TITLE: 11/14 Owl Shift: 08:00-16:00 UTC (00:00-08:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing at 118Mpc
INCOMING OPERATOR: Jeff
SHIFT SUMMARY:

Nice shift with an even nicer lock acquisition with H1 locking on its first attempt (with only a little bit of help at the beginning!).

But now things are a rumblin' at BOTH end stations for Wind Fence work---I'm gonna sneak out quick before H1 breaks lock!
LOG:

• 9:01Out of Observing to address violins, but....
• 9:03 lockloss! 
• 9:16 ADC Error for SUS AUX BSC123
• 10:12 Back to Observing
• 10:41 "sub-GRB" alert received....but later see from a TJ email that we ignore sub-GRBs.
  • 10:43-10:45 INJ_TRANS taken to INJECT KILL (taken out of this since we ignore sub-GRBs)
• 15:19 Seeing Wind Fence team enter site and head down to EY.
  • 15:52 Big truck for wind fence heading to EX....looks like a crane-type contraption for cement possibly?

Happened to notice red on the CDS Overview & it looks like at 9:16utc H1IOPSUSAUXB123 went into an ADC Error state.  (this was 10+min after my lockloss)

H1 locked over 1.75hrs.  After being out of Observing for 69min for a lockloss, H1 is running well with SUS violins looking fine so far.  Microseism continues to increase as winds have decreased.

Summary:  Back to Observing with 1st lock, and only needed intervention for:  x & y green arms & Finding IR.

• 9:03 lockloss! 
• LOCK#1 9:05 - 10:12 
  • Green arms:  Y-arm not locking. X-arm locked with TEM00, but barely above 0.6.
    • After 5-min Ops Wait:  ETMx Pit moved from 65.1 to 65.7 (then WFS optimize).  ETMy Pit moved from 120.5 to 122.3 (until WFS optimize).
  • 9:15-9:18  IR Not Found.  Usual Strip Tool was replaced by ndscope on front wall today, and I could not read situation on ndscope because signals aren't scaled to what we are used to(!).  So I opened up the Strip Tool on nuc30. Manual Intervention:  sweeping ALS Diff Offset to optimize IR Y arm power. 
  • 10:12 Nominal Low Noise/Observing

9:01 Out of OBSERVING to address ETMy violin mode (notified LLO & Virgo)

• Took Violin mode damping node from DAMPING ON DC to DAMPING ON SIMPLE
• Took etmy's mode2 from 0 to -2.0 (as noted in lscparams.py)  See attached for ndscope showing this change...this includes change from lockloss/DOWN state.
• On ndscope saw output jump up with gain change, and rmsLP_log10 didn't really change much.  Monitored other ETMy violins and nothing was ringing up.
• 9:03 ITMx verbal followed by LOCKLOSS!

I was only looking at ETMy at the time of lockloss, so not sure if this was the reason for the lockloss...I thought we could make gain changes and have time to watch it in case other modes were rung up.  At any rate, we had a lockloss while I was trying to actively damp a violin mode.

I moved on to locking and assumed DOWN state would take care of anything needed for Violins.

TITLE: 11/14 Owl Shift: 08:00-16:00 UTC (00:00-08:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing at 114Mpc
OUTGOING OPERATOR: TJ
CURRENT ENVIRONMENT:
    SEI_CONF state: WINDY
    Wind: 17mph Gusts, 10mph 5min avg
    Primary useism: 0.07 μm/s
    Secondary useism: 0.38 μm/s

Microseism appears to be inching up over last few (~8) hrs.
QUICK SUMMARY:

H1 locked for almost 8.75hrs.  TJ noticed ETMy MODE 2 violin ringing up (DARM on the wall as the Fundamental line above reference & below 10^-16).  So I'm going to review procedure for damping this down and figure out if/when I should take action (we are currently in the middle of Triple Coincidence.  We have been fairly glitchy in the last 90min...wonder if that's the reason and this warrants action to be taken sooner rather than later.

TITLE: 11/14 Eve Shift: 00:00-08:00 UTC (16:00-00:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing at 114Mpc
INCOMING OPERATOR: Corey
SHIFT SUMMARY: After the wind fence crew was done, it was smooth sailing the rest of my shift.
LOG:

• 0040 Wind fence crew leaving the end station

Locked for 4.5 hours. The range is down slightly (112Mpc) from normal, most likely from high useism and some light wind.

[Jeff Kissel, Filiberto Clara, Patrick Thomas, NCAL Team, Timesh Mistry, Krishna Venkateswara (in spirit)]

We spun the Newtonian Calibrator Prototype and observed the first NCAL signal in DARM!

Initially, we werre still having power issues however, Fil noticed that the negative cable for the AC power was not connected correctly and fixed the issue. Once completed, there were no more power errors and we were able to activate the motor using the MEDM screen. As part of Fil's fix, we now have a DC power supply that is running next to the Beckhoff rack where the motor controller is installed (same place as the BRS Beckhoff rack). This power supply will remain powered after we leave the X-End and may cause some exess noise at the X end. This will be rectified next Tueday maintenace as well as tiding up the remaning NCAL wiring.

We drove the NCAL at two frequencies (6.14Hz and 6.34Hz) using the MEDM/EPICS interface and, at each frequency we used PCALY to drive lines close to NCAL 2f and 3f lines. We chose PCALY becuase we wanted to have an isolated reference line near the NCAL line (recall the NCAL is at the X end). We kept and eye on the PCALY to ensure we were not saturating the PCAL as well as monitering the power supply at the X end to ensure we were not drawing too much current. Thoughout the tests, we did not saturate the PCAL or trip the power supply.

NCAL at 6.14Hz without PCALY
NCAL at 6.14Hz with PCALY
NCAL at 6.34Hz with PCALY
NCAL at 6.34Hz without PCALY

The dotted blue lines show the 2f and 3f NCAL signals respectivetly. It is interesting that we do not see the any higher order harmonics, such as 4f, 5f, 6f etc. It is currenlty inknown the impact the NCAL is having in other auxhillary channels and this will be investigated further.

Time Log of X End Activities

13:42:15

The velolcity counts to the NCAL motor is 644 counts. Motor start spinning, the NCAL signals are as follows:

13:46:00

NCAL reached the requested frequency.

13:52:20

PCALY lines are enabled and configured to have a line close to the 2f and 3F NCAL signal.

14:00:00

Switched NCAL frequency to 655 counts.

14:00:20

New frequency reached.

14:01:40

PCAL lines switched to new frequency.

14:15:00

PCALY lines turned off. NCAL remains at 655 counts.

14:30:00

NCAL set to 0 counts.

14:31:07

NCAL is at rest verified using traces on the MEDM screen showing 0 for the torque and the motor velocity and there are not more signals in DARM.

14:32:00

Power to the motor is disabled.

14:35:00

Left the X end. Wifi off, Phone unplugged and lights off.

The EndX poles and collars are set and ready for the concrete which likely will happen tomorrow.  The crane remains flakey and a technician is working on it now.

Concrete delivery is currently planned for 11a tomorrow and hopefully the poles will go in with a rejuvenated crane and keep ahead of the concrete.  Attached are some photos: 1) Crane troubleshooting; 2) Rebar build in the collar; 3) The EndX Pole Line.

TITLE: 11/14 Eve Shift: 00:00-08:00 UTC (16:00-00:00 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing at 112Mpc
OUTGOING OPERATOR: Jeff
CURRENT ENVIRONMENT:
    SEI_CONF state: WINDY
    Wind: 13mph Gusts, 9mph 5min avg
    Primary useism: 0.04 μm/s
    Secondary useism: 0.26 μm/s
QUICK SUMMARY: There is still some large equipment moving to its parking spot for the evening, but once it gets there we should be quiet on site.

FAMIS task 10535

120ml added to Crystal Chiller 

   Lock loss at the start of the shift. Did auto-relocking, which only need a little operator intervention with ALS-Y. Relocked and back to NLN after 2 hours of trying. (see aLOG #53222). 

   There is heavy equipment work on the wind fence at End-X. This equipment and work will relocate to End-Y this afternoon.

   The wind and general environmental conditions are good. No other issues or problems noted at this time. 

   The range is around 116.9Mpc. 

   There is three hours commissioning work scheduled for this afternoon, between 21:00 (13:00) and 00:00 (16:00).   

   Lost lock at 16:46 (08:46) At the time there was (1) incoming earthquake mag5.4 from El Salvador , SEI_CONF was in EARTHQUAKE state, (2) There was a bit of wind, and (3) There was activity with the wind fence installation. Not to say that these caused the lock loss. 

   Relocking Summary: 

   After 5 minutes ALS-Y had not locked. 
   Put ALS-Y Guardian into unlocked. Camilla moved Yaw from -135.3 to -135.5 and Pitch from 119.8 to 120.1. The signal jumped up to around 0.8. Switch back to OFFLOAD ALS-Y and WFS took it the rest of the way up. 

   At DRMI_1F, spot did not look so good. Started trying to lock DRMI at 17:05 (09:05). It dropped back to PRMI_LOCKING twice. DRMI_1F locked on the third try with 3 minutes left on the 20 minute countdown clock. 

   17:29 (09:29) - Lock loss at ENGAGE_ASC_FOR_FULL_IFO. 

The run up back to ENGAGE_ASC_FOR_FULL_IFO went smoothly with no operator intervention.

   17:44 (09:44) - Lock loss at ENGAGE_ASC_FOR_FULL_IFO. 

The run up back to ENGAGE_ASC_FOR_FULL_IFO went smoothly with no operator intervention.

   18:01 (10:01) - Lock loss at INCREASE_POWER

Jennie was working on Input Limitations ADS at the time

Relocking went well with Jennie and Camilla doing some hand tweaking (aLOG 53220)

   18:46 (10:46) Back to NLN and into Observing - No SDF Diffs to address. 

    

They got the crane functioning again; maybe it needed a reboot...  Just like my computer which wouldn't open the photos last night.  Now they open.  Find attached photos of 1) The base of an EndX pole: 16"Φ with a 4" drain hole. 2) Pole in hole with wedges for holding position.  3) EndX line of poles at end of day Tuesday.  4) Base of EndY pole: 20"Φ with drain hole.

They'll be done setting poles soon this morning and continue at Y this afternoon.  May finish this afternoon or in the morning.  Concrete currently scheduled for 10a Thursday.

[Sheila, Camilla, Jenne]

We've been having several locklosses during Engage_ASC_for_full_IFO lately, and it seems like it might be because the PRM is moving too far too fast.  Recall that the PRM is being controlled by the ADS system, and that is engaged for the PRM during this state, along with a host of other ASC loops.

We have turned on the ADS soft limiters, to limit the inputs to an absolute value of 10 (when the dither line amplitudes were 1600). Also, the engage_ASC_for_full_IFO state was not doing any convergence checking on the PRM loop, so we have implemented that.  Since the smooth limiters are now on, we have also changed the dither_convergence_checker to look just before the input limiter.

We've had 1.5 lock acquisitions with these limiters, and so far it seems good.  The first time around we lost lock during increase power after having survived the ASC engagement, but I highly suspect that was due to me increasing the limits without any ramping, in an effort to speed up the loops (I had at first been using a much smaller limit of 3).  Our second lock has gone quite smoothly. 

Right now, the input limiters are being left on with the limit value of 10, however the dither line amplitudes (and so the input values) are decreased by a factor of 1600/30 (from 1600 to 30 counts), so we're basically never going to hit those limits.  If we feel that we need to keep the limits in play, then we should reduce the limit values also by a factor of 1600/30.

Also, these seem not to be monitored in SDF, so we should consider moving them to being monitored, but since we're already in Observe I'll push that to another day.