(Bubba, Chris, Corey, Hugh, Mark, Randy, Zach, with Jodi & Dale documenting)
:::: Timeline ::::
- May '08: eLIGO HAM6 ISI Installed.
- Jan '12 (this week): eLIGO HAM6 ISI Removed (Because HAMs need to be moved and cleaned)
:::: The Work ::::
This week the eLIGO HAM6 ISI was slated for removal (this is due to the Chamber needing to be moved and eventually cleaned).
On Wednesday, Hugh and the Apollo crew started staging for the work (primarily by positioning the Installation A-Frames & getting other equipment ready to go). I went into the chamber to install our Trolley & Hoist Connector Blocks and to disconnect all cables from feedthroughs. With regards to cabling, some of these cables were really tough to pull from the feedthroughs; the OMC cables were especially tough, and I had to yank on the actual cable (vs. the connector) and as I did this the band came undone, and the shielding came became frayed (this cable is obviously damaged).
Yesterday (Thurs), the primary work of fully assembling the Installation Fixture around/inside HAM6 occurred, the HAM ISI was removed, and Installation Fixturing was removed. With Hugh's preparation of parts and the Apollo crew's expertise, this job went super smoothly. Tasks started roughly around 8am:
- Swapping Cleanroom sock (not sure what this did for us. I think we'd want to have a sock similar to the sock being used at BSC8 (and used for the 5/2008 ISI installation. The sock which was swapped didn't give us anything for movement of the crane [meaning we had to move the cleanroom up against the Tube & leave it open quite a bit to use the crane within the cleanroom])
- Putting a layer of Viton/ameristat padding on the ISI Cart
- Removing chamber's top Conflat
- Needle-ing both I-Beams through chamber
At this point it was around 11:30am, and I decided we break for lunch (vs. leave the load suspended on the Installation Fixture Trolleys). After lunch we picked back up:
- ISI lifted off Support Tubes and transferred to Trolleys
- Staged HAM Cover on Optics table for when we can drape it down when we disconnect from Trolleys
- Move cleanroom as far north as humanly possible (we covered up the back side of the HAM Chamber with a few C3 Covers)
- Pulled the ISI out via trolleys (only required a little force from Mark & I)
- Transferred back to crane, disconnected from trolleys, pulled down ISI-cover
- Laid down ISI on Cart
- Moved cleanroom as far South as we could (ISI outside cleanroom, crane moved outside of cleanroom & close against northface of cleanroom for next pick of ISI), and also removed the Front A-Frame (to get it out of the way for moving the ISI to the Storage Container)
- ISI was picked up off the cart via crane from outside (the Cart was never rolled), and lowered onto the Storage Container base
- Storage Container had all threaded studs already in place & ready to go
- The Hoist & Trolley Connector Blocks were removed from ISI & the lid was attached to the container.
- The remainder of afternoon was clean-up: removed I-Beams, rolled A-frames away, re-installed Top Conflat on chamber, etc.
On Friday, some final loose ends were completed--Mark went in-chamber to remove some conflats (for removal of the Septum plate); he also removed "Riser" hardware for the ISI (these were parts which were sandwiched between the Support Tubes and ISI Stage-0; I believe they were primarily for shimming up the ISI for eLIGO; not sure whether we still want this hardware, but Mark is bagging & tagging it).
Lots of photos of this activity is now in ResourceSpace here.
Rest in peace!