3T Gurulp Seismometers

WP 12660

Last Tuesday, two 3T Gurulp seismometers in the Biergarten were powered down. A functional/huddle test was performed last November, alog 81097. Power supply and cabling was cleaned up. Before powering down, units were locked via the breakout/controller boxes. Units were left in the LVEA in the PEM area. Units are H1 spares.

Cabling and test equipment for a HS-1 geophone was also removed. This was part of the NN Seismic Array HS-1 testing down last year, alog 81257.

Ops Day Shift Start

TITLE: 07/10 Day Shift: 1430-2330 UTC (0730-1630 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing at 145Mpc
OUTGOING OPERATOR: Corey
CURRENT ENVIRONMENT:
    SEI_ENV state: CALM
    Wind: 5mph Gusts, 2mph 3min avg
    Primary useism: 0.01 μm/s
    Secondary useism: 0.05 μm/s
QUICK SUMMARY:

Observing at 145 Mpc and have been Locked for 11 hours.

OPS Eve Shift Summary

TITLE: 07/10 Eve Shift: 2330-0500 UTC (1630-2200 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing at 144Mpc
INCOMING OPERATOR: Corey
SHIFT SUMMARY:

IFO is in NLN and OBSERVING as of 03:37 UTC

H1 has been mostly well behaved this shift though the same cannot be said for the wind. Wind gusts reached 42mph and anything over 30mph was difficult to lock in. After the wind calmed down, no initial alignment was needed anmd we got to NLN quite quickly. In such a windcy environment (it's still around 28mph now), we still reached NLN 1.5 hrs after LL.

The 42mph wind gust period did cause a lockloss (Lockloss alog 85662). Instabilities and saturations that followed the gust live were seen and heard pre-LL.

Meanwhile, the SQZ FC2 SUS is complaining that it's too noisy, so the FC has been losing lock once every 5 minutes and then coming back, prompting observing sporadically. I think this is coupled to the wind because when we had a lull that went below 30mph, SQZ stayed locked. Hopefully it stays that way.

LOG:

None

TCS Chiller Water Level Top Off - FAMIS 27819

Closes FAMIS 27819. Last checked in alog 85440

CO2Y:

Before: 10.3ml

After: 10.3ml

Water Added: 0ml

CO2X:

Before: 30.4ml

After: 30.4ml

Water Added: 0ml

 

No water leaking in our leak detection system (aka dixie cup)

Lockloss 02:03 UTC

The wind has been at and around 40mph for about an hour. The Squeezer has been sturggling to stay locked, with 3 SQZ locklosses bumping us into comissioning. While we were int he last one, we got a particularly strong gust which was the probably cause of the lockloss. 

Relocking again now though this will have low success if winds stay above 30mph.

Summary of all ISS PD Array units that are not in use as of now (Randy, Rahul, Jennie, Keita)

Randy moved the 3IFO ISS PD array (S1202968) crate from MY storage to the OSB yesterday (WP). I opened the crate, moved the transport/storage container to the vacuum lab and optics lab to inspect. It was in a good shape except that some upgrade parts weren't there. Since I'm already forgetting what happened to other units, here's the summary.

First about parts.

• 3 of 4 units require replacement of the new PD array plate (D1300322), but we (are supposed to) have parts. I'm not sure which units were meant to be ready for installation, but if we replace the PD array plate, realignment must be done.
• None had the QPD tilt but we have enough parts for this.
• 1 of 4 units had the low QPD, i.e. QPD plane is much closer to the PSL than array PDs. No parts were located for this, and mostly for this reason we'll have to live with just two spares for 3 instruments instead of 1 spare per each instrument.
• Blue glass beam dump plates were only found for two units. The remaining two don't have these. This might be OK, the optics are easy to transplant when we pull the in-chamber unit.

Next, the summary per unit.

• Good spare S1202965 already has all upgrades. It's the only one with an updated PD array plate already installed upon initial inspection. Also see alog 83077.
• Second apare S1202966 will be OK (PD array plate will be replaced, QPD will be tilted, will use parts from the damaged unit of parts from the damaged unit S1202967 for some other things) except that blue glass beam dump optics aren't found. Also see alog 85019.
• 3IFO S1202968 will be OK (PD array plate will be replaced, QPD will be tilted).
• Damaged spare S1202967 cannot be restored in short order as that would mean locating or making/procuring new parts to make QPD higher (because the dirty parts from this unit will be reused for the second spare), C&B all new and existing metal parts, cleaning and reinstalling all optics, inspecting the surface of all 8 PDs to find particulates AND realigning the entire unit, which will be extremely time and labor intensive. Because of this, we'll only have 2 spares for three IFOs (H1, L1 and 3IFO) at least for now. Also see 82731.

Here's the thing about the PD array plate D1300322 (see attached). The updated version has a wider 100deg conical bore for larger beam clearance because it was found at some point (ECR E1400231) that the clearance was too small for the original bore and the reflection of some PDs will hit the bore wall at an glazing angle instead of hitting the beam dump. It's also easy to imagine that if you fiddle with the alignment for the production unit in chamber, INPUT light on some PDs will hit the bore wall first before hitting the PD surface.

Ops Day Shift End

TITLE: 07/10 Day Shift: 1430-2330 UTC (0730-1630 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Lock Acquisition
INCOMING OPERATOR: Ibrahim
SHIFT SUMMARY: Currently relocking and in ACQUIRE_DRMI_1F. We've been struggling the last hour+ due to the wind picking up. Earlier in relocking, we were seeing some ALSX crystal frequency issues, but they thankfully went away pretty fast.

THE LVEA IS LASER HAZARD

Three lock acquisitions during my shift today:

1st) went well after running an initial alignment, but we did have a couple issues at higher level states:
- In INJECT_SQUEEZING, we noticed the 1 Hz ringup happening again. We did what Elenna mentioned in 85643 and upped the CSOFT P gain from 20 to 25. This worked to slowly fix the ringup (85649)
- The filter cavity wouldn't lock. It was unlocking when it got to TRANSITION_IR or FC_ASC_ON. I checked H1:SQZ-FC_TRANS_C_LF_OUTPUT, and it was already pretty good at around 116, but I was able to adjust FC2 to get it up to over 125. We were still losing the filter cavity after this, so I checked what was done when we had this issue a couple weeks ago (85390). I was able to confirm from checking those same channels that we were in a good spot for all of them. Sheila mentioned adjusting the OPO temp, and that worked
2nd) went quickly and I just needed to help ALSY
3rd) current relocking, struggling with DRMI/PRMI, ALSX crystal frequency, and the wind

LOG:

14:30UTC Relocking and in ACQUIRE_PRMI
    - In INJECT_SQUEEZING, we noticed the 1 Hz ringup happening again. We did what Elenna mentioned in 85643
16:11 NOMINAL_LOW_NOISE
    - FC wouldn't lock. I ended up adjusting the OPO temperature to fix this
16:56 Observing
17:39 Lockloss
19:04 NOMINAL_LOW_NOISE
19:07 Observing
21:55 Lockloss
    - Check crystal frequency issues, but not for very long
    - Couldn't lock DRMI, cycled through PRMI, MICH, etc, so decided to run initial alignment
    - Wind started going up, making it hard to keep ALS locked                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Start Time	System	Name	Location	Lazer_Haz	Task	Time End
14:53	FAC	Randy	EY	n	Pump alignment (in at 14:30)	15:40
15:40	FAC	Randy	MX	n	Inventory	17:09
15:51		Jason	OpticsLab	n	Scoping out PMC locations for JAC	15:56
16:05	EPO	Robert, Matt + parents	Roof	n	Looking out over the desert	16:37
17:09	FAC	Randy	MY	n	Inventory, craning	18:09
17:13		Jason, Betsy	VacPrep	n	Moving JAC PMC for inspection (Betsy out at some point in time)	20:02
18:30	ISC	Keita	VacPrep Lab	n	Inventory	19:44
19:04	ISC	Jennie	VacPrep Lab	n	Joining Keita	19:44
20:55	VAC	Gerardo	FCES	n	Taking photo of gauge	21:13
22:02	PEM	Robert	LVEA	n	Getting stuff ready for commissioning tomorrow	22:46
22:13	EE	Betsy, Fil	CER	n	Checking something	22:26
22:37		Ibrahim	LVEA	YES	Transitioning us to laser hazard	22:46
23:06	PEM	Robert	LVEA	YES	Taking viewport off	23:14

OPS Eve Shift Start

TITLE: 07/09 Eve Shift: 2330-0500 UTC (1630-2200 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Lock Acquisition
OUTGOING OPERATOR: Oli
CURRENT ENVIRONMENT:
    SEI_ENV state: CALM
    Wind: 28mph Gusts, 20mph 3min avg
    Primary useism: 0.11 μm/s
    Secondary useism: 0.08 μm/s
QUICK SUMMARY:

IFO is in PREP_FOR_LOCKING and LOCKING

We just finished doing an initial alignment and are now locking.

Lockloss

Lockloss at 07/09/2025 21:55 UTC after almost 3 hours locked

Lockloss

Lockloss at 07/09/2025 17:39 UTC after 1.5 hours, potentially from an ETMX glitch

Wed CP1 Fill

Wed Jul 09 10:07:36 2025 INFO: Fill completed in 7min 32secs

Gerardo confirmed a good fill curbside.

Kepco Health Checkup

Yesterday I performed a spot check on all Kepco Supplies early to catch any surprises prior to end of maintenance.  I also staged some upgraded Kepcos because we used some spares last week.

Mezzanine:
All supplies, good temperature, good airflow, no oscillations.

EX:
All supplies, good temperature, good airflow, no oscillations.

EY:
All supplies, good temperature, good airflow, no oscillations.

I took time to record the state of both end station supply racks to update D2300167.

Increased CSOFT P Gain from 20.0 to 25.0 again; works...

J. Kissel, O. Patane

We happened to be catching up with the aLOG at the moment (minutes) the IFO began exhibiting "the" 1 Hz oscillation that has an unknown source and yet has troubling the lock acquisition sequence since the vent (and had gotten worse yesterday after maintenance). We found Elenna mentioned increasing the ASC CSOFT P gain from 20.0 to 25.0 helped last night (LHO:85643), so we repeated that gain increase in CSOFT P with a 5 sec ramp (the ISC_LOCK guardian was mid "INJECT_SQUEEZING;" this state is unrelated to this transient oscillation, as the latter takes ~minutes to ring up, but I mention it to inform outsiders that this is occurring relatively late in the sequence).

The gain increase worked again, and seems to have saved this lock stretch. 

We've accepted a gain of 25.0 for the channel H1:ASC-CSOFT_P_GAIN in the h1asc model's OBSERVE.snap, but will leave it to others to programmatically do this in the guardian (or fix the problem "in hardware" by other means.)

Ops Day Shift Start

TITLE: 07/09 Day Shift: 1430-2330 UTC (0730-1630 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Lock Acquisition
OUTGOING OPERATOR: Corey
CURRENT ENVIRONMENT:
    SEI_ENV state: CALM
    Wind: 11mph Gusts, 6mph 3min avg
    Primary useism: 0.01 μm/s
    Secondary useism: 0.05 μm/s
QUICK SUMMARY:

Relocking and in ACQUIRE_PRMI. Looks like we've been down for a couple hours and the hours before that that we were up we weren't Observing, even though we were in NLN. Normally, Corey would've been called, but it looks like H1 Manager wasn't set up last night so he didn't get called. Also, the operations mode was set to Observing all night, but thankfully that doesn't affect the summary pages.

OPS Eve Shift Summary

TITLE: 07/09 Eve Shift: 2330-0500 UTC (1630-2200 PST), all times posted in UTC
STATE of H1: Observing at 142Mpc
INCOMING OPERATOR: Corey
SHIFT SUMMARY:

IFO is in NLN and OBSERVING as of 03:01 UTC (1hr 45 min lock)

We spent roughly 2hrs and 40 min in OMC_WHITENING whilst damping violins since they were rung up by TFs that Oli and Jeff took in the morning and afternoon. Violins continue to decrease, reducing by about 1 order of magnitude strain throughout this shift.

Our range is somewhat low but I cannot see that this is due to squeezing since the trace is as low as it is when we are in FDS.

SDFs were accepted and are screenshotted.

LOG:

None

OMC Scan with SQZ beam yesterday

Naoki, Vicky, Jennie W

 

Naoki followed the directions in to set up the SQZ beam OMC scan.

We had a problem with the DC centering loops. After we switched them on they saturated the OM1 and OM2 suspensions.

We got around this by switching each of the 4 degrees of freedom on first - ie. DC3 Y, DC3 P, DC4 Y, DC4 P.

Then we engaged OMC ASC and this seemed to work ok.

When we tried to manually lock the OMC length loop we had problems as when we switched the gain of 1 on it would lose lock, even when on a TM00 mode of the expected height (0.6mA on DCPD_SUM).

Vicky got around this this using a lower gain and not engaging the BOOST filter in the servo filter bank.

Then she had to touch up the alignment in lock with OM3.

locked quiet time 1397329970 GPS 1 min:

OMC-REFL_A_LF_OUT16 = 0.0930255 mW

OMC-DCPD_SUM_OUTPUT = 0.652156 mA

 

unlocked quiet time 1397330106 GPS 1 minute:

OMC-REFL_A_LF_OUT16  = 1.04825 mW

OMC-DCPD_SUM_OUTPUT = -0.00133668 mA

 

dark measurement 1397330625 GPS 1 minute:

OMC-REFL_A_LF_OUT16  = -0.0133655 mW

OMC-DCPD_SUM_OUTPUT = -0.00133668 mA

 

I noticed after I took the dark measurement that OM1 and 2 were staurating again and need to clear history twice on OM1 to remove this.

Reverted OM1 and 2, 3 OMC sliders at 8:33 am (local time) on the 16th April.

Data is saved as REf 3, 4 and 5 in /ligo/home/jennifer.wright/Documents/OMC_scan/2024_04_16_OMC_scan.xml. Where 3 is the scan channel OMC-DCPD_SUM_OUT_DQ on the bottom right plot, 4 is the PZT excitation channel OMC-PZT2_EXC on the bottom left plot, and 5 is the monitor of the actual PZT output voltage OMC-PZT2_MON_DC_OUT_DQ on the top right plot.