Good news:
One of the RF cables for ASC-WFS_B, the one on the right viewed from the front where the diode sits, started working after I disconnected and reconnected the cable. Marc and Daniel can see the connection from outside using their tdr setup.
Bad news:
I broke one of two RF connectors per WFS for both ASC-REFL_A and ASC-REFL_B in somewhat different ways. For both of them, the broken one is the one with "TEST" input. Viewed from the front of the WFS, it's on the left.
Instead of one fully working WFS and one totally broken WFS, we now have two units of half-working WFS. We need a help from somebody who has some experience dealing with helicoils.
ASC-REFL_A
Helicoil insert of one of the RF connector screws was stuck with the screw and came out with the cable-side connector (1st picture). I'll try to remove the helicoil from the screw later, but even if I'm successful we must install a new helicoil into the WFS, and reconnect the cable.
(Added later: I quickly pinched the helicoil using a class B needle noise plier and tried to "unscrew" the screw from helicoil but wasn't successful. I felt as if a bit more of the "free" helicoil emerged from the tip of the screw, it eventually was crushed by the plier and came off (4th pic), maybe it takes more time or maybe it galled, but I stopped there as I was worried to damage the thread of the screw.)
ASC-REFL_B
One of the RF connector screws was broken, and the broken bit stayed inside the connector on the WFS (2nd attachment). The screw seems to be vented. If we have a small screw extractor bit, we might be able to remove that.
Not sure about the cable-side connector. If we can disassemble and replace the screw with a new one, that will be good.
How this happened:
Yesterday, Daniel found that none of RF of ASC-REFL_B was not working at all. alog 84224
Today I disconnected one of RF cables (on the right viewed from the front) on ASC-REFL_B and reconnected. Eventually it turns out that that fixed the issue for that cable, but at the time we somehow confused ourselves and started to think that WFSA in chamber was WFSB in RF world and vice versa.
Then I disconnected both of the cables on ASC-REFL_A and swapped the positions so that left is right and vice versa (because we thought that it was REFL_B), and Daniel found that the RF signals were swapped for REFL_A. Fine, no more confusion.
I removed the cables from ASC-REFL_A again and started putting them back in a correct order. However, as soon as I started working on the first cable, the one on with "TEST" input, I felt that one of the screws was stuck even though the connector was not yet fully seated. I backed it off and found that the helicoil was stuck with the screw.
Since there was no immediate remedy for this, I started working on ASC-REFL_B. Turned out that the cable I reseated was working fine. I looked at the connectors from the back (3rd picture) and the non-working one didn't look as if it was fully seated. One of the screws was easy to tighten, but the other was not. I tried to tighten them while maintaining balance (tighten one screw a bit, the other a bit, check that the connector gap is uniform, repeat), but the harder-to-turn one broke before the connector was fully seated.
In the third picture you can clearly see a gap between two mating surfaces for the connector on the right on the picture, and that's the one that shows/showed no sign of connection anywhere. Unfortunately I don't have a picture before I reseated the first connector (on the left on the picture), so I don't know if that one also had a gap before, but I strongly suspect that it did.
Note about the 5-way SMP connector
SMP (Sub Miniature Push-on) connector itself is a snap-on connector. You need a substantial pushing force to make it snap on at the last 0.5mm or so of insertion travel. Once it snaps on, no external force is necessary to retain the connection, but you need to first make it snap.
5-way SMP we're using is just 5 single SMP put in a bigger connector shell with two connection screws. Unlike the single SMP, it's not possible to make it snap by just using your fingers because the entire connector slides in and out with the screws.
However, if screws are completely removed, it might be possible for somebody to fully insert the connector by just using fingers at least in principle. The problem is the force needed for that. Even a single SMP needs some serious pushing, at least that's the case for SMP used in ISS array, but we have five SMPs in a single cable/connector, so the person must have VERY strong fingers.
