Sheila, Tony

On Friday we continued trying to get flashes in the filter cavity for 1064nm, 532nm, and IR light onto the SQZT7 diode which we are using to establish that we are going through the VIP without clipping.  

At the start of the day we saw IR flashes of at max 0.04 counts on SQZ-FC_TRANS_D_LF with the OPO locked with CLF (with 21mW on CLF trig PD) 1.7 counts on FC_TRANS_C_LF with 5mW into the green fiber, and 36e-6 counts on OPO IR PD.  We saw that the green was clearly misaligned in yaw in the filter cavity, and we were able to improve the IR flashes and IR on SQZT7 with some yaw moves, but that made the green flashes nearly disappear.  We pio'd MOTOR 3 (H:M2) -710 counts, which improved the green flashes to 6 counts.  

Then we could see that the IR flashes and on SQZT7 were easiesr to improve with pitch moves, and that we no longer loose the green by improving them, so we spent some time trying to walk ZM1/2/3 for slow improvements, to get IR flashes of 0.1 counts, 83e-6 on SQZT7, and green flashes of 5.  (22:30 UTC March 20th)

This was slow going, so we decided to go back to FCES with cameras to see if we could get some photos or see flashes.  We will continue from the FCES this afternoon. 

Betsy wanted a look at the last few months of dust trends for BSC2.

(This is Dust Monitor LVEA10 which was moved to BSC2 in Feb [alog89137].)

One of the flashlight arrays we used during the vent had a bunch of battery corrosion in each battery compartment.

I used isoprop and water on long q tips to clean these out in the optics lab. It is now drying on the bench next to the fume hood. See first pic.

Unfortunately I didn't realise the sink hadn't been used in while and turning this on splashed water on some nearvby electtronics, second pic.

The pipes attached to the taps also leak.

I dried off the silver box and the extension block after powering off the extrension block, it was just some water spraying on it so should be fine.

Erik, Marc, Dave:

I've updated the CDS Overview to show the timing card firmware as a color block in the RGC version section of the IOP model.

For each IOP model, the top part of this block shows the RCG version, GREEN=5.5, BLUE=5.5.2. The lower part shows the Timing Card version, GREY=old, DARK-BLUE=new.

For user models this block just shows the RCG version as before.

FAMIS 31130

Not much to report this week. Noisy FSS TPD times line up with the IMC naturally flashing through resonance, and looks like there were some temperature spikes for a few days last week, but these appear to have stopped.

Hepi Pump Trends (Monthly) Famis 39954:
 

On Jan 26th the HPI-PUMP_EX_PRESS1_PSI started rising in maximum pressure. and on  maybe feb 2nd it started getting worse. Seems like it has plateau-ed on Feb 16th, but the Pressure still remains elevated.

That channel back in Oct was between 92.4-92.6 PSI. 
And now it's between 91.9 - 93.5 PSI. I'm not sure if this is out of bounds for HEPI.

X-Arm electronics:

All chassis have been tested mounted in the rack. All that is left is to replace the variable power supplies currently being used for the visible laser, fan and flipper with 5V, 12V and 15V DIN mounted power supplies respectively. 

X-Arm beam profiling:

X-arm is not behaving as predicted by the model especially in the horizontal axis.
The beam was profiled using the nano scan along a 55cm length after the second lens and a q-parameter was fit using this data. 
This is compared to the model and a Jammt model using the measured QCL q and assuming a linear optical system with the lens at the same distances as in the physical set up.
For the fit q-parameter the w at the ITM was found by propagating the q at L2 to the ITM.

Additionally, during the trouble shooting process a wedge was found on the first telescope lens (L1) which isnt in the optical system and was compensating for some of the astigmatism of the QCL. The effect of this is that in the data below the beam size at the ITM is too large and astigmatic. 
Discussion and solutions of this effect will be the subject of its own log.

Vertical

Horizontal

None of the values agree within the measurement uncertainty bounds, especially in the horizontal direction. We are also observing non-gaussian beam profiles on the nano-scan, plots attached, but this is predominately in the vertical direction. This structure isnt new and appeared when matt and I were initially profiling the lens and were able to see good agreement.
The fintrace and Jammt are close but not identical which would be expected as the Jammt does not include any additional optics outside the QCL and L1 and L2. We are currently working on determining the source of this discrepancy. 

Mon Mar 23 10:06:23 2026 INFO: Fill completed in 6min 19secs

Only CPS channels which look higher by eye at high frequencies (see attached) would be the following:

1. ITMx_ST1 V1
2. ITMx_ST2 V1
3. ETMx_ST1 V2
4. ETMx_ST1 H2
5. ETMy_ST1 H2

TITLE: 03/23 Day Shift: 1430-2330 UTC (0730-1630 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Planned Engineering
OUTGOING OPERATOR: None
CURRENT ENVIRONMENT:
    SEI_ENV state: CALM
    Wind: 4mph Gusts, 2mph 3min avg
    Primary useism: 0.02 μm/s
    Secondary useism: 0.22 μm/s 
QUICK SUMMARY:

Arm (GV5/7), FC gate valves closed (GV7 is soft-closed, waiting to cam over).  Cleanroom move this morning.  Lots of activity around the Y-Beam Manifold begins!

Sun Mar 22 10:03:10 2026 INFO: Fill completed in 3min 7secs

CP1 PT114 cold cathode gauge has come back to life, I've taken it out of the alarm bypass and enabled it in VACSTAT.

Sat Mar 21 10:09:41 2026 INFO: Fill completed in 9min 38secs

(Jordan V., Gerardo M.)

Yesterday we tried to hand over the pumping of HAM1 to the ion pump only, it did not go good, the ion pump started having issues maintaining pressure for HAM1 volume, this ion pump showed a very unusual behavior, the pressure was going up and the output of the controller kept going down.  We tried a second controller with similar results.  The controllers just quit and turned the high voltage off themselves, self protection/preservation.  Today, we went up to the ion pump and ohmed out its feedthrough fischer connector, and to our surprised no short was found, we were convinced that the pump had shorted.  So, we took a controller chamber side and connected it with a "short" cable to the ion pump, and the pump turned on without issues.  These findings lead us to believe that the cable may be faulty/shorted/broken/no good.

The temporary setup will be used to maintain the ion pump under vacuum, and the setup will remain until another suitable cable (working one) can be acquired and installed.

Attached are a couple of photos of the temporary setup and trend of the controller/pressure at HAM1 behavior during the last couple of days.

(Jordan V., Gerardo M.)

We hard closed GV5 with no issues, the gate valve hard closed at 30 psi.  Something to note is the loud clank the gate valve made, and when the valve hard closed it shook the cameras housing, probably the alignment is not what it used to be.

We tried to hard close GV7 but no luck, it soft closed only.  We slowly increased the pressure up to 35 psi, and the gate valve remained unchanged.  For the activities planed for Monday soft close is good, we will visit the GV7 on Monday.

Then, we moved to close the filter cavity tube isolation valves, we closed FCV-1, FCV-2, FCV-3, FCV-4 and FCV-5.  We also isolated the relay tube by closing RV-1 and RV-2, the filter cavity volume will likely go up in pressure.

This is a belated report of work done by me, Oli and Keita on the OMC builds for the BHSS, done yesterday March 19.

Exciting summary: build for OMCA is complete, including DCPDs and butter dish. OMCA is installed onto the BHSS platform and ready for beam alignment!

Less exciting summary: build for OMCB is halted as tombstone for DPCD A (transmission) is missing a required PCB hole for the electronic connection.

OMCA build notes:

• We picked up where we left off to complete the OMCA build (see 89562)
• We noticed some dust and metal bits on the surface of OMC breadboard glass. Some of the dust appeared yesterday during DCPD install- we think the install drops small metal shaving onto the glass. We're not sure if the rest of the dust was already there or got on it during our install work. Keita took an alcohol soaked q-tip and tried to remove many of the particulates
• We had some confusion about the overhang of the OMC breadboard on the cradle. Turns out it was because we didn't realize the side posts (stops?) had two different sizes. One set is 16 mm in width, the other 20 mm. With the appropriate 20 mm side post, the OMC breadboard can be placed up against the viton stop as detailed in the instructions without any overhang
• We installed the remaining side horizontal and vertical posts, and adjusted the screws with viton tips to the required distance from the breadboard
• We took out the butter dish for install and noticed all the dishes were very dusty. We took the one we planned for install over to the top gun and dusted it off. We will have to do the same for the OMCB butter dish. Again, not sure if they were already dusty or got that way during storage and handling
• We routed the PZT and DCPD cables through the cable clamp.
  • We are a bit concerned one of the PZT cables could fall into the beam eventually, but there's nothing we can do about it, picture, you can see that the cable is routed off the PZT, and over the beam path to where it is wound and mounted
  • the routing of the PZT cables crosses an area where there is a vertical viton stop. We're concerned the cables could be caught between the viton stop and the breadboard at some point. We removed the vertical post so we could run the cables along the side of the breadboard instead. There is enough clearance for the cables here. picture1, picture2
  • here are two other pictures of the cable routing and cable clamp, picture1 and picture2
• We went to install the butter dish and realized that the supplied pins which are inserted for install and then removed later don't even fit the holes.
  • the purpose of the pins is to elevate the butter dish slightly as it is clamped on either side by the viton-covered "grabbers" (don't know the word for them). the pins are removed once the dish is clamped
  • we decided since we were three people, two could hold up the dish while a third screwed on the viton holders
  • we can confirm by eye that the holes we would align with the pins are aligned from this process
• We used the empty OMCB cradle to practice the placement of the cradle onto the BHSS a few times before I picked up the entire OMCA assembly and gently placed it on the platform. It's a bit tricky because the finger slots on the cradle are sized for what appears to be very small fingers and the OMC assembly is quite heavy.
• Oli started working out how to place the OMC alignment template tooling, so the OMC can be properly aligned to the platform and screwed down

OMCB build notes:

• We unpacked the second OMC, SN 105 from its box and placed it and aligned it on the cradle
• Keita once again macgyvered a grounding anklet for me, and I set out to install the DCPDs
• I cut the legs of the first DCPD down by eye remembering how much to remove from yesterday and set out to install it onto the transmission PD tombstone (DCPD A we think)
• I spent 15 minutes fiddling around trying to get the diode through the hole (I actually watched the clock) before I exasperatedly looked into the faceplate holes and realized that through the bottom hole, there is no corresponding PCB hole for the leg of the diode! see picture. There are three holes on the faceplate, and you can see that for two they lead to holes in a PCB where the diode legs are inserted. There is no hole on the bottom.
• How did this happen? We are very confused and not sure what to do. We confirmed that the reflection tombstone has the expected three PCB holes after the faceplate holes. We can't proceed on the rest of the build and install before this is resolved.
• Keita thinks it is possible that the mount is rotated, and we could unscrew the component from behind the tombstone and flip it, but I would want to confirm with an expert before I start fiddling with it, especially if it could mess up the alignment