Trouble Shooting and Cautions for WIRO Prime 06/22/05 Christine Lamanna, as gathered from phone conversations with J.Weger and B.Berrington ************************************************************************ - Weger 742-4600 (home) 766-6196 (work) - Pierce 742-2286 (home) 766-6102 (work) - Berrington 742-6893 (home) 766-4366 (work) 703-963-8052 (cell) - Dale 742-3533 (home) 766-5143 (work) - Lamanna 724-255-5564 (cell) - WIRO 742-8666 - Cat House Set up in the Dome ------------------ 1.) The dome won't move! or The shutters won't open! or the Telescope won't slew! > Check to see that the breakers are all flipped on > Check to see if the controls are set to "local" or "manual" 2.) When retracting the lower windscreen > Be careful not to retract more of the screen than necessary. It is the weight of the extended windscreen itself that keeps tension on the cables which raise and lower it. > Watch the pulleys above the large winch to be sure that they are maintaining tension as the screen is moved 3.) When raising or lowering the upper windscreen > Watch the tensioners (pulleys on levers) which extend and retract as the screen is lowered and raised. These tensioners may fail, and the cable may come loose!! If this happens STOP IMMEDIATELY to prevent breaking the cables. 4.) The dome is going crazy! It won't stop spinning, even when I give the "dome off" command! > This has occured after a power glitch at the observatory. If this happens, find the dome breakers in the spectrograph room. Flipping the breakers to cut the power to the dome should cure the problem. The dome will need to be re-initialized. Setting up the Computers ------------------------ 1.) The Micro488A gets stuck: When establishing GPIB interface or ID string > first check for any existing tracking commands with the command "ps -ef | grep track" > kill any occurances of tracking commands with the command "kill -9 ****" where **** is the job number of the track > recycle the power on the Micro488A, with the power button in back of the box. Leave the power to the box off for several seconds > regive the "start" command, and watch the Mirco488A > This procedure may need to be done more than once When activating HIFI channel > Check to make sure the dome east rack (by the stairs to the platform) is plugged in and breakers are all on > If everything is powered up, follow the steps above to kill any existing track commands. > Recycle the power on the dome east rack (flip the switch on the surge protector or simply unplug). > Recycle the power on the Micro488A. > Give the "start" command again and cross your fingers. 2.) The WIRO Prime interface cannot connect to the camera > Is the electronics box turned on? > Is the camera plugged in and turned on? Taking Flats ------------ 1.) My exposures are really dark! > Did you open the mirror covers?? (yes, I did this) Changing Filters ---------------- 1.) The Filter wheel is "lost" (displays all red circles OOOO) or displays a wrong code for my filter. > Jog the filter wheel one step in a direction. Record the code at this position. Is it still lost? Reading some magnets correctly? Reading all magnets correctly? > Jog another step in the same direction being sure to let the magnet cool down between jogs. Again record the code. > If the filter wheel is now reading all magnets correctly, continue to jog slowly in that direction until the filter wheel no longer reads correctly. Record this position. > Now slowly jog back to the original position, again recording the displayed code at each position. A center should appear, where the filter wheel reads correctly both to the right and left of this position regardless of jog direction. > If when jogging a few steps in one direction, the filter wheel hasn't found its position, try jogging slowly in the opposite direction. If the correct position is found, execute the above steps to center the wheel on the correct position. > If after jogging in both directions, the filter wheel is still unable to display anything correctly, click on the "Intialize Filter Wheel" button. This procedure will take 5-10 minutes to complete. > Once the Initialization procedure is finished, follow the centering procedure described above. > Be sure to only move the filter wheel in steps of 1 or 2 slots! 2.) The Filter Wheel doesn't seem to move (unlocks, but colored circles don't change when asked to move) when I tell it to. > Look at the ammeter on the side of the electronics box. When you give a filter change command, does a current register on the ammeter? > If no current is flowing, diconnect the WIROPrime GUI from the camera and cycle the power on the electronics box. Reconnect to WIRO Prime. Try to change filters again. This may need to be repeated more than once. > If cycling the power does not solve the problem, check to be sure that both powercords of WIRO-Prime are connected to live sockets. The farthest outlet on the powerstrip does not work, we suspect that the end socket may also not work. 3.) Danny likes to go out into the dome with a walkie talkie and actually watch the filters cycle through their slots. He doesn't like to start until he and his partner in the control room can verify that both the gui and the filter wheel are in accordance. Helpful hints: V - green R - orange I - teal (green/blue) OII - gold OIII - gold/green 6563 - metallic rose (shiny pink) 8132 - metallic blue 8199 - metallic orange (coppery) Focusing -------- 1.) Range of the focuser > The focuser has a software imposed limit of about 10,000 positions. However, the machine has a mechanical limit that is much larger. > The focuser uses its initial position as the new zero each night. > Should a clear trend toward better focus require exceeding this range, shut down the interface and restart it. Your final position is now zero, and you should have leeway to keep focusing. 2.) The focus changes > With temperature: Jim believes that the focus may drift at about 250 units closer to the mirror per degree Celcius INCREASE. We are working on obtaining our own conventions > With filter: 8199 -> 8132: +350 Voodoo ------- 1.) Voodoo is starting to freeze up - it doesn't seem to be responding to commands! > Try hitting "Read Temp" - this may bring Voodoo back to life. > If you can't get Voodoo back with a "Read Temp" close it, or kill it and try to restart. You may have to try restarting Voodoo several times before it appears normal. > If killing any running Voodoo prompts (see Micro488A instructions above for help killing Voodoo) and restarting the program do not cure the problem, you will need to restart the computer. Image Quality ------------- 1.) Yikes! My images have a weird wavy pattern in them! What's that? > A wavy pattern, like ripples on a pond on a windy day is an interference pattern caused by the electronics in the camera box and the dome all happily working at some frequency. If this pattern is of very low amplitude, you should be fine! > This pattern shows up when you counts are low - Check for cloud cover or that the telescope isn't pointing at the dome. Also did you open the mirror covers? 2.) All the stars are elongated in RA or DEC! > First check to the "errors" readout on the TCS (hanging) monitor. if the errors are fluxuating more than the normal < 5" try waiting for them to settle down. The telescope always has greater errors when it first slews to a new object. These errors should damp out to the normal < 5" vibrations in about 30-60s. > Try slewing the telescope to a nearby bright star, or just off the image with a fixed RA DEC follow command. Slew back to field and try again. > A connection between the tracking computer and the telescope may not be snug. Wiggle the RA cables (dome south rack) or DEC cables (mounted on telescope yoke - you'll need the ladder to reach these). Mu Bootes --------- 1.) Gross! Mu Bootes just caught a mouse and is starting to eat it. > Try and distract Mu with a cat treat (check near her food), and take the mouse away. She should be fine even if she eats it, but its probably better that she doesn't. Reward her for doing a good job!