Things are starting to look up at the Observatory!
The installation of the new aperture boxes and shutters for three bays at Los Leones and three bays at Coihueco is proceeding well.Two (almost) new telescopes in bays 4 and 5 at Los Leones are on schedule to be operational by the time of the collaboration meeting at the end of April.
In early March the first 1000 fluorescence detector PMT bases were sent to Photonis for attachment to PMTs.This should result in the arrival of a shipment of cameras to Malargüe in May.
A truck with six tanks from Rotoplas has just rolled into Malargüe. More will come next week.These are the first pre-production tanks from Rotoplas provided by Mexico.Eight tanks also came from Alpina last week. Eight more will leave for Malargüe on 20 March.All these tanks are now in preparation for deployment.Our third tank vendor, Formingplast, has not yet finished their tooling for tank production.Seven containers containing over 110 tons of resin arrived in Buenos Aires harbor last week.This will be enough for about an additional 200 tanks.There are now 46 preproduction tanks in the field.
The new liner assembly facility on the UTN campus in Mendoza was inaugurated on 19 March.In a few weeks they will begin assembling liners and shipping them to Malargüe.
Parts for the first five surface detector electronics packages will be ready to send to the site by the end of March.These packages include the radio, unified board/front end board and the tank power control board.SDE experts will be at the site to commission these units, some of which will go to the field.
The facility for assembling and testing surface detector electronics has been completed in Galpon II.It is fondly known as SDE Fabrica.The CNEA house containing the PMT assembly and test facility will soon be moved to a location adjacent to the SDE Fabrica.The SDE Fabrica comes complete with a very friendly security dog.
WBS
1.2 Fluorescence Detector Electronics (D. Camin – Milano)
http://www.auger.org/admin/Reviews/prr.html
After the PRR the following actions took place:
-Optimization of the test system used for the full-production. Although this system was
installed at Elbau18 December,a check on its performance was done at the time of the PRR when the production of the first units was alreadyon the way. Although the selection criteria allowed to screen a few defective HE’s, a bad contactin theprobe that injectsthe test-pulse caused rejectionofunits that later-on proved to be within specs. This was verified very recently, and the defective probe of the test bed was replaced. So far,only 5 units of the whole batch are defective.
-Installation of three additional high current HVPS Fluke 415 B to be used at the burn-in
phase.
-Receiving from Photonis the first 19 PMT+HE assemblies which used pre-production
HE’s. This took place by February 20.
-Testing of assemblies in Rome using their test facility. This tookplace by end of
February. Results were satisfactory either electricallyand mechanically. A detailed report was made available the Rome group.
- Modification of the packing procedure , after noticing that use of ESD conductive black material releases small particles that are in contrast with the perfect clean procedure used during the manufacturing. The solution consisted in using the same boxes made with corrugatedESD paper , and replacing the black conductive material by separators made with the same ESD paper.
-Completion of the first 1500 full-production HE units. This is 50 %of the first batch,
and took place by end of February. A few days later, after confirming the good performace of the first 19 PMT+HE assemblies, we gave green light for the first shipping directly to Photonis of 1000HE’s. This quantity largely exceeds the present and near-future needs. In addition,completion of the first batch , 3000 units, is by now very close. This amount is equivalentto five to six month of PMT’s production by Photonis.
It must be recalled that all Analog Boards produced have been successfully pre-tested and thermally cycled following the Paul Clark’s “Electronic Stress Screening and Burn-in Procedure” report.
Just
recently another280 Analog Board
V3.0 have been shipped by the manufacturer directly to FZK. With this shipments,
which adds to the 220+20 units delivered last year, Torino has already
provided 520 AB, which are sufficient for 24 telescopes + 40 spares.
-Bay 4, 5, and 6 at LL
-Bay 1,2, and 3 at Cohiueco.
Although no new cameras have been installed yet, cables have been cut to their proper lengths taking into accountthe length used for the two prototypes. All cables are properly labeled to facilitate installation and debugging.The connections, which included remote sensing, wereverified end-to-end using a dummy load.
One of the two required
CAEN 1527 HVLVPS system, is already available at the site. The second crate
and a few modules are at the moment in Karlsruhe were the SW for integration
to the slow control system is under development.
The 12 LV and 12 HV modules
plus spares, necessary for 6 cameras are also available.
The assignment of crate’s
slots is the following:
a) Bay 4, 5,
and 6 at Los Leones:
HV BAY4in
slot 4
HV BAY5in
slot 5
HV BAY6in
slot 6
LV BAY4in
slot 11
LV BAY5in
slot 12
LV BAY6in
slot 13
b) Bay 1,2, and 3 at Cohiueco.:
HV BAY1in
slot 1
HV BAY2in
slot 2
HV BAY3in
slot 3
LV BAY1in
slot 8
LV BAY2in
slot 9
LV BAY3in
slot 10
- Most cables and connectors for the other cameras are already in place terminated with connectors to the Crate side. Connectors to the Camera side are still not available.
- The HV and LV modulesrequired for completion to 12 Cameras are also available.
WBS
2.2. Surface Detector Electronics (T. Suomijarvi – IPN Orsay)
PMTs
The PMTs + IPNO bases are now in the production phase and PMT units are delivered to Malargue in a continuous flow.The UCLA-Mendoza testing and potting factory in Malargue started full scale production in the end of January. Unfortunately the CNEA will seal the ground on the site (gravel, sand and clay) due to Uranium tails and the UCLA factory has to be removed. After noise studies and other considerations, it was decided to move the house on the SDE-Fabrica site. In the current schedule, the house will be moved in the second week of April and the testing and potting should be in full operation again in the end of April.
Unified Board
The CdF is waiting to have 10 industrial prototypes from their sub-contractor (LST) in the middle of April. The prototypes will be fully tested at the CdF before green light is given to the company to fabricate the next batch of 120 pieces. The schedule is to give the green light (if the tests are OK) before the end of April which would allow to have 120 UBs before the end of July. 5 of the industrial prototypes will be brought to Malargue in the end of April and installed to tanks.
The LAL-Orsay is currently fabricating 5 UB test benches.Two complete test benches will be installed in the UB fabrication company in order to perform the functionality test in the company (after the burn-in). Three lighter versionswill be also installed in CdF, in LAL and in the SDE-Fabrica for maintenance.
Concerning the parallel
path of the UB fabrication, PSU has received now all 55 UBs. The UBs have
been temperature cycled and tested at the PSU. The PSU will also do the
tropicalization of the boards. The goal is also to have 5 UBs in Malargue
before the end of April.In order
to have a security buffer for the UBs, PSU is going to fabricate additional
70 pieces. This would yield about 250 UBs available before the end of July.
Water
level and temperature sensor
The device consists of the puck, a magnetic reed relay (magnetically actuated switch, n.o. in absence of the magnet) and a solid state thermometer (see Fig. 2). The puck rest on the liner and keep the thermometer in reasonable thermal contact with the liner. The magnet is attached by a small monofilament fishing line to the roof of the tank, and when the water level goes down due to a leak, for example, the magnet will be separated from the switch and the circuit opened. There is currently discussion on weather the water level sensor is necessary. It might be possible to extract this information from the background muon data. A decision on this should be taken during the next collaboration meeting.
SDE-Fabrica,
Malargue
The reparation work in the SDE-Fabrica is finished. The Fabrica is divided in two parts: test area (Fig. 3) and storage area (Fig. 4). The SDE integration will be done in the Fabrica. The integration consists of mounting the GPS receiver, LED controller and the FE card to the UB and installing the ensemble into the RF-enclosure. The micro-TPCB will be installed into its enclosure and the radio + UB + microTPCB will be all assembled together and a functionality test of the ensemble will be performed. A detailed plan for the integration is currently being elaborated. The SDE-Fabrica will also have a UB test bench and other test areas. All SDE and COMMS items will be stored in the Fabrica, only a buffer of about one week installation (30 units) will be stored in the AB.
Installation
and deployment
There
are currently 46 pre-production tanks with PMTs on the Pampa. Concerning
the PMTs, no failures have been detected for the moment. 8 tanks arrived
yesterday (March 19) and 6 more are expected to arrive in a couple of days.
The deployment continues.
Concerning
the station electronics, the plan is to have 5 tanks functioning in the
end of April and 100 in July. We have currently good hopes that this goal
will be achieved.
WBS 3.0 Comms Task (P. Clark – Leeds)
shipment of 240 units at the site by the end of April.
A further shipment of 480 units is now sheduled to arrive on site during
August.
first 120 or so pre-production surface detectors.
Apirl site visit.
enjoyed 3 days 'swinging about on ropes' at the Dalloz/Bacou climbing
training centre in the UK. I'm pleased to say that everyone passed the
recertification exam and we are now qualified to climb towers for a further
3 year period.
tower simply by radioing in their GPS UTM co-ordinates. This tool will also
inform Campus operatives to which Base-station sector (of the 28 that will
be available) the newly deployed tank should be connected.
WBS 9.0 Observatory Operations – (Xavier Bertou
– University of Chicago)
On site activities - January - February: Acquisition has resumed to normal. A new web page helping in understanding the status of the array has been implemented