Accelerator Update for August 6, 2008 - August 8, 2008

Wednesday August 6

The day shift began with Operations monitoring the Tevatron (TeV) store (78.89E30), the Recycler (RR) stash (233.5E10), and the Antiproton Source (Pbar) stack (37.7E10), with the Main Injector (MI) off due to an RF problem, with Booster suffering from a kicker problem, with Linac operating normally, though it has no place to send beam, with the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) and DZero (D0) using the colliding beams, and with the SciBooNE / MiniBooNE (BNB) and NuMI experiments not taking beam due to Booster and MI problems.

At 8:17 AM, there was a report of smoke coming from a Booster kicker power supply. A Booster expert reported that the transformer for MKS10 needed to be replaced. The kicker was turned off.

At 8:27 AM, Operations reported that there was a burned diode in the MI RF Center Anode.

At 9:38 AM, Operations reported that the Recycler was suffering from an emittance blow up. Operations contacted damper experts.

An RF expert reported at 9:40 AM that he had finished his work on BRF13.

Operations established beam to BNB at 9:43 AM.

Operations reported at 9:44 AM that power supply experts had completed their work on the MI Center Anode power supply. Operations established beam to Pbar.

Operations established beam to NuMI at 10:01 AM.

A Recycler expert reported at 10:41 AM that he had found a test program running that was inadvertently turning the damper off and causing the emittance problems. About 12E10 of antiprotons were lost.

At 1:31 PM, MIRF13 tripped off for the first of two times in seven minutes. It reset.

At 2:38 PM, a Linac Klystron RF station (KRF1) tripped off. It reset.

Operations terminated store 6341 at 2:47 PM.

Operations prepared D0 for an access at 3:01 PM.

A Booster expert reported at 3:15 PM that MKS10 was back online and being timed in.

At 3:24 PM, LRF2 tripped off. It reset.

Operations reported at 3:51 PM that the Recycler had stashed antiprotons twice during the day shift.

At 3:53 PM, the Linac Klystron Vernier tripped off on a LCW flow fault. It reset.

D0 came out of access at 4:25 PM.

TeV RF experts completed repairs on TRF1 at 4:39 PM.

Operations put the TeV through a dry squeeze at 5:08 PM.

Operations put the TeV through a wet squeeze at 5:48 PM.

At 6:04 PM, the TeV aborted with no indications of a cause.

At 6:09 PM, Operations tried to put the TeV through another wet squeeze, but the abort link would not clear due to a sector B4 link driver timeout. An expert was called in. Operators rebooted the TeV Front Ends (FE).

At 6:37 PM, Operations reported a bad MI CAMAC crate at TeV sector A0 due to a bad power supply.

Operations reported at 7:11 PM that the A0 CAMAC crate had been replaced. There were both MI and TeV modules in this crate. Operations rebooted the MI-1 FE and the TeVA FE.

At 7:27 PM, Operations reported TeVA problems. A controls expert reported that the FE problems were due to and old program that was trying to collect and send data. An expert disabled the process; they will continue investigations and further repairs on Thursday.

Operations put the TeV through a dry squeeze at 8:10 PM.

Operations put the TeV through a wet squeeze at 8:58 PM.

Operations put the TeV into a shot setup at 9:11 PM.

At 9:13 PM, LRF4 tripped off. It reset.

At 9:37 PM, Operations reported problems with the MI BPM FEs.

At 10:49 PM, MIRF2 tripped off. It reset.

A controls expert reported at 11:11 PM that the MDAT time of day was accidentally turned off during the TeVA FE investigations and had caused the MI BPM data problems.

Operations reported at midnight that the Recycler had stashed twice during the evening shift.

Thursday August 7

The midnight shift began with the TeV in shot setup, with Operations monitoring the stash (377.2E10), with Pbar stacking (124.3E10), and with the BNB and NuMI experiments taking beam.

At 12:20 AM, MIRF2 tripped off. It reset.

At 1:07 AM, Operations reported that the Pelletron temperatures were rising. It appeared that the chiller was broken. Operations called in an expert.

Operations established store 6346 at 1:28 AM with an initial luminosity of 280.87E30.

Operations prepared MI-31 for access at 2:17 AM.

A Pelletron expert reported at 3:03 AM that the water system looked in good shape. He found some air in the silo loop and bled it out. After that the temperatures looked better.

At 5:21 AM, MIRF2 tripped off. It reset.

At 6:52 AM, a Booster vacuum pump (IPRF17) tripped off and caused BRF7 & 8 to also trip. Everything reset.

At 7:31 AM, a Booster vacuum pump (IPRF23) tripped off and caused BRF13 & 14 to also trip. Everything reset.

At 7:43 AM, LRF2 tripped off. It reset.

Operations reported at 7:55 AM that the Recycler had stashed three times during the midnight shift.

At 8:16 AM, LRF4 tripped off for the first of two times in eight minutes. It reset.

At 8:40 AM, MIRF2 tripped off. It reset. Operations contacted a RF expert.

Instrumentation experts reported at 10:20 AM that they were upgrading the Pbar Debuncher BPM system.

Controls experts reported at 10:25 AM that they were rebooting the LRF3 VME.

At 1:36 PM, BRF8 tripped off. It reset.

Operations terminated store 6346 at 4 PM.

At 4:02 PM, MIRF2 tripped off. It reset.

Operations reported at 4:04 PM that the Recycler had stashed six times during the day shift.

Operations put the TeV into shot setup at 4:17 PM.

Operations reported at 4:39 PM that operators had rebooted the TeV FEs and that cryo system experts had begun work on the F2 cryo system.

A MI expert began a coalescing study at 4:40 PM.

D0 experimenters reported at 4:47 PM that they were having high temperature problems with their detector.

An RF expert reported at 5:02 PM that the problem with MIRF2 was in the tunnel and would require an access to repair.

Operations prepared D0 for an access at 5:11 PM to check fans.

Cryo system experts reported at 5:12 PM that they completed their TeV sector F2 work. They also tried to bring the TeV sector D0 compressor #3 online, but it still had problems.

D0 came out of access at 6:07 PM. Experts reported that they had repaired the fans for their AFE boards.

Operations put the TeV through a dry squeeze at 6:38 PM.

Operations put the TeV back into shot setup at 7:07 PM.

At 7:58 PM, BRF8 tripped off. It reset.

Operations established store 6348 at 8:42 PM with an initial luminosity of 278.97E30.

Operations reported at midnight that the Recycler had stashed three times during the evening shift.

Friday August 8

The midnight shift began with Operations monitoring store 6348 (164.43E30) and the stash (144.9E10), with Pbar stacking (35.8E10), and with the BNB and NuMI experiments taking beam.

At 12:31 AM, Operations reported that MIRF2 had tripped off several times since the beginning of shift.

At 1:27 AM, Operations reported that MIRF2 was still tripping off. A RF expert advised operators on how to adjust the station’s grid bias pot.

At 3:19 AM, LRF5 tripped off. It reset.

At 4:32 AM, KRF5 tripped off. It reset.

At 6:32 AM, BRF3 tripped off. It reset.

At 7:29 AM, LRF5 tripped off. It reset.

At 7:56 AM, Operations reported that the I- Source had been sparking and tripping off for the past 30 minutes.

Operations reported at 7:57 AM that the Recycler had stashed five times during the midnight shift.

The Plans for Friday and the Weekend

The plans for today and the weekend are to stack, stash, and store.

Accelerator Update Archive

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