If one needs to work with 3rd stage on the laser amplifier, one needs to make the safety patrol inspection before closing the bunker.

for that, it is mandatory to switch 2 keys on the "key board" in the control room, just before or just after the safety patrol :
- the THOMX key to 1
- the "EXPLOITATION LASERFP" key to 1

for the safety patrol, one has to push the "blinking white" buttons on the walls of the bunker, in the order from 1 to 6, and finish by the south entrance door button.
message " ronde en cours" is shouted during the process.
at the end of the safety patrol, an alarm is triggered for 30sec approx. and then stop.
now, the special keys located at the south entrance door are green and one has to take them (at least 2) to enter the bunker without breaking the safety patrol.

after finishing the controlled intervention, you just have to exit the bunker with the 2 keys and place them back in their location

then the controlled access (colored yellow) will turn to "access interdit" (red colored)

to terminate the closure of the bunker, you just have to turn the two key indicated in the previous image back to their original position.

since around 2 weeks, the airflow above the optical table housing has a power breakdown when one tries to switch it on.

the power breaker is in the electrical bay, on the left of the south entrance of ThomX.
the name of the power breaker switch related to the airflow is "TABLEAU ANNEAU 4".

today, with Kevin, we switched off all the airflow boxes 1 by 1 to find the defective ariflow box :
when we are face to the optical table housing panels, it is the third one from the left on the rear side.
this airflow box has been switched off (all the airflow boxes have a individual switch).
now, the airflow can be switched on again without any issue.

one needs to order 1 replacement box + some spare ones => mail to be sent to the AirC2 company.

Operations before moving the optical table from the optical room to the Igloo.

— the cavity has been filled with clean nitrogen to reach ambient pressure.
— the two valves have been closed using 5 bar air pressure to properly clamp them.
— the dummy tube between the 2 vessels has been removed and the 2 bellows have been protected with plastic covers.
— all the vacuum equipments have been disconnected from the cavity (only turbo and ionic pumps still remain).
— all the optical elements have been removed from the optical table (only some plates and empty mounts still remain, fixed on the table).
— all the electric cables have been removed when possible. Cables for cavity motors are difficult to disconnect from the vessel side due to the housing. They are still in place. Cables which cannot be removed have been fixed with adhesive tapes and/or clamps.

The optical table is ready to be moved by Bovis on the 26/02 to the Igloo.
 

Today, Manu and Eric changed the cavity valves pressure system to open and close them.

during the lock of the OneFive+Amp or of the Koheras, we saw a very noisy PZT signal at 30Hz with increasing/decreasing amplitude very slowly.
this noisy signal was not seen at the begining of the experiment.
as it is independant of the laser source, we guess it should come from the cavity.
at this moment, one only see these valves (which tend to close by themself when there is some leakage) as a source of frequency noise.
we will see if, with this cabling change, the noise on the PZT signal changes also.

19/06/2020

The first part of the edge installation was on done by Yann and Ronic
- close the 2 valves of the cavity
- stop the ionic pump on the edge side
- go to ambient pressure with the special filter
- install the edge on its moving arm
We stopped the installation because of a problem with the flange screws which are touching the moving arm structure => Yann modified the moving arm structure.

01/07/2020

Today, Titouan and Yann finished the installation of the edge in one of the vessels of the FP cavity (the vessel which does not contain the input mirror).
they fully cleaned the arm which holds the edge and goes inside the vessel to cut a part of the cavity beam to block the high order modes.
after closing the vessel, they start the primary pumping:

primary vacuum   : 8e-2 mbar
pumping duration : 1h30.

and then, they start the turbo pumping:

turbo vacuum : 6e-6 mbar
pumping duration: 2h30.

Tomorrow, they plan to wait to have a vacuum level, compatible with ionic pumping (below 1e-7 mbar), to start the vacuum ionic pump (only on the "edge side") and stop primary and turbo pumping.
the question is: what is the tolerable vacuum difference between the two parts of the cavity, to open the valves?
one has to ask the vacuum group for that.

02/07/2020

This morning, after a night with primary pump + turbopump on, the vacuum was between 1e-6 mbar and 2e-6 mbar.
at the end of the day, the pressure was still the same... it is the turbopump limit more or less.
Then, I started the ionic pump WITH protection ON, several times.
each time, the pressure increases a lot (to 1e-5 mbar) as the ionic pump releases particles, and then the protection stops automatically the ionic pump.

the ionic pump was started several times WITH protection ON until the maximum pressure is below 5e-6 mbar, then I remove the protection of the ionic pump to let the pumping process going below 2e-6mbar.
NEVER let the ionic pump without protection if you don't stay beside to stop it in case of.
once the pressure is below 2e-6 mbar, I put back the protection and the ionic pump HV is increasing to 7kV and the pressure is going down.
after 1h of all pumps working:

5 pm: pressure is 1.9e-7 mbar

Then, I closed slowly the valve between the turbopump and the cavity (the primary pump is still ON) and stopped the turbopump.
now, the ionic pump is pumping alone the cavity.

6.30pm : pressure is 1.3e-7 mbar

03/07/2020

This morning, I closed the valve of the primary pump, pumping the edge side, and stopped it.
8 am: pressure is 7e-8 mbar (on the edge side).

the other side of the cavity, closed by 2 valves, was around 1.3e-9 mbar.

3 pm: pressure is 6e-8 mbar (on the edge side).

The problem is to open the valve between the tube (which was not pumped for 2 weeks) and the "edge" vessel which was pumped by the ionic pump (6e-8 mbar).

With Frederic, we just stopped the ionic pump (the vacuum increased a little bit) and directly opened the valve on the edge side.
the vacuum raised above 1e-6 mbar and then we restarted primary and turbo pumps until we reached a level below 1e-6 mbar.
then, we switched on the ionic pump again and stopped turbo and primary pumps.

Now the edge side AND the tube are pumped together with the ionic pump alone.
Frederic advised me to tighten a little bit more the screw of the valve of the turbopump to avoid any leakage.

4 pm: pressure is 5.2e-8 mbar

Frederic changed the configuration of the ionic pump controller from "fixed HV" to "stepped HV" to adapt the HV to the level vacuum (if the vacuum is good enough, the HV is automatically decreased from 7kV to 5kV or 3kV to improving pumping efficiency).

Frederic mentioned also the possibility to use mass spectroscopy installed on the cavity to make some leakage measurements with a Helium bottle.

06/07/2020

Today, after pumping all the week-end with the ionic pump, the vacuum was 1.5e-8 mbar.
I opened the second valve and the vacuum changed to 1.2e-8 mbar.
Now, the cavity is completely open and pumped by the 2 ionic pumps.

07/07/2020

09:00 am: pressure is 7.3e-9 mbar
16:30 pm: pressure is 7e-9 mbar

08/07/2020

09:00 am: pressure is 6e-9 mbar

10/07/2020

11:00 am: pressure is 4.2e-9 mbar

13/07/2020

06:00 pm: pressure is 3.2e-9 mbar

15/07/2020

04:00 pm: pressure is 2.8e-9 mbar

This afternoon with Manar, we finished connecting FP-cavity mirrors motors and alignment mirrors motors to their 3 ISP controllers.
We also added an Ethernet hub on top of these controllers to merge the controller's connections to the computer.
We added some cable extensions to the alignment mirrors motors.

We tested the connection and the controlling software made by Didier.
We used the supervisor software as one needs the trick to bypass the Didier safety procedure embedded in its user's software (Chassis12.exe and Chassis3.exe)
We were able to move the motors (tested only upon the 4 motors of the alignment mirrors) but sometimes it seems we have some connection bugs which freeze the access to the ISP controllers.

After some hours of pumping, the vacuum level decreased properly on the left vessel (input mirror) but it seems to decrease slowly on the right vessel (end mirrors).
In consequence, Frederic has been able to start the ionic pumping only on the left vessel (+ Turbo). The right vessel is still pumped by the Turbo pump.
at 5 pm, the pressure was 1.4e-8 mbar for the left vessel and 1.9e-6 mbar for the right vessel.
Depending on the pressure on Monday, Frederic could start the ionic pumping for the right vessel too.

after the WE, the right vessel vacuum level is 1.7e-7 mbar (primary + turbo pumps)

and the left vessel vacuum level is 1.8e-9 mbar (primary + turbo + ionic pumps)

I will ask Frederic to start the right vessel ionic pump.

Now, both vessels are pumped by an ionic pump (both Turbo pumping entrances have been closed).
the primary pump has been removed from the left vessel.
we kept the primary pumping on the right part "in case of".

Now, the pressure on the right vessel is 2.1e-8 mbar.
the pressure on the left vessel is stable around 1.9e-9 mbar.

Scheme of cabling of the SmarAct motors controllers for acting on Frep and CEP.

This afternoon with Yann:
- we changed the shutter base plate position to center the beam axis with the mirrors center => to be checked with the amplifier beam
- on the L-shaped arm, the axis along the cavity beam has been centered. it should be never moved !!! (it corresponds to the less accessible knob).
Yann confirmed the 2 other translation axis of the L-shaped arm follow the back plate position.
These 2 axis have been positioned to put the L-shape plate completely of the beam path.
- the panel of the housing which was shifted has been fixed. now, it is properly aligned.

This morning the Bovis company moved the optical table from the optical room to the Igloo without any problem.

The table is now stored inside the Igloo, just after the large entrance doors, on the right side.
It has been covered with plastic blankets.

On the 19th of May, the optical table has been moved inside the ThomX concrete housing and connected to the Symetrie hexapod and to the electron ring.

Symetrie guys started to test the hexapod and they put some software limits around the predefined zero position.

On the 27th of May, the Airflow has been dismounted from the optical room to be mounted around the optical cavity by the AirC2 company.

here is email from Yann :

Le flux est rentré dans la casemate.
Lundi la société AirC2 revient pour installer les rideaux.
Petits couacs :
- 2 plaques de faux plancher à découper
- le saut de loup à été déplacé (à voir si c'est OK pour tout le monde)
- filet de toit à retendre
- poutres du toit à remettre
- main courante du faux plancher à retirer
- attention au coin du flux au niveau du saut de loup (à baliser et protéger)

The AC plug and the power cord of the airflow were quite hot because they have been dimensioned for 16A current and the total current is above.
AirC2 company should replace them with 32A equipment (6mm2 power cord + 32A Hypra AC plug) in the next days.
 

- this morning with Aurélien, we filled the water tank of the chiller and we opened the water valves (last pipes on water arrival/departure panel).

there is no leakage on the external water circuit but there is a small one on one of the Swagelock adapters of the water circuit connected to the Alphanov Amplifier.
we will add some Teflon to remove the leakage.

- the chiller alarm can be connected to the interlock detection of the Alphanov amplifier (I2 connector).
we will have a closer look at the different connectors next time, as the Alphanov manual is not very clear on how to connect them together.

- this morning the chiller leakage has been fixed by adding some Teflon on the faulty Swagelock adapter.
a long leakage test has to be done to be sure there is no leakage at all => can be done on Friday during our tests.

- here is a picture of the 2 Alphanov amplifier controller interlocks.
I2 has to be connected to the Sub-D15 connector of the SMC HECR008 chiller

This morning, I started the chiller and opened the valves on the external water circuit => no water leakage during the morning.

now, the chiller will stay ON all the time => we will check the installation at the end of the afternoon.

The Pneumatic valves are still coming back to "close" position.
Now the air bottle is always "open" to keep the valves "open".

The 30Hz noise is still here. We tried to cut off all the air flows. It only decreased the noise intensity but didn't change its shape.

21/11/2019 :

The pneumatic valves are now connected permanently to the university airflow network.
there is a small air leakage but it is not an issue anymore.

the 30Hz noise has been fixed too as it was coming from the extreme position of M1 and M4 (plan mirrors) and due to mechanical instability in this position (motor "outside")

The One Five laser and its controller have been moved from PLIC to ThomX Iglo.

In preparation to Install the Amplifier from Alphanov