Both the Cooling Package and Vacuum have been turned off in preparation for the module move tomorrow

the switches and the solenoid are all wire up to 24VDC, when you open either of the little doors the solenoid switches this is also true if there is a power loss. currently the solenoid is powered.

I switched off CS vacuum pumps and water system after Isac opps finished the TM4 conditioning at CS.

HALCW MP2 is switched on this morning after yesterday cooling tower maintenance. LALCW P5 and P6 pumps are started by isac operator  as well. The system is good so far.

The TCS bias was turn off before that. The TM2 and TCS are still under vacuum now.

Preparing vent the TCS/TM3. We will remove TM3 service tray cover plate  after venting.

During target removal on Wednesday October 12th, the left target heater conductor bolt (ITD0058) could not be removed. The bolt was found to be stuck in the threads (keensert) of the TGHT conductor block (ITA0583). In the process of attempting to remove the bolt, the conductor insulator (ITD0054) cracked (ref assy ITD0052). To allow increased torque to be applied and support the conductor block, a clamping jig (ITD0612) was designed and fabricated. The jig was assembled and it's function tested on the ISAC Test Stand on Friday 14th. On Monday 17th the bolt could be removed using the clamping jig and a socket wrench with an extended handle.

The threads on the removed bolt was damaged. A new set of bolts were therefore prepared and a tap was run through the keensert to restore the threads. The threads in the conductor block was tested and found to be OK using a new bolt.

The spent target could now be removed. Unfortunately the right manipulator failed during installation of a new conductor insulator, which forced the repair of the insulator and installation of the new target (SiC#35) to be postponed until the manipulator can be repaired.

Photos are available on DocuShare

I stopped TM4 and TCS vacuum system at TCS. TCS and TM4 is venting with argon now.

During operation today, it was observed that the main vault door had issues opening.. typically when the door was around 80-90% opened, it would stop motion. Note that this issue has allegedly been present since early 2023. It appeared that the motor was still spinning but the clutch was slipping. This issue was consistent and observed multiple times when trays 2, 5, and 6 were engaged (note these are all on the same side of the vault). It was overcome by backing the door up slightly then trying again. The door close function worked with no issue.

It is suspected that there is a problem with the clutch or potentially a piece of debris on the track. [no longer true after 2023-11-17 inspection]

Edit [2023-11-17]: Maico Dalla Valle and Adam Newsome inspected the vault on 2023-11-17. It was very clear that the door, when opening, is rubbing up against the rails. Specifically, the side rollers located on each side of the vault (red housing). There are clear wear marks on each side. The skew is obvious because on one side, the wear marks begin immediately and stop halfway through travel, whereas the other side shows the reverse wear pattern. It is therefore suspected that the skew has become so significant that the friction is too high towards the end of travel which causes the clutch to slip. The travel rails were cleaned (significant grime buildup) and the offending side was filed down slightly (a sharp burr was present from the wear). It is not advised to adjust the clutch. Next steps: open and close the vault with no trays engaged to see if the issue persists (perhaps weight distribution was the issue), and then try different combinations of weight distribution to try to replicate the issue. After this, measure separation distance between guide rails at different points and try to identify the source of the skew issue and rectify it.
 

Edit [2023-11-20]: Maico and Adam performed further investigation by opening and closing the vault door under 3 different configurations: no trays engaged, 2 trays engaged on West side, 2 trays engaged on East side. The previously observed stopping issue was not observed this time under multiple cycles with each configuration. It is noted that the door appears to slow down slightly and experience a bit of a "chugging along" motion towards the end of travel when opening. Based on these observations, it is concluded that the cleaning and filing helped enough to allow the door to fully travel open/close without getting stuck. The root cause of the issue still remains to be fixed, but for now there is no major concern. Before end of 2023, measurements and planning will be performed to develop a proper repair for the root cause. It is expected that either late 2023 or early 2024, the repair will be attempted.

Edit [2023-11-22]: during a routine spent target exchange, the issue was not observed when opening tray number 2. 

Edit [2023-11-24]: a dial indicator was set up on the vault on the right side (looking down from above), mounted on the traveling part with the tip touching the black structural member where the wear is observed. The purpose is to determine how much out of alignment the door is with respect to the structural assembly. The following was observed: approximately halfway through the travel, the indicator read approximately 185 thou of travel. This corresponds to when the wear marks start to occur and where the small red enclosure around the roller wheel interferes with the structural member (causing the wear strip). At this point, as expected, the indicator no longer changes because the roller wheel has bumped up against the structural member. This implies the gap between the structural member and the roller wheel, when the door is closed, is approx. 185 thou on the right side (and 0 on the left side). These values reverse around the midpoint of travel. It is suspected that because of this, and because there is a small observable gap between the door and the vault when it is fully close, the right and left side of the door are not parallel with respect to each other. In other words, adjusting the angle so that the starting gap is roughly 92.5 thou on each side should resolve the issue. Measurements to confirm parallel-ness between each side will be performed, and then an adjustment will be made to create even gaps between each side at the starting point. After this, a dial indicator will be set up again to confirm that, when opening the door, the gap is maintained throughout the duration of travel. Small deviations are acceptable, but in general what should be observed is a roughly constant gap, and no interference (i.e. if the gap begins at 92.5 thou, it should not drop to 0 or not exceed 185 thou, but should hover somewhere on the order of 20 to 140 thou, for example).

 

Edit [2023-11-24, 2]: a dial indicator was set up on the left side of the vault in a similar manner as described above. In this case, the indicator's reading remained roughly constant during the start of travel (starting with the door closed and opening it up), with only up to around 10-20 thou variation at first slowly, followed by a slow increase to up to approximately 135 thou. This is similar to the 185 thou observed on the other side. One suggested means of resolving the issue is: raise the entire door slightly with overhead crane, translate it sideways approximately half of door's lateral travel distance (i.e. around 90 thou) and then lowering it back down. This should, in theory, be acceptable. It may not resolve the issue of whether the door is rotated, but should give enough clearance on both sides throughout the entire range of motion to be deemed an acceptable fix. Other opinions will be gathered on the subject to determine if this could work. 

The motor cable for the storage vault was replaced as the old one was showing signs of wear. The U-track that the old cable ran through was also bent as a result of being hit.

In the process of replacing the cable, an e-chain was installed for cable management purposes. Mounting brackets were modified and a new U-track was installed as well. The new hardware is more robust than what was previously installed.

The vault door was opened and closed multiple times while observing the e-chain - everything behaved as expected. The system is operational.

Solidworks model IRH0189 is updated to show the changes

Dan and I stopped the CS and TM4 pumps. We are venting the CS with argon for UCX13 target.

 Argon vented TCS and TM4 after pumps are stopped.

Stop TM1 and CS turbo pumps and ruff pump. TM1 is disconnect at CS. It will be vented tomorrow morning and moved to ITW.

The CS and TM1 is still under vacuum. They will be vented with argon tomorrow mornig

I stopped TCS vacuum pumps for coming TM3 move.

Travis assembled and tested the steerer wires March 31st (see attached)

Yesterday TM2 was inspected in the SHC. Spark marks were found both on the steerer wires and on the ANODE wire. The steerer wires (GND)  were touching the gas lines (60kV). This is likely the cause of the sparking observed at the Conditioning Station (e-log).

Photos are available on DocuShare

Using in cell camera and transit the suspect line on the steerers was inspected as best as possible. An existing photo of the complete steerers before installation was used for comparison. The wiring and beading inspected today showed no obvious problems, breaks or spots where there may be a short. In comparison to the photo from construction, what we could see of the steerers looked identical to the original installation.

chad fisher wrote:

Using in cell camera and transit the suspect line on the steerers was inspected as best as possible. An existing photo of the complete steerers before installation was used for comparison. The wiring and beading inspected today showed no obvious problems, breaks or spots where there may be a short. In comparison to the photo from construction, what we could see of the steerers looked identical to the original installation.

 The test was repeated to confirm that there was a short.

A new gas system for FEBIAD operation was installed in ITE to enable us to use a calibrated leak which is attached to the target heat shield. This will allow us to control the quantity and purity of the gas going into the system, and to switch quickly between gasese and pressures.

The schematic of the system is attached. The use of the ballast container is likely not needed - it was originally included in case we want to run the system at pressures greater than 1 ATM. The roughing pump inlet limit is 1ATM, so it was envisaged to used the ballast container to reduce the pressure to that level or below before opening the system to the pump. But since it has been difficult to commission the system over 1ATM and this opens the door to several concerns about gas leakage, it was deemed better to keep operation below 1 ATM. This tank will likely be removed.

The storage tank was implemented because we are not sure if irradiated gases will be pulled out of the target lines when we pump on them, and so this was devised as a way to test that. The alternative is to have the exhaust of this pump go directly into nuclear ventilation by way of a plastic tube leaving the faraday cage, however this solution is also quite some work to implement. So the consensus was to start with the storage tank and sample it several times to understand what sorts of radioactivity we are dealing with, then make a decision about future operations.

This system has been tested offline using the development target UCx#44 and appears to work well. Unfortunately there were no protons available for this beam time so the gas sampling part of the system was not tested.

The operation of the rest of the system worked reasonably well. Beam disappeared when pumping out the lines and reappeared when re-opening the gas bottle. It seems that the storage container can be used to pump out the lines about 7 times before it gets up to around atmosphere, as was estimated based on volume. The pump can get the lines down to about 250mTorr as read by the pressure gauge DG2 on the module top, given about 30mins of pumping.

We did have some issue with the gauges, HV sparks destroyed both controllers and so we were unable to monitor pressures as we would have liked. It is possible one gauge itself is broken as well, to be investigated.

It may be that the gas leak we used was too small, but the idea of changing the pressure on the module by changing the needle valve didn't seem to work. This is not sure since we didn't have a reading on the pressure, but watching the ion beam as you turn the gas back on seemed quite binary. You would see no change until you had the needle valve fully open. This may be different with a larger leak, since this leak required about 1ATM in the lines to see anything. It is still not clear why this behaviour was different than the tests at the test stand, in which 0.5ATM of upstream pressure produced about 2nA of beam.

This system is considered a prototype and is not turned over to ops for operation. Further commissioning is required.