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Reports until 19:04, Tuesday 08 September 2026
LHO VE (VE)
gerardo.moreno@LIGO.ORG - posted 19:04, Tuesday 08 September 2026 - last comment - 17:37, Friday 11 September 2026(91840)
BSC9 Leak Check Done

(Jordan V., Travis S., Gerardo M.)
Transported all the equipment to X-End this morning, leak detector and helium in a small bottle.  Connected the leak detector to the main turbo pump and left the leak detector pumping for some time to warm up.  Isolated the X-End large ion pump from the main volume.  Tested the small Conflat by spraying it with helium, this CF blank is installed on the TMDS injection port of BSC9 -Y door.  The leak detector registered a background of 2.0x10-10 Torr*l/Sec, no leak was detected by the leak detector.  The leak detector was decoupled from the main turbo pump and the isolation valve was opened for large ion pump.  At this point we collected all items, 2 ISP-1000, 1 electrical bang box, and 1 leak detector, all were transported back to the corner station.

We noted that when we isolated the main ion pump for X-End the pressure dropped at the X-End main vacuum volume, and once we opened the isolation valve the pressure at the X-End main vacuum volume went up, head scratching, perhaps the ion pump is not as effective any more.  Also, the background at the leak detector was different, with the ion pump part of the volume the background was at 2.0x10-10 Torr*l/Sec, without the ion pump the background was very low, <1.0x10-12 Torr*l/Sec.  No RGA data available of this station, no remote connection to it was possible, and to do that locally it takes some time to setup, and we did not want to delay the GV20 opening more.

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gerardo.moreno@LIGO.ORG - 17:37, Friday 11 September 2026 (91870)

(Travis S., Jordan V., Gerardo M.)

Late entry.
Just to add a comment regarding GV20, when opening this gate valve it complained all the way up, there was lots of clanking noises all the way to the top, compared to the other gate valves this one is very noisy, as far as I remember it is getting louder.  We did not recorded the noise made by the gate valve.

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