Saturday Sept 16 Bruce arrived at the REAL about 830 PDT. Bruce matched the serial number in given by Colfax was the drive in the third bay of the raid (Z1Z0C8QS). When the procedure to install a new disk is confirmed he will replace the drive.
Afternoon clouds looking East 1420 PDT
Afternoon clouds look West 1420 PDT
Sept 16 MPD03
Before starting to collect data Bruce worked on getting the operating parameters of the laser into a more 'normal' range where changes in the flash lamp voltage and q-switch delay would be acceptable. The automatic adjustment of the flash lamp voltage (a 10 volt increase every 3M shots) increased the 1.54 energy too high and to compensate for this we would increase the q-switch delay so the pump energy at 1.06 would be lowered resulting in a lower 1.54 energy. The response of the system was not what we expected - the 1.06 energy dropped much more than expected but the 1.54 energy did not follow. To lower the 1.54 energy into a range below 130mj used a much larger q-switch delay than expected. Bruce looked at DS's labVIEW code saw how to lower the flash lamp voltage and that allowed the q-switch delay to be restored to values used in past projects. The 154 energy is now below 120mj which is a value we should be able to maintain for the rest of the project.