We have been waiting for this for 20 some years. Arrowhead water with cooler. AWESOME

THANKS Alan

I added 600 cc of Arrowhead Distilled Water to the chiller.

60 days plot shows that about every ~ 10 days I have to add some.

Please check the water level yourself.

We lost our key to the Lightwave 125/6-OPN-PS   The key shop just made one look a like that works.

We are celebrating Rob's promotion to thesis poetry.  These pictures were taken on December 9, 2009

Rob has finished all his measurements in the lab and is officially well prepared to graduate.

 What was the power level, polarization and beam size at beam trap?

The 2W NPRO from Valera arrived today and I haf hidden it somewere in the 40m lab!

Rana was so kind to make this entry for me

CES construction is progressing. The 40m suspensions are bearing well.

atm1, PEM  vs sus plots of 120 days

atm2, big pool walls are in place, ~10 ft east of south arm

atm3, 10 ft east of ITMY

atm4, ~60 ft east of ITMY

atm5, cold weather effect of N2 evaporator tower

The low PMC transmission alarm was on this morning. The PMC alignment needs a touch up.

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

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

Rana:  Yes

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

and static built-up during pump down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It will happen on next Tuesday morning.

Our janitor dropped one 48" long  fluorescent tube on the top cover of ETMX-isct. This accident made glasses fly all over the place.

He cleaned up nicely, but please beware of small glass pieces around ETMX chamber.

We did not clean up on the table in order to reserve oplev and green ITMX pointing alignment.

Plot below shows that the alignment was not effected.

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

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

3-5 mTorr / day is normal

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

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

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

The 40m safety audit will be at Wednesday afternoon, March 3

Please participate getting our lab to inspection grade safety level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The brand new OSEM LED and PD can be picked up with a weak magnet. These ferrous metals of LEDs and PDs will be magnetized by sitting in the sus next to the

magnets for years. I hanged optics with new OSEMs and never saw this effect before.

We have to demagnetize them.

They are sandblasting at CES: our particle counts are very high. DO NOT OPEN CHAMBER!

 It turns out that we perfecly timed the big one

In the process of finding the signal of the big chilean earthquake I just realized that we were all off

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

Do not open IFO vacuum envelope today! They are sandblasting again at CES

The oplev plots clearly show the alignment effect of this eq.

Someone adjusted the Guralp2 mass position last night??

NO

There was more jackhammering this morning just about 20 ft north-west of the beamsplitter chamber, outside.

 This seal is good for daily use- operation only. The IFO has to be sealed  with light metal doors every night so ants and other bugs can not find their way in.

Our janitor Kevin is mopping the hole IFO room floor area with 5%  ant killing solution in water in order to discourage bugs getting close to our openings of the vented chamber.

You may be sensitive to this chemical too.  Do not open chamber till after lunch.

Old control room air condition failed yesterday around noon. It was blowing 80-85F hot air for about 2-3 hours at racks 1Y4-7 and the entry room 103

 The same thing happening again.  The intermittent offset upstream of the seismometer that never got fixed.

The granite plate and ball bearings are in. I will place seismometers on it.

Safety glasses 1064 nm transmission measured at ~200 mW level. They are all good.

 Teflon feet removed and heavy brass-delrin pd base installed. Ref-cavity reflected light remains to be beautiful doughnut shape on camera.

Large earthquake shakes Baja California, Mexico and 6 over Magnitude 5 aftershakes follow.  The frontend computers are still down since Friday.

 The cabling on the seismic stack was rerouted so it could reach the south edge of the table: the cables  were removed from the viton padded clamps and repositioned this morning.

ITM-south tower's earthquake screw viton tips could be a little bit larger. They do not stay in their screw hole after a hard clamping action.

4-40 earthquake screws under the test mass:viton tips can fall out without action, the treads are cross threaded so the screws are wobbling

 I restored damping to all SUSes except ITM-east. The ITMX OSEMs are being used in the clean assembly room.

In order to minimize the diffusion of more dust particles into the vented IFO vacuum envelope

BEFORE opening chamber:

-Have a  known plan,

-Heavy 1" thick door requires 3 persons- of  one experienced and one certified crane operator and steel tow safety shoes

-Block IFO beams, be ware of experimental set up of other hazards: 1064,  visible or new-special installation

- Look at the particle counter, do not open above 6,000 particles of 0.5 micron. Construction activities are winding down. See  plot of 35 days since we  vented.

-Have clean door stand for heavy door, covered with merostate at the right location and dry-clean screws for light covers,

-Prepare lint free wipers for o-rings,(no solvent on o-ring!) Kimwipes for outside of chamber and metal covers, methanol and powder free gloves

-Wipe with wet Kimwipe-tissue of methanol around the door, chamber of interest and o-ring cover ring

-Cut door covering merostate and tape it into position,..if in place...check  folded-merostate position, if dusty... replace it

-Is your cleanroom garment clean?.......if in doubt ....replace it

-Keep surrounding area free and clean

-Make sure that HEPAs are running: PSL-enclosure, two mobile units and south end flow banch

-Check the tools: are they really clean? wipe it with wet Kimwipe, do you see anything on the Kimwipe?

-You are responsible to close chamber ASAP with light door or doors as you finished for the day.

Merostate cover down is appropriate during daily brakes.

The 1979 vintage RF spectrum analyzer HP4195A  sn2904J01587 shipped out  for repair today to http://www.avalontest.com

It has a 25 MHZ oscillation when you go  below 150 MHZ in your sweep....atm1 with the larger amplitude shows this 25 MHZ

Atm2 is displaying  full sweep-sign scans from 1 to 500 MHZ.....here one can clearly see the three segment of the scan:

1, large amplitude 25 MHZ oscillation dominating the spectrum up to 150 MHZ

2, the mid section from 150 MHZ  to 300 MHZ with medium size amplitude is normal

3, from 300 MHZ to 500 MHZ the amplitude is decreasing.......showing the disadvantage of using a 300 MHZ oscilloscope

We found ref-cavity HV was off yesterday afternoon. It was turned back on.

ETMY sus damping was restored

The 40m's new undergrad Kevin Kuns was introduced to 40m safety hazards. He is new and needs guidance as specially with 2W laser work.

Peter King will train him on Friday to LIGO-laser standard.

Koji and I wanted to turn off the IFO-room AC so the wind would not blow on MC1-3. We could not. The switches were probably bypassed when the power transformer was replaced at the last scheduled power outage.

 There is one three position manual/off/auto switch next to the filter for each unit at CES. They have to be in AUTO position when we want to turn AC on/off from the lab.

 Now I know why Rana was wearing his bright green pants yesterday. It is nice to see the green beam in the 40m IFO again. It calls for celebration!

I stopped AWG 1Hz drive of ITMYs (south-arm) I still see unblocked beams at the ETMYs table. We have plenty of cleaned razor beam traps to be used. Please block Faraday rejects etc

I stopped AWG  1 Hz drive to ITMYs. ITMXe was also driven or oscillating. ITMXe damping was off, so I turned it on. It did not effect it's oscillation

ETMY-south sus damping was restored

As we learned yesterday, the PSL laser power out put mechanical shutter is not working in the remote mode. It only works in local manual mode.

Do not rely on the MEDM screen monitor readout! The position is only changing on the monitor. The main beam must be blocked before the output periscope.