TITLE: 10/16 Eve Shift: 2330-0500 UTC (1630-2200 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Aligning
INCOMING OPERATOR: TJ
SHIFT SUMMARY:

IFO is LOCKING at CHECK_VIOLINS_BEFORE_POWERUP.

Violins:

We lost lock at 00:09 UTC (lockloss alog 80697) and have not been able to get to NLN since. A local earthquake rung violins up violently such that some are in the 8/9 zone. While the alignment is great, (DRMI locked without PRMI 5 times), we have IX saturations starting at PARK_ALS_VCO. I initially thought this was an ALS or maintenance Tuesday issue, but that doesn't seem to be the case. After chatting to Jenne, we realized that it was indeed the violins. So I started damping.

Setting all violins to their nominal damping states successfully prevented IX from saturating at ENGAGE_ASC_FOR_FULL_IFO, where it was saturating consistently. Moving to CHECK_VIOLINS_BEFORE_POWERUP results in 1 saturation/second, losing lock eventually (after 30 mins or so). Any form of powerup also loses lock immediately. I  talked to Rahul, and he recommended staying at a steady state to damp for a few hours since sometimes it just takes that long. Spoke to the incoming operator, TJ and he's been informed of the unsteady state of the IFO.

I'm already past this state but my recommendation (from speaking to Rahul) would be to stay at PREP_ASC_FOR_FULL_IFO at nominal damping for a few hours.