ELOG 40m

Mode Cleaner Mode Tracking

Routine

IOO

I processed the heterodyned mode cleaner data yesterday, tracking the three 28 kHz modes corresponding to MC1, MC2, and MC3. Unfortuntately the effect of our MC power chopping is totally swamped by ambient temperature changes. Attached are two plots, one with the tracked mode frequencies, and the other containing dataviewer trends with the MC transmitted power and the room temperature. Additionally, the matlab scripts are attached in a zip file.

Attachment 1: mode-track.pdf

Attachment 2: trends.pdf

Attachment 3: mcmodetrack.zip

Thu Nov 1 11:45:30 2007

IOO

Mode cleaner drag-wiping

Andrey, Bob, David, John Miller, Rana, Rob, Steve, Tobin

Yesterday we vented the vacuum enclosure and opened up the chamber containing MC1 & MC3 by removing the access connector between that chamber and the OMC chamber. Rana marked MC1's location with dogs and then slid the suspension horizontally to the table edge for easy drag-wiping access. The optic was thoroughly hosed-down with the dionizer, in part in an effort to remove dust from the cage and the top of the optic. Drag-wiping commenced with Rob squirting (using the 50 microliter syringe) and Tobin dragging (using half-sheets of Kodak lens tissue). We drag-wiped the optic many (~10) times, concentrating on the center but also chasing around various particles and a smudge on the periphery. There remains one tiny speck at about the 7:30 position, outside of the resonant spot area, that we could not dislodge with three wipes.

Today we drag-wiped MC3. First we slid MC1 back and then slid MC3 out to the edge of the table. We disconnected the OSEM cables in the process for accessibility, and MC1 is perched at an angle, resting on a dog. We did not blow MC3 with the deonizer, not wanting to blow particles from MC3 to the already-cleaned MC1. We drag-wiped MC3 only three times, all downward drags through the optic center, with Steve squirting and Tobin dragging. Some particles are still visible around the periphery, and there appears to be a small fiber lodged near the optic center on the reverse face.

Andrey and Steve have opened up MC2 in preparation for drag-wiping that optic after lunch.

Tue Nov 6 16:48:54 2007

I configured our two 100 MHz Tektronix 3014B scopes with IP addresses: 131.215.113.24 (scope0) and 113.215.113.25 (scope1). Let the scripting commence!

There appears to be a Matlab Instrument Control Toolbox driver for this scope.

Tue Nov 6 18:18:15 2007

I broke (and fixed) conlogger

It turns out that not only restart_conlogger, but also conlogger itself checks to see that it is running on the right machine. I had changed the restart_conlogger script to run on op340, but it would actually silently fail (because we cleverly redirect conlogger's output to /dev/null). Anyway, it's fixed now: I edited the conlogger source code where the hostname is hardcoded (blech!) and recompiled.

On another note, Andrey fixed the "su" command on op440m. It turns out that the GNU version, in /usr/local/bin, doesn't work, and was masking the (working) sun version in /bin. Andrey renamed the offending version as "su.backup".

Tue Nov 6 23:45:38 2007

I cooked up a little script to fetch the data from the networked Tektronix scope. Example usage:

linux2:scripts>tektronix/tek-dump scope0 ch1 foo.csv

"scope0" is the hostname of the scope, "ch1" is the channel you want to dump, and "foo.csv" is the file you want to dump it to. The script is written in Python since Python's libhttp gave me less trouble than Perl's HTTP::Lite.

Wed Nov 7 14:05:59 2007

Modeling the mode cleaner as a simple cavity with all losses lumped together, we expect the cavity power to be
attenuated by a factor (1-L) after each interval (2l/c)=1/fsr. Therefore we can get the cavity loss L
(including power lost through transmission) from the ringdown time constant tau as:

L = 1 - exp[ - 1/(tau * fsr) ]

From this we have to subtract the 2000 ppm transmission for each of MC1 and MC3, and divide by three to spread
the losses across the three optics.

I get 168 ą 39 ppm loss per optic based on a very simple exponential fit to the tails (t>0) of four of Andrey's data files.

By comparison, I get 154 ą 37 ppm from Rana's data files from before the vent.

Thu Nov 8 15:57:53 2007

I removed the sheet metal shelf from the PSL enclosure, for easier access to the ISS.

ISS investigations ongoing.

Thu Nov 8 18:44:01 2007

Tobin, Rob

With the Sense PD blocked, I adjusted the offset trim of the fourth stage in the ISS servo until the current shunt signal was zeroed. After this adjustment, we are able to crank the ISS gain all the way up to 30 dB without CS saturations (provided the HEPA is turned down to a very quiet level), getting about 35kHZ UGF at that gain setting. However, the current shunt mean value was still enormous.

Examining the current shunt signal on a fast scope, we saw an enormous (>2Vpp) 3.6 MHz sawtooth signal. Going up the chain of op-amps, we found that U1, as measured at the "Filter Out" testpoint, is oscillating wildly at 12 MHz (680 mVpp).

100

Wed Nov 14 12:33:35 2007

The construction crews are running a jack-hammer right outside of the control room.

Attachment 1: DSC_0172.JPG

101

Wed Nov 14 12:47:19 2007

John, Tobin

With John's notch filter installed and the increased light on the ISS sensing diode, we were able to get a UGF of about 60 kHz with the gain slider set to about 20 dB. This morning we met with Stefan to learn his ISS-fu.

His recommendations for the ISS include:

Replace the cables from the board to the front panel connectors if this hasn't already been done.
Replace the input opamps with 4131's. Be sure to test both positive and negative input signals.
Check that all the compensation capacitors are in place and are 68 pF
Make sure all the feedback loops have high frequency rolloff
The ISS board reads the PDs differentially; make sure the PD sends differentially.
Add a big (ie 10uF tantalum) capacitor to the PD to suppress power supply noise
Add bigger power supply bypass caps to the ISS

I just took sensing noise spectra (from the PD DC bnc ports) and then took the photodiodes off the table to check that they have the negative end of the differential line connected to ground. (I placed black metal beam blocks on the table in place of the ISS PD's. Also, from the ISS schematic, it looks like it sends a differential output to the PD DC bnc ports, but we have been plugging them directly into the SR785 (grounding the shield). We should make a little BNC-doodle that separates the signal+shield to go into the A and B inputs on the spectrum analyzer.) Opening up one of the photodiodes, it appears that the negative line of the differential output is not connected. Will continue later this afternoon.

103

Wed Nov 14 17:50:00 2007

Here's the current wiring between the ISS and its PDs:

pin	cable	PD	ISS
1	blue	+5	+5
2	red	+15	+15
3	white	-15	-15
4	brown	OUT	IN PD +
5,6,7,8	no connection	no connection	GND
9	black	GND	IN PD -

The schematics for the ISS and the PDs are linked from our wiki.

We'll connect the ISS GND to the PD GND.

106

Thu Nov 15 18:06:06 2007

alex: linux1 root file system hard disk's dying

I just noticed that Alex made an entry in the old ilog yesterday, saying: "Looks like linux1 root filesystem hard drive is about to die. The system log is full of drive seek errors. We should get a replacement IDE drive as soon as possible or else the unthinkable could happen. 40 Gb IDE hard drive will be sufficient."

109

Thu Nov 15 18:37:06 2007

possible replacement for linux1's disk

It looks like the existing disk in linux1 is a Seagate ST380013A (this can be found either via the smartctl utility or by looking at the file /proc/ide/hda/model). It appears that you can still buy this disk from amazon, though I think just about any ATA disk would work. I'll ask Steve to buy one for us.

110

Fri Nov 16 11:27:18 2007

I added a tidbit of code to "LIGOio.pm" that fixes a problem with ezcastep on Linux. Scripts such as "trianglewave" will now work on Linux.

# On Linux, "ezcastep" will interpret negative steps as command line arguments,
# because the GNU library interprets anything starting with a dash as a flag.
# There are two ways around this.  One is to set the environment variable
# POSIXLY_CORRECT and the other is to inject "--" as a command line argument
# before any dashed arguments you don't want interpreted as a flag.  The former
# is easiest to use here:

if (`uname` =~ m/Linux/) {
    # Add an environment variable for child processes
    $ENV{'POSIXLY_CORRECT'} = 1;
}

111

Fri Nov 16 14:11:26 2007

Alan called to say that Phil Ehrens will be coming by to take op140 off our hands.

112

Fri Nov 16 14:31:43 2007

Phil Ehrens stopped by and took op140's disks.

Attachment 1: DSC_0173.JPG

117

Tue Nov 20 11:10:07 2007

epics access from matlab

I installed "labca", which allows direct access to EPICS channels from within Matlab. It comes with both Linux and Solaris binaries (and source) but I've only tried it on linux.

To set it up, run these shell commands:

pushd /cvs/cds/caltech/users/tf/build/labca_2_1/bin/linux-x86
setenv PATH ${PATH}:`pwd`
cd /cvs/cds/caltech/users/tf/build/labca_2_1/lib/linux-x86
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:`pwd`
popd

Then start matlab, and within matlab type:

addpath /cvs/cds/caltech/users/tf/build/labca_2_1/bin/linux-x86/labca
help labca
foo = lcaGet('C1:PSL-FSS_RCTRANSPD')

It seems like reasonably well-written software, and is being actively maintained right now. If we like it, I can build a more recent version, install it in a more permanent location, etc.

118

Tue Nov 20 13:06:57 2007

Alex put the new hard disk into linux1 along with a fresh install of linux (CentOS). The old disk was too damaged to copy.

Alex speculates that the old disk failed due to overheating and that linux1 could use an extra fan to prevent this in the future.

127

Tue Nov 27 20:47:00 2007

Rana, Tobin

We looked at the RF PD signal to the FSS (siphoning off a signal via a minicircuits directional coupler) and also took an open loop transfer function of the FSS. In the transfer function we saw the step at 100 kHz (mentioned by Rob) as well as some peculiar behavior at high frequency. The high frequency behavior (with a coupling of ~ -20 dB) turns out to be bogus, as it is still present even with the beam blocked. Rearranging the cabling had no effect; the cause is apparently inside the FSS. The step at 100 kHz turns out to be a saturation effect, as it moved as we lowered the signal amplitude, disappearing as we approached -60 dBm. (Above the step, the measurement data is valid; below, bogus.)

Transfer functions will be attached to this entry.

Some things to check tomorrow: the RF signal to the PC, RF AM generation by the PC, LO drive level into the FSS, RF reflection from the PC, efficiency of FSS optical path, quality of RF cabling.

Attachment 1: fss-tf0001.pdf

136

Wed Nov 28 19:44:18 2007

I found the HEPA turned off completely. I turned it on.

137

Wed Nov 28 21:51:52 2007

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

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

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

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

140

Thu Nov 29 14:29:22 2007

linux1 httpd/conlogger fixed

I think I fixed the conlogger web interface on linux1.

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

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

158

Mon Dec 3 16:24:47 2007

GNU screen is a utility that can be quite handy for managing long-running psuedo-interactive terminal programs on remote machines. In particular, I think it might be useful in developing and testing "Matlab DMT" tools on Mafalda.

159

Mon Dec 3 17:55:39 2007

HowTo

linemon

Matlab's Signal Processing toolbox has a set of algorithms for identifying sinusoids in data. Some of them (e.g., rootmusic) take the number of sinusoids to find as an argument and return the "most probable N frequencies." These could be useful in line monitoring.

162

Mon Dec 3 22:20:09 2007

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

163

Tue Dec 4 23:16:35 2007

I was confused to find that I could increase the ISS gain slider all the way from 15dB to 30dB without seeing much of any increase in gain in the measured open-loop transfer function. While making these swept-sine measurements, the saturation indicator almost never tripped, indicating it was seemingly happy. But then I noticed an odd thing: if I disable the test ("analog excitation") input, the saturation indicator trips immediately. I hooked up a scope to the current shunt test point (TP12). With the test input enabled, the loop closed, and the analog excitation port connected to the SR785, I see a a 5 Vpkpk, 2.55 MHz triangle wave there. It is there even if I set the SR785 excitation amplitude to zero, but it disappears if I disconnect the cable from the SR785.

I found oscillations at TP20, TP30, TP36, TP41, and TP42. Many of these are in the (unused) "outer loop" circuitry and currently lack compensation capacitors.

166

Wed Dec 5 16:57:36 2007

HowTo

SR785 data converter on linux

I was pleased to find that the SR785 Data Viewer (including the command line conversion utility) installs and works in linux using WINE (on my laptop at least). There are some quirks, of course, but I was able to extract my data.

167

Wed Dec 5 17:49:57 2007

Attached is a plot of the ISS RIN with a variety of gain settings.

Unfortunately the dark noise is huge now--a result of the new cables & wiring?

Attachment 1: rin.pdf

169

Wed Dec 5 18:22:03 2007

Attached is a plot of the dark noise spectrum of the ISS photodiodes (1) before fooling with them, (2) after replacing the 4151's with 4131's (improvement!), and (3) after replacing the cables and changing the wiring (disaster!).

Attachment 1: sense_noise.pdf

171

Wed Dec 5 20:32:51 2007

The ISS dark noise is not coming from the PD heads; the spectrum is essentially unchanged when the PD is unplugged from the ISS. Did the input opamps both get semi-fried in the same way? (They worked so well when they were first installed.) What else changed? I'm baffled. Frown

177

Thu Dec 6 19:30:43 2007

PSL

ISS dark noise - 60 Hz!

A higher resolution spectrum [attached] shows that nearly all of the excess dark noise on the ISS is in 60 Hz harmonics (with some 256 Hz harmonics too--are these from the DAQ?).

With the loop closed and the slider at 5dB, the laser light coming out has a noise floor of 10^-7 RIN or better from 40 Hz to 8 kHz.

Now to figure out why all this 60 Hz is getting in... (I tried turning off all the lights and the HEPA, and moving the SR785 further away, none of which did anything.)

Attachment 1: iss.pdf

181

Fri Dec 7 18:28:30 2007

compiled matlab hoses itself

Andrey pointed out to me that some matlab functions in the Signal Processing Toolbox were dying with errors. Looking into the .m file (identified using the "which" command), I was surprised to see binary garbage rather than glistening, clear Matlab prose. Then I noticed the directory in which it was finding the .m file:

>> which decimate
/cvs/cds/caltech/apps/mDV/extra/linetrack_c_mcr/toolbox/signal/signal/decimate.m

See that "linetrack_c_mcr" directory? This is what is generated when a "compiled" (grumble) Matlab program is run--it decompresses itself into a subdirectory containing weird semi-compiled binary .m files. Unfortunately this is somehow getting incorporated into the matlab path. (I assume there is something in mDV that says "put all subdirectories into the path.")

I hate the Matlab compiler.

182

Fri Dec 7 18:31:30 2007

compiled matlab hoses itself

Addendnum. The reason the linemon_mcr command was in the path was because of the user issuing the command "addpath(genpath(pwd))" where genpath(D) "returns a path string starting in D, plus, recursively, all the subdirectories of D."

The Matlab compiler is still bad, however.

183

Fri Dec 7 19:14:30 2007

ISS dark noise - ground loop enlightenment

PSL

My alleged 60 Hz harmonics were all from a ground loop created by connecting the SR785 ground to the ISS circuit ground; they disappeared when I set the SR785 input to "floating ground." doh!

I modified the ISS PD's to have a 100 ohm resistor in series with the output (in place of 20 ohms). The diodes are again in place on the table, ready for action.

185

Mon Dec 10 18:42:20 2007

I wrote a script to measure the ISS RIN. The script uses the "labca" interface (described in an earlier entry) to read and twiddle EPICS settings and mDV to get DAQ data. The script measures open loop RIN, closed loop RIN at each of several gain slider settings, and dark noise. The dark noise is obtained by misaligning (unlocking) the PMC. The script also compares the whitened and unwhitened spectra for an open loop measurement and performs a fit of a simple pole to find the dewhitening filter.

This is all very exciting, but I don't quite believe the results, since the closed loop RIN seems to bottom out at 2e-7/rtHz regardless of the gain slider setting.

Sample output attached. The script may be found at scripts/PSL/ISS/rin.m.

Attachment 1: rin-20071210-1831.pdf

186

Mon Dec 10 19:08:03 2007

PSL

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

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

187

Mon Dec 10 20:35:59 2007

autolocking scripts

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

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

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

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

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

189

Wed Dec 12 22:24:48 2007

I poked at the weather station briefly this evening.

* There's almost nothing in the elog about it.
* It exists. It is located on the North wall, just north of the beam splitter.
* It seems to be displaying reasonable data for the indoors, but nothing for the outdoor sensors.
* c1pem didn't seem to be starting up (couldn't telnet into it, etc). I altered its startup file and reset it several times, and eventually it came to life.
* the weather station has a serial cable that goes all the way to c1pem. I plugged it in.
* however, the Weather.st program complains "NO COMM"--it gets no data from the weather station
* The next thing to do is to plug in a laptop to that serial cable and see if the weather station can be convinced to talk.

196

Tue Dec 18 16:50:35 2007

uvex laser safety glasses defective

SAFETY

A few days ago we noticed what appeared to be a blotched, speckled fracturing of the coating of the "UVEX" laser safety glasses. These are the glasses with "transparent" (reflective to 1064nm) lenses and white frames that we keep in a box on top of a filing cabinet in the control room. Today Steve measured the transmission of these glasses and found 80% transmission of 1064nm in several cases.

Do not use the white, transparent "uvex" laser safety glasses until further notice. Steve has hidden them away so that you won't be tempted.

Below is attached a photo of a bad lens.

Attachment 1: bad-glasses.jpg

Attachment 2: bad-glasses-zoom.jpg

197

Tue Dec 18 21:31:31 2007

My measurements of the ISS RIN via the SR785 and via the DAQ disagree considerably. The spectral shapes are very similar, however, so I expect that a constant factor is creeping in somewhere. Measurements taken at the PD DC monitor points using the SR785 attached. There is a lot of excess noise in the 300 Hz - 1 kHz region.

Attachment 1: iss-rin.pdf

210

Fri Dec 21 20:32:25 2007

I couldn't resist any longer: I plugged in the Prosilica GC 750 GigE camera and took it for a spin. This is the little CMOS camera which sends out video over gigabit ethernet.

There were no difficulties at all in getting it running. I just plugged in the power, plugged in ethernet, and put on a lens from Steve's collection. I downloaded the "Sample Viewer" from the Prosilica website and it worked immediately.

It turns out that "Kirk's" computer has not only a gigabit ethernet card, but a little gigabit ethernet switch. I plugged the camera into this switch. The frame rate is amazing. With the camera under fluorescent lights I thought I saw some wacky automatic gain control, but I think this ~10Hz flicker is aliasing of the 60 Hz room lighting.

I put the camera on the PSL table briefly and tried viewing the image from a laptop over the (54mbs) wireless network. This didn't work so well: you could get a couple frames out of the camera, but then the client software would complain that it had lost communications. It appeared that scattered 1064nm light did show up brightly on the camera image. There is a green ethernet cable currently stashed on the roof of the PSL that appears unused. We can try mounting the gigE CMOS cable in place of one of the CCD video cameras.

I did not try the Linux software.

The camera is currently set up at Kirk's desk, using the cool little tripod Rana got from CyberGuys.

This camera looks very promising! Also, in the test image attached below, a very unusual condition has been documented.

Attachment 1: robs_desk.png

211

Sat Dec 22 00:52:57 2007

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

212

Sat Dec 22 15:32:11 2007

Ants are everywhere: on the PSL table, on the circuit board I'm soldering...

I believe I have discovered their energy source.

Attachment 1: DSC_0361.JPG

219

Wed Jan 2 11:38:56 2008

Our wiki keeps getting spammed. It turns out that you can upload attachments without a password, which is a bug. I'll ask David Barker whether there's a fix for this.

231

Thu Jan 10 00:12:01 2008