sep 5 14:41:58 2017 gautamUpdateCDSNDS2 server restarted on megatron

I was unable to download data using nds2. Gabriele had reported similar problems a week ago but I hadn't followed up on this.

I repeated steps 5-7 from elog 13161, and now it seems that I can get data from the nds2 servers again. Unclear why the nds2 server had to be restarted. I wonder if this is somehow related to the mysterious acromag EPICS server tmux session dropout.

  13295   Tue Sep 5 17:18:17 2017 KiraUpdatePEMtemp sensor update

Today, I stuck on the sensors to a metal block using a flag, rubber bands, and some thermal paste (1st attachment). I then wrapped the whole thing in about 4 layers of insulation and a lot of tape (2nd attachment). The only things leading out of the box were the three connections to the sensors and a thermometer. I then connected the wires to their respective places on the board of the sensor. To get the readings out we would need to use an ADC. Gautam and I checked to make sure the ADC we have inside the lab goes from -10V to 10V so that it would be able to measure the 3V value the sensor typically measures. We then tried to connect all three sensors to a DC source simultaneously, but unfortunately one of them seems to have disconnected somewhere during the process, as it only showed 1.2V instead of 3V. I plan to fix this tomorrow morning so that we can hopefully set this up soon.

Quote:

I took off the AD590 and attached it to two long wires leading out from the board. This will allow us to attach the sensor to a metal block and not have to stick the whole board to it. I have also completed three identical copies of this and it's pretty much ready to be tested. According to Craig and Andrew's elog here, the sensor is very noisy and they added in a low pass filter to fix that, so that's something to consider for the final version of the circuit. I'll test what I have so far and see how that goes. We still need to figure out how to get readings from the sensors.

To attach the sensor to the metal block, I'll use some thermal paste and fasteners. I'll also put a thermometer on the block to record the actual temperature. I'll then wrap it in some insulation we have in the lab and have only some wires leading out of it to make measurements. I'll leave this setup overnight and record the outputs for about a full day. The fluctuations between the sensors will then indicate the noise of each individual sensor.

 

  13296   Tue Sep 5 17:52:06 2017 KiraUpdatePEMtemp sensor update

to get the sensors to read the same values they have to be in direct thermal contact with the metal block - there can't be any adapter board in-between

for the 2nd attempt, I also recommend encasing it in a metal block rather than just one side. You can drill some 7-10 mm diameter holes in an aluminum or copper block. Then put the sensors in there and plug it up with some thermal paste.

  13297   Tue Sep 5 23:02:37 2017 gautamUpdateCDSslow machine bootfest

MC autolocker was not working - PCdrive was railed at its upper rail for ~2 hours judging by the wall StripTool trace. I tried restarting the init processes on megatron, but that didn't fix the problem. The reason seems to have been related to c1iool0 failing - after keying the crate, autolocker came back fine and MC caught lock almost immediately.

Additionally, c1susaux, c1auxex,c1auxey and c1iscaux are also down. I'm not planning on using the IFO tonight so I am not going to reboot these now.

 

  13298   Tue Sep 5 23:13:44 2017 johannesUpdatePSLPSL table auxiliary NPRO

I used Gautam's mode measurement of the auxiliary NPRO (w=127.3um, z=82mm) for the spacing of the optics on the PSL table for the fiber injection and light modulation. As mentioned in previous posts, for the time being there is no Faraday isolator and no broadband EOM installed, but they're accounted for in the mode propagation and they have space reserved if desired/required/available.

The coupler used for the injection is a Thorlabs F220APC-1064, which allegedly collimates the beam from the fiber type we use to 2.4mm diameter, which I used as the target for the mode calculations. I coupled the first order diffracted beam to a ~60m fiber, which is a tad long but the only fiber I could locate that was long enough. The coupling efficiency from free-space to fiber is 47.5%, and we can currently get up to 63 mW out of the fiber.

Tomorrow Steve and I are going to pull the fiber through protective tubing and bring it to the AS port. The next step is then characterizing the beam out of the collimator to match it into the interferometer.

As far as the switching itself is concerned: I confirmed that the exponential decay is still present when looking at the fiber output. I located the DEI Pulser unit in the QIL lab, and also found several more AOMs, including a 200MHz Crystal Technologies one, same brand that the PSL has, where the ringdown was not observed. According to past elogs, with good polarizers we can expect an extinction ratio of ~200 from the Pockels cell, which should be fine, but it's going to be tradeoff switching speed <-> extinction (if the alternate AOM doesn't show this ringdown behavior).

  13299   Wed Sep 6 01:09:11 2017 johannesUpdateComputer Scripts / ProgramsNew set of loss measurements

I stumbled upon a faster way to stream data from the TDS3014 oscilloscopes to disk, which speeds the loss measurements up by a lot:  ftp://sprite.ssl.berkeley.edu/pub/sharris/MAVEN_LPW_Preamp/109_TDS3014B_control/tds3014b.py
This convenient(!) set of scripts contains a function that parses the scope's native binary format, for which the acquisition of 1 screenful of data takes <1s as opposed to ~20s, into readable data. I tested it for a bit and concluded that it does what it actually claims to do, but there's one weirdness: It get's the channel offset wrong. However this doesn't matter in our measurement because we're subtracting the dark level, which sees the same (wrong) offset. Other than that it seems okay.

So I started a new set of armloss measurements, and since the data acquisition is now much faster, I was able to squeeze a set of 20 individual measurements for each arm into ~30 minutes. This is the procedure I follow when I take these measurements for the XARM (symmetric under XARM <-> YARM):

  1. Dither-align the interferometer with both arms locked. Freeze outputs when done.
  2. Misalign ETMY + ITMY.
  3. ITMY needs to be misaligned further. Moving the slider by at least +0.2 is plentiful to not have the other beam interfere with the measurement.
  4. Start the script, which does the following:
    1. Resume dithering of the XARM
    2. Check XARM dither error signal rms with CDS. If they're calm enough, proceed.
    3. Freeze dithering
    4. Start a new set of averages on the scope, wait T_WAIT (5 seconds)
    5. Read data (= ASDC power and MC2 trans) from scope and save
    6. Misalign ETMX and wait 5s
    7. Read data from scope and save
    8. Repeat desired amount of times
  5. Close the PSL shutter and measure the PD dark levels

I will write a more comprehensive post describing the data acquisition and processing, let's just look at the results for now: The "uncertainties" reported by the individual measurements are on the order of 1-2 ppm (~1.9 for the XARM, ~1.3 for the YARM). This accounts for fluctuations of the data read from the scope and uncertainties in mode-matching and modulation depths in the EOM. I made histograms for the 20 datapoints taken for each arm: the standard deviation of the spread is a little over 2ppm. We end up with something like:

XARM: 49.3 +/- 2.1 ppm
YARM: 20.3 +/- 2.3 ppm

 

    

  13300   Wed Sep 6 23:06:30 2017 gautamUpdateLSCCoil de-whitening switching investigation

Summary:

Rana suggested checking if the coil de-whitening switching is actually happening in the analog path. I repeated the test detailed hereAttachments #1 and #2 suggest that all the coils for the BS and ITMs are indeed switching yes.

Details:

  • The motivation behind this test was the following - the analog path switching is done by applying some logic voltage to a switch, but if this voltage is common among many switches, the hypothesis was that perhaps individual switches were not getting the required voltage to engage the switching.
  • This time FM9 (simulated de-whitening) and FM10 (inverse de-whitening) in the coil output filter modules turned off, so as to maintain a flat TF in the digital domain, but engage the de-whitened analog path (turning off FM9 is supposed to do this).
  • There is poor coherence in the measurement above 40Hz so the data there should be neglected. It is hard to get a good measurement at higher frequencies because of the pendulum TF + heavy low pass filtering from the analog de-whitening path.
  • But between 10-40Hz, we already see the analog de-whitening TF in the measurement.
  • For comparison, I have plotted the measured pendulum TFs for one of the coils from an earlier test (all the coils were roughly at the same level).

So it would seem that there is some other noise which has a 1/f^2 shape and is at the same level we expected the DAC noise to be at. Rana suggested checking coherence with MC transmission to see if this could be laser intensity noise.

I also want to re-do the actuator calibrations for the vertex optics again before re-posting the revised noise budget.

  13301   Thu Sep 7 23:09:00 2017 johannesUpdatePSLPSL table auxiliary NPRO

I brought the DEI Pulser unit and a suitable Pockels cell over from Bridge today (I also found an identical Pockels cell already at the 40m on the SP table, now that I knew what to look for).

I also brought the 200MHz AOM (Crystal Technology 3200-1113) along which can achieve rise times of 10 ns(!). Before I start setting up the Pockels cell I wanted to try this different AOM and look at its switching behavior. It asks for a much smaller beam (<65 um diam.) than what's currently in the path to the fiber (500 um diam.), although it's clear aperture is technically big enough (~1mm diam.). So I still tried, and the result was a somewhat elliptical deflected beam, and the slower decay was again visible after switching the RF input.

I was using the big Fluke function generator for the 200MHz seed signal, a Mini Circuits ZASWA-2-50 switch and a Mini Circuits ZHL-5W-1 amplifier. For the last two I moved two power supplies (+/-5V for the switch and +24V for the amplifier) into the PSL enclosure. I started at low seed power on the Fluke, routing the amplified signal into a 20dB attenuator before measuring it with an RF power meter. The AOM saturates at 2.5W (34 dBm), which I determined is achieved with a power setting on the Fluke of -4 dBm. As expected, this AOM performed faster (~80ns fall time) but I again observed the slower decay.

This struck me as weird and I started swapping components other than the AOM, which I probably should have done before. It turned out that it was the PD I was using (the same PDA10CF Gautam had used for his MC ringdown investigations). When I changed it to a PDA10A (Si diode, 150MHz bandwidth) the slow decay vanished! One last round of crappy screenshots:

   

Rather than proceeding with the Pockels cell, tomorrow I will make the beam in the AOM smaller and hope that that takes care of the ellipticity. If it does: the AOM can theoretically switch on ~10ns timescale, same for the switch (5-15ns typical), and the amplifier is non-resonant and works up to 500MHz, so it shouldn't be a limiting factor either. If this doesn't work out, we can still have ~100ns switching times with the other AOMs.

  13302   Fri Sep 8 07:54:04 2017 SteveUpdatePEMM8.1 eq

Nothing tripped. No obvious damage.

ELOG V3.1.3-