I noticed that the sole remaining original pneumatic valve on the right drying tower of the Kobelco unit has finally wore out.  It is leaking air (fairly significantly) past its actuator shaft.  It is still opening/closing for now but is quite wastefull -> I will try and replace it this week (sooner rather than later).  All of the "RUNNING" lamps on the X-end purge-air compressor control panel are burned-out.  Otherwise, the X-end purge air is good.  I found a "switching error" on the Y-end purge-air drying tower control panel so I reset it and it is switching normally (for now).  This is a nuisance but is so infrequent that we can limp along until one of us runs out of higher priorities.  Also, one of the compressor pressure relief valves is begining to fail.  I couldn't decipher for sure but it is comming from the bottom three compressors, i.e. #3, #4 or #5.  Again, a relatively low priority at this time.  

Upon entering the Y-mid VEA, I noticed that the portable air compressor used to supply compressed air to CP4's turbo backing cart (isolation valve - 1 pneumatic solenoid, 1 electric) was running continuously.  Investigating, I found that the 1/4" poly line had split open and was leaking 50 psi air into the room -> I cut out the split section, installed a union and then also reduced the supply pressure down to 40 psi from the as-found 50 psi.  

Using a hand-held rigid Type K thermocouple probe, I measured the SST surface temperatures at several locations.  All of the 13 zones comprising the independently heated (manual variacs + flexible heaters) 10" gate valve, Turbo pump and RGA were within the target 45C -55C -> I upped the variac outputs by an additional 2% to 14%.  I pealed back the insulating blankets encompassing CP4, GV11 and GV12 to gain access to "probe" a few areas of interest within the enclosed volume.  Of most interest were the "far" side of the 44" gate valve valve bodies.  I assumed that, being somewhat shielded, they may be significantly cooler than the sides exposed to the source of heated air.  In summary, what I found was that all SST surfaces were between the values measured by TC3 and TC4 (note TC1 and TC2 measure air temp while TC3 and TC4 are anchored and in good thermal contact with the SST).  In fact, using the average of these two values might be a good choice as a single temperature representation. 

Also, I noticed a significant opening/leak past the insulating blankets on the BT side of GV12 were all four blankets are suppose to meet/overlap.  From the ground level, they seemed fine but when viewed from above, the opening was very obvious - I plugged this hole with some rockwool.  

And finally, the turbo foreline setpoint to isolate is currently set at 2 x 10-1 Torr which is about 10X its current value.  

1915 hrs. local time -> Kyle leaving site now.  

Loaded visit! Thanks, Kyle. Tagging VE here.