Quick VPT Test Rig meeting - minutes

Date of meeting: 21 July 2000

Venue: RAL

Present: B Kennedy, L Lintern, A Turner, J Williams

1.  Mechanics

• Final row of 8 cans now glued up
• ALL has received components for relay box.  Box should be ready next week.

2. Electronics

• Preamps - more information from Dave Cussans in response to email from BWK. Motherboards are in Bristol along with 1 5-channel preamp card.  The other card is at CERN with 1 dead channel.  DC has not had time to build an optical driver board, so will just connect a coax cable to inject TTL signals into the input motherboard.   Calibration signals correspond to 50GeV beam particle (0.2V across 2p2F).  BWK has requested that the preamp system be available at RAL by 31 July.

3.  Single-channel  tests

• MS has made further noise tests.  With a total cable length of 2.85m, noise is about 2960e; removing 1.1m of cable reduces noise to about 1860e, so noise appears to be proportional to cable length.

4.  Database/PC

• Correct interface cables for bar-code readers have now arrived, and seem to work - more experimentation will be needed to set up the readers for CMS bar codes.  One reader + cable taken to Brunel by DCI.
• Extra memory (384MB) for database server PC has arrived from Viglen.

5.  Progress at Brunel - reported by PRH via email.

• 37-way connector/cable test - This was a success at 4.7T (2xHV, LT, 2X signal)
• Magnet move - This is scheduled for early August, the field will be reduced to 4.0T
• VPT scanner - Progress continues, but some problems with getting the DVM scanner card to operate as we think it should, HT control working fine. GPIB Bus isolator is under repair in The Netherlands. Still awaiting the Maclennan parts and the Bar-code scanner.

6.  AOB

• JHW cannot attend the next meeting of Brian Smith's engineering group on 26 July.  ALL will attend in his place.

Bruce Kennedy / 05 December 2003