Well, the plasma electrode shorted again, and Keerthi came in on Saturday to tear down the MWS and clean it. Beam is steady as she goes presently. Delivery continues today in lieu of RIB unavailability for today. A switch to RIB is expected this evening.

25Mg beam mostly sitting on FC6 now, as HERACLES takes RIB. Source was opened on Monday night to replace microwave window. Beam will be u sed again towards the end of the HERACLES run, then EOB tomorrow morning, Saturday.

Keerthi came in on Saturday morning and set up the Supernanogan source for 4He delivery. It looks like it went well. The original intent was to use the MWS for this, but sputtering got in the way. He also came in yesterday to tweak the recipe to minimize 16O4+ and 12C3+ (A/q=4) contribution to the beam. The run finished last night.

Keerthi came in early this morning to set up OLIS for 24Mg delivery. HEBT tuning is in progress.

The DRAGON run finished this morning. Switchover to 27Al+6 in progress now.

Source is now pumping down. Damien, Please start the source as soon as you arive. Try to keep PE current below 500mA. Optimum is ~200mA

There have been teething pains developing a good 27Al beam. The Supernanogan sputter source ate through aluminum rods like candy. The MWS worked for a while, but would not hold a sustained plasma. IOS was opened a couple of times to clean the MWS. It ran for a while today, then blinked out. Leak checking is in progress. But the source looks pretty tight from that point of view.

Update at 16:30: Bob has declared EOB for the 27Al run. Next up next week: 22Ne2+, from MCIS if bias will hold comfortably at 22kV.

Cart removed for source servicing. Source opened and split at front seal. Ground and plasma electrodes removed. All internal areas cleaned. Source reassembled. Initial pumping in progress. Leak-up curve a little soft, but reasonable given the cleaning materials used: methanol, acetone, Simple Green.

The source was configured and switched over on Friday. Some teething pains over the weekend. Beam is on FC6 presently.

Setup in progress. No foil at M:5. Source has been running since yesterday. Note that source was opened recently for MRO. Vacuum pumpdown chart for past several days attached.

Later... ~10:00 ICR reported MCIS:PV1 closed. On closer inspection, it was pretty clear that the classic PLC "all PVs go to zero" state occurred sometime earlier this morning, etc. ICR has restored vacuum. Now to restore the source...

Delivery continues. The attached vacuum trar suggests that this is about as good as it's going to get. On the other hand, there is a uA of beam on FC6.

Delivery continues. There were several "PV1" trips over the past several days. ICR now has a recipe for resetting this condition. We await a general instruction from ICR via email.

Meanwhile, MCIS:TP3 was off for the last while. ICR notified. Investigating. Turned on again.

Later... At this charge state the source works better with TP3 off. See attached Stripchart.

Delivery continues.

Delivery continues on autopilot. Looking good. ICR noted that a seemingly unusual number of tweaks to the IOS separator magnet have been required. This is not so surprising, given that the magstab program is not running presently. It is expected that today will be EOB for DRAGON. A switch to 58Ni is on deck.

Later... DRAGON is finished taking beam. ICR is using the beam to set up the accelerators. Beam switchover and maintenance for IOS:IG8 replacement will happen in the morning.

We are on orders to retain OLIS for accelerator development. The switchover to 58Ni, scheduled for this morning, is on hold.

Meanwhile, there were WFB1 and PV1 trips this morning. All reset and beam is on. The WFB paddle for the MCISRFS circuit was still rotating at a reasonable rate. I adjusted the WFB setting for ON state with minimum flow.

Later... Beam is still sitting on FC6, very happily, I might add.

Later... at 14:40 I called ICR for clearance to switch beams. Consult with Bema Experts... Yes, I have clearance. Close IV7. EOB for 17O3+.

Source switchover from MCIS to MWS. Support gases and liners were pre-fitted. Source lit. Optics set for 20keV operation. ~50pA on FC6.

Beam on FC6 drifted overnight. Touch up a few things, notably the EE. 25pA on FC6 presently. I also increased microwave power for effect.

Later... about 25pA on FC6. Somewhat noisy, but also stable. I left microwave at 700W. Beam handed over to ICR at ~13:15.

A note about mass flow controller. The new Hastings controllers do indeed shut off completely at zero setting. It should be noted that control in the sub-1sccm region is challenging. Move in 0.01 steps. I found that everything was fine down to 0.15sccm. The next step after that, i.e. to 0.14, closed the flow entirely. Not a crisis in this situation.

Beam was established yesterday. It has grown nicely overnight.

Beam idled overnight. Average ~50pA at FC6. About half that on ILE2T:FC3 presently. Setup on TITAN side in progress.

Later... ICR is concerned about the OLIS separator magnet wandering during the day. It's sunny today, so I would expect a little more wandering than on a rainy day. Also, they have significantly higher current at A/q >58.1 and asked if there could be another mass in the mix. Checking.

Later... TITAN takes coffee break. Opportunity to do a mass scan and also tweak source. Confirmed that centroid of mass peak is ~58.2. (Note: Slits left open for scan, so resolution is low.)

Note: Since this morning magnet adjustments, there are some 200pA of beam at FC6.

Pilot beam delivery continues. Keerthi came in over the Labor Day weekend to help out on something.

Beam is scheduled for one more day. A source change is scheduled for 20:30 tomorrow.