Minutes from REX integration meeting 16/6/2004

 

Present: Mats Lindroos (chair), David Porret, Thomas Sieber, Fredrik Wenander

 

 

1. Planning and general issues

* David Porret from the vacuum group gave an overview of the REX vacuum control system. The presentation can be view at http://isolde.web.cern.ch/ISOLDE/, REX integration page.

 

* The updated budget for REX can be found at http://isolde.web.cern.ch/ISOLDE/, REX integration page.

 

* Two financial posts, the purchase of a spare VME card for the EBIS (~3000 euro) and TREK steerer supplies (~12300 CHF), have been taken by Peter Butler.

 

* Jacques Pier-Amory has had no jobs assigned by the REX-team the last ~1 ½ month. A 1/2 day job was requested this week by Fredrik.

 

* The migration of the REX control computers from NT to XP continues. A summary of what has been done is given below. Not mentioned there is that the remote control for the 9-gap resonator is also finished. Ivan will also look into the slow extraction, and upgrade remaining consoles to XP.

 

FONSKE:

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- 2 new METEOR2 frame grabber cards ordered and installed. No major problems to adapt/recompile the equipment modules.

- RS485 ISA card replaced by RS232 adapter box and equipment module updated by Paul Van Den Bergh.

 

GRIZZLY:

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- New Hallprobe card ordered and installed. No major problems to adapt/recompile the equipment modules.

- Old Applicom card (from F. Locci) installed but could not run under XP. Upgrade package (EPROM, driver + libraries) was required. This was ordered from HD Techonology and installed. Slave configurations

transferred from old FEC.

 

KOALA:

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- Old Applicom card (from F. Locci) installed but could not run under XP. Upgrade package (EPROM, driver + libraries) was required. This was ordered from HD Techonology and installed. Slave configurations transferred from old FEC.

- PCI-VME bus adapter card taken out from old FECs, downloaded new XP library from SBS web site. Update of the GFAS and GFASGDG DLLs for new library.

 

 

2. REXTRAP and REXEBIS

* The gun cathode in the EBIS has been changed. 220 mA electron beam has been reached, but the losses are higher than normal, and loss current runaways are occurring. Under investigation.

 

* After the cathode change the vacuum system was baked out. Because of a different baking cycle an improved vacuum compared to last bakeout was obtained.

 

* The superconductive cryostat of the EBIS was warmed up to LqN2 temperature. The OVC was leak tested from the outside, without any leak to be found. The OVC was also pumped on an a slight improvement of the vacuum was reached. The system has been re-cooled to LqHe temperature.

 

* Due to the reoccurring problems with the REXTRAP VME action was taken and the AB/CO group was involved. The REXTRAP VME was exchanged for the spare VME from ISOLTRAP. The spare VME started and passed the selftest, but could not fully run the REXTRAP processes. When re-inserting the REXTRAP VME card, this did not even pass the selftest. With the present situation the REXTRAP can not be operated. Frank Herfurth and Dietrich Beck at GSI have been contacted for a solution. A resurrection of the ISOLTRAP VME or a migration to a SHIPTRAP Labview system are considered. The AB/CO has no resources, and estimates the work to 6 man months. A AB/CO system can be operational in two years from now.

 

* A summer student allocated to Fredrik will arrive the 29/6. Electron beam simulation in Opera and a user friendly charge breeding calculation programme are two tasks in mind.

 

 

3. LINAC

* Thomas is requesting Cs beam for setting up the linac. Due to the present problems with the trap control system and the overload of work, this has been postponed, and the setup has to be done with residual gas beam from the EBIS.

 

* All amplifiers have been started successfully. The water and air cooling is working.

 

* The 200 MHz amplifier is limited to 90 kW, that means a final energy of ~2.9 MeV/u.

 

 

Notes by Fredrik Wenander