Checked on the system today.

The flange on the turbo pump has reached an equilibrium temperature of 87 degC when set at 150 degC. While the main body of the chamber has reached an equilibrium temperature of 142 degC.

Checked on the vacuum system today to change the PID controls back to their default values in order to try and get the temperature of the cross in front of the turbo pump higher. Currently it is sitting at 90 degC before changing the controls. While the main body is at 146 degC.

Will update again tomorrow on new equilibrium with the default PID settings.

Checked on the vacuum system and it looks like it will either need to be increased in temperature or baked for a longer time. The main body is at 146C while the cross is at 91C.

Started to cool down the chamber today. Final temperature readings of the chamber were 146C and 91C for the body and cross respectively.

The insulation on the lid of the vacuum chamber has some discoloration and it may be wise to place a sensor closer to this spot in future bakes.

Took another set of RGA data after the second bake has cooled down to 27 degC.

Just by visual comparison to the other graphs, the HC levels of the chamber has gone down further. I will soon overlay the data for an easier comparison.

I also reinstalled the full range gauge above the RGA line. It is still adjusting itself downwards so I will have to check again to get an accurate measurement of the pressure.

Took some more data to look at the HC count. Initial data was from leaving the Argon leak closed and then left it open for 15 minutes and then took data for the open scenario. Attached are the graphs for these where attachment 1 is the closed scenario and attachment 2 is the open scenario.

From these graphs it looks like the signal-noise ratio of our calibration line is poor with the ratio between these two being 1.3. This means that the calibrated leak is barely being detected over the background. This should improve with more baking and pumping. I have also now attached overlayed graphs comparing the chamber when the leak is closed versus when it is open. As well as one comparing the chamber right after the bake versus the most recent data both with the leak open.

Dr. Richardson and I took off the insulation on the lid again to add more insulation in-between the heater tape folds in addition to what was added on top of the tape after discovering discoloration. Also cleaned the lid with IPA wipes.

Also took more RGA data, one with the leak closed and one with the leak open. The graphs below this show that the SNR is improving with the ratio now looking to be around 3. The chamber is still too dirty to be commissioned and we will need to be baked again soon.

Plugged the temperature sensor back in after getting another extension cord. Removed the electronics box for the RGA as well as the full range gauge above the RGA line.

Moved the temperature sensor on the PID controller to one of the switch backs on the lid.

Also started the next bake with both PID controllers set to 150 degC. When leaving the temperature sensors above the chamber read 119 C and 83 C. These sensors are on the chamber wall and flange in front of the turbo pump respectively.

Did some further testing to determine if it was within reason to increase the temperature of the chamber. I used a thermometer and pulled back some insulation to test many points on the chamber. Mainly focused on the barrel and the bottom lid of the chamber to see if it was possible to increase the temperature of just the PID controller that is powering the bottom half of the chamber.

Found that the barrel of the chamber seems to be hotter than what the sensor is saying, 125 C. Found many points on the barrel that reached 140 C. I believe this is because the sensor is taped on top of the heater tape rather than in between the aluminum and the heater tape.

Also measured many points on the bottom lid as it has the same configuration the top did before it damaged the insulation. It seemed to be consistently at 150 C but I was able to find a couple points that were hotter around 160 C. These hotter spots were most likely the heater folds. There is not much we can do about this as removing the insulation for fixing would required a very invasive procedure to do it safely.

Then moved to the stainless steel tube that connects the RGA and Turbo pump lines. This tube was around 150 C but many points on it were hotter around 160 C. Before another bake I think some of the tape around the tube may need to be pulled back and relocated to avoid damaging insulation while also providing more heat to the main body of the chamber.

Measured a couple more points on the cross that connects the RGA and the full range gauge and found it to be around 130-140 C which means this section could be hotter as the electronics of the full range gauge can reach 150 C.

Over all I believe that the chamber temperature should not be increased in its current state as the bottom lid is a concern with what happened with the top in the second bake. Some optimizations could be made for a fourth bake however. Moving the temperature sensors to be between the heater tape and chamber. Pulling some of the heater tape from the stainless steel tube and relocating it to the main body of the chamber. Moving the PID temperature sensor on the tube to be on the bottom lid or another hotter spot. These are some changes I would make for a fourth bake but maybe this bake could be the last with how the second bake went.

Vacuum Chamber equilibrium temperature for bake 3 are 126 C and 88 C for the chamber wall and turbo pump flange respectively. There were reached with the PID controllers both being set to 150 C.

Also noticed some discoloration around the port insulation. It could be burned from being exposed to the heater tape directly without insulation or it could be that the insulation, which looks much different, is depositing something around the ports.

The turbo pump overheated and the heating tape had to be turned off in order to get the pump back online. It was unusually hot at 52 C. Hottest it got in bake 2 was 38 C.

[Dr. Richardson, Aiden]

DO NOT TOUCH ANY VALVES ON THE CHAMBER. THERE IS A PRESSURE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN THE RGA LINE, TURBO PUMP LINE AND THE MAIN VOLUME. THE TURBO PUMP WILL BE DESTROYED IF OPENED.

Closed the valves to the turbo pump line and RGA line. Turned the turbo pump back on and saw that the pressure in the RGA Line and Turbo pump line was going down so there was no large leak within that line or with the valves as the main body pressure stayed constant. Then raised the pressure of the main body of the chamber as we suspect the viton o-ring has failed and needs to be changed. The bolts to the lid of the chamber were also removed but the lid was left on.

Then performed a helium leak test on the section of the system that was under vacuum. We found two flanges that had small but significant leaks compared to the others in the lines. The flange connecting the full range gauge to the cross and the flange connecting the stainless steel tube to the valve under the cross. These showed large spikes when sprayed with helium and were then tightened to hopefully fix it. After tightening, the flange under the full range gauge was fixed as the bolts were pretty loose and tightening reduced any spike seen on leak test. The other flange on the SS tube could not be fixed with tightening and it still shows signs of helium leaking through. This flange will need to have its gasket changed to fix this leak. Then left the system where it is in the picture for further changes tomorrow August 11. Again, DO NOT TOUCH THE VALVES ON THE RGA LINE AND TURBO PUMP LINE AS THERE IS A PRESSURE DIFFERENTIAL AND IT WILL DESTROY THE TURBO PUMP IF OPENED.

Note: We also found that the pump under the table had flipped the breaker and needed to be turned back on. This may be something to look into.

[Dr. Richardson, Aiden] Large Update

Removed most of the insulation on the chamber in order to pull back some of the heater tape to get to the flange connecting the bypass line to the valve under the RGA line. Most of the heater tape on the bottom half of the chamber was pulled off and the rest will need to be removed as well in order to place the start of the heater tape on the barrel of the chamber rather than one of the flanges.

Engaged the valve under the RGA line to prevent it from getting more contaminated. Turned off the turbo pump. Turned off the scroll pump. Let the turbo pump sit for a few minutes to let the fans stop. Then leaked the turbo pump volume by turning the knob slowly on top of the turbo. Then proceeded to unscrew the bypass line after done leaking the volume. Replaced the copper gasket and then proceeded to screw it on while maintaining a circular path to ensure equal pressure on the gasket. BEWARE THAT REUSING SILVER PLATED SCREWS HAS A HIGH CHANCE OF STRIPPING THE SCREW AND WILL RESULT IN A LOT OF WORK TO GET THEM OFF. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO USE NEW SILVER SCREWS. HOWEVER WE HAVE NONE LEFT SO DO NOT TRY TO REUSE ANY SCREWS UNTIL WE HAVE SPARES. We were able to use the remaining two spare screws to tighten the flange to a point where it will not tighten anymore.

Then the lid was removed in order to inspect the inside of the chamber and the Viton O-Ring. The chamber had no physical damage and the viton had some visual damage that may correlate to the failure observed during bake 3. Note that some metal chips were found inside of the o-ring groove and needed to be removed. We changed out the o-ring for a new one and placed the old one inside of an anti static bag labeled "Viton O-Ring". Put the lid back on after inspecting for damage and put the bolts on hand tightened. Started to pump down again by turning on the scroll pump first until full range gauge 1 read below 1 torr and then began to turbo pump. The turbo pump was running for 1.5 hours until it plateaued around 3e-4 torr. We then realized the bolts on the lid needed to be tightened more with a wrench. After further tightening the pressure quickly dropped to 6e-6 torr. In the future the bolts should be tightened with a wrench from the begining.

Then proceeded to Helium leak test every weld, flange, and valve. Two of the flanges needed a little more tightening such as the 2 6" flanges. Other than that the only noticeable leak was from the flange just fixed today, however the leak is 10 times less than how it was yesterday and will most likely not hold the chamber back from reaching low 10e-8 torr pressures.

Pulled off the rest of the heater tape along with the aluminum tape left behind. The aluminum tape adhesive left behind a ton of junk on the walls of the chamber. This is probably due to excessive heating. In order to get the adhesive off I sprayed a vector alpha wipe with acetone and wiped down the walls. This took a lot of acetone to get it off.

When removing some of the aluminum tape I noticed small sections that seemed to have been melted to the silicone part of the heater tape and would have been damaging to try and forcefully remove it.

The heater tape is now ready to be put on again but now with the start of the tape placed on the other side so that the PID controllers can be placed on the shelf above the chamber and be seen outside of the curtain.

Put the heating tape back on and made sure to have 4 coils around the barrel of the chamber. To make this happen I did not put any heater tape on the ports but made sure to place some of the heater no more than 1 inch away from the ports. Also re-placed some of the heating sensors. For the PID controllers there is one sensor placed on the lid and one sensor placed on the barrel. For the temperature alarms one sensor was placed near the flange of the turbo pump and another placed on the cross in the RGA line. Note that all four of these sensors were placed under the heating tape compared to the last few bakes where they were on top.

The insulation was also put back on and now the chamber should be ready for a low temperature bake after some RGA data is taken before for comparison.

Came in to take RGA data and found the turbo pump drawing .38 Amps. This was much higher than what it was on Friday. I investigated and found that the breaker had flipped controlling the power strip that the scroll pump was on. The scroll pump was thus not running. I flipped the breaker back and turned the scroll pump back on. I do not know if this will be a reoccurring problem as this has happened before, or if this was due to the storm. Either way the scroll pump is running and the turbo pump is now only drawing .18 Amps at 31 C.

Below are the graphs for the RGA scan that I took before starting bake 4. I have not overlaid them yet so the first one is for Argon leak closed and the second is the Argon leak open. It seems that the chamber had gotten dirtier since the leak and there is still a lot of water left in the chamber. I assume the water will go away after the low temp bake but the HC count may not go down without a longer baker. I also measured the pressure before starting the bake and it was 4.16 e-7 and 3.31 e-7 torr for t he main body volume and RGA volume respectively.

When starting the bake I noticed that the temperature sensor placed on the cross in the RGA volume was reading 40 C hotter that what the PID controller was reading for the lid. I had to remove some of the heater tape from the cross as it was way too hot compared to the lid. After removing the second strip across the cross it is still much hotter than most parts due to it being such a small part compared to the large lid. I hope that after a little bit of equilibration time that the difference between these numbers will go down. Both PID controllers were set to 120 C. The RGA cross was reading 130 C and the Turbo pump cross was reading 76 C.

[Jon, Tyler, Aiden, Peter]

Upgrade of the UHV system to a larger turbo pump began today. After obtaining a final RGA scan in the old configuration (Aiden to post), we vented all three volumes and proceeded to disassemble the 4.5"-diameter pump line. We completed installation of the new 6"-diameter pump line to the point where the new turbo pump will attach. This includes a 6" manual gate valve, 6"/2.75" reducing cross, and 6"/8" conical reducing nipple, as pictured below. Strain relief was also installed due to the longer length and greater weight of the new fittings.

Tomorrow we will continue with attaching the Varian TV 551 pump and perform a pump-down test. If this pump is confirmed to be operable, then we will relocate the entire system ~18" closer to the middle of the table and permanentize the setup.

Continued tightening bolts on the turbo pump and 6"-8" reducer to reduce the leak. The final leak test values for the turbo pump flange was 3.0 e-9 and the other 6"-8" reducer flange was 4.0 e-9.

We will continue to let it pump down as the screws could not be tightened anymore. Looks like new gaskets will be needed to reduce the leaking on these flanges.

Took some RGA data when we came into the room. The pressure of the chamber was 8.63e-8 Torr before turning on the RGA filament. We saw the usual spike in pressure when the filament was initially turned on. Took some data and saw that the chamber was definitely dirtier since the vacuum upgrade. See figures below.

Put the heater tape back onto the section that was removed. We may need to rearrange the heater tape again as there was not much heater tape to go around the upgraded section. We also tried to get some of the extra insulation around this section and we able to get some on around the 6-8 inch reducer.

We then took off the electronics for the gauges and the RGA, added the new extension cords to the PID controllers, and then started bake 6 which will go to 120 degC and stay that way until most likely Monday. The pressure before starting the bake was 8.28e-8 Torr.

By 5:30 pm Friday, the pressure had reached 8.6e-8 torr and was continuing to fall. So it seems we are OK to proceed with permanentizing this configuration (cable routing, heater tape reinstallation).

1. Run a second RGA degas cycle, but next time with the main volume valved off with only the RGA volume being pumped (through the bypass line). This will prevent "boiled off" particulate from entering the main chamber and will also increase the pumping rate for the RGA volume, reducing the amount of particulate that resettles on the RGA filament.
   
   
2. I also noticed that the SRS manual states that the filament is designed to be long-lived and it is recommended to leave it on any time the RGA is on. By leaving the filament on all the time (i.e., hot), we could reduce the amount of particulate that is evidently settling on it between scans. I am checking whether LIGO Lab does this in their own chambers.

After initial analysis from last week on a single RTD, I then extended to looking at all 8 in series with R_ref (set to 1 kOhm). Shown below are the edge cases for the setup:

• RTDs are all at ambient lab temperature. This would correspond to a minimum resistance value.
• RTDs all read out 400 C. This gives the maximum resistance value.

The results show that indeed only a few mA of current is drawn even at room temperature (a little above 5.5 mA), and this will continue to decrease with increasing temperature. The voltage across a single terminal, at a maximum, is only about 5.4 V.

As a follow up ELOG 261, I have received advice from one of the vacuum experts at LIGO Hanford on best practices for our RGA:

1. For future RGA degassing, definitely keep the main volume isolated, since it could contaminate the main volume with everything that just got cooked off of the filament. So the procedure should be to (i) close both gate valves, (ii) ensure the angle valve on the bypass line is open, (iii) initiate the degas cycle on the RGA, (iv) pump the RGA volume through the bypass line, until its pressure returns to its pre-degas level.

2. Repeated degassing of the filament will definitely wear it down much faster, so do this operation sparingly.

3. As long as the pressure of the RGA volume is in the UHV range (~1e-9 torr), best practice is to leave the filament on. This keeps it hot which helps prevent particulate from settling on it. However the electron multiplier should stay off when not actively taking scans, as it will wear down if left on all the time.

[Aiden, Luis]

Tested every weld and flange to find leaks. Only found that the flange on the turbo pump and reducing nipple was still at 2e-9 torr on the leak. The chamber still rose in pressure when the two gate valves were closed but no noticeable leak could be found on the lid or welds.

After the bake is done on Saturday it will be cooled down and RGA data will be taken to measure the out gassing rate of the stainless steel fasteners inside the chamber. Then on Tuesday we will plan to vent and open the chamber again to put the macor inside and repeat the another low temp bake and then test the macor early in week 11. Then the next material will be the aluminum mounting hardware for mounting the heaters and that should hopefully be done before the end of week 11 so the heaters can be tested afterwards after being cleaned with vector alpha wipes.

Came into the lab in the morning to check on the chamber heating. I decided to set the PID controllers to 110C rather than 120C as the chamber lid and wall were reading near 140C. With the PID controllers at 110C the chamber lid and wall now read 126C and 132C. Currently the PID controllers are placed on the cross in front of the RGA and the reducing nipple in front of the turbo pump. I believe this is a good equilibrium and will leave the tape on until Saturday when it will be turned off to cool down.

Turned off the heating tape today in anticipation to take more RGA data on Sunday or Monday morning before the meeting.

Took some RGA data of the chamber after it has been cooling down. I do not believe that this data accurately shows the HC levels in the chamber as the pressure is still above where it was at before the bake and was still falling. I believe more time is needed to let the pressure fall and for the RGA filament to remain on to return to a point where the data can be trusted.