Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 01:51:20 -0700 (MST)
From: Ellyne Kinney
Subject: 2.5m obslog 000120 (MJD 51564)
                        Thursday January 20, 2000
                Apache Point Observatory SDSS 2.5m
                             Observing Log
Observing Team: French Leger (FNAL) -- via 'phone
                Steph Snedden (APO)
                Ellyne Kinney (APO)
		Jeffrey Hayes (APO)
		Steve Kent (FNAL)
		Russell Owen (UW)
Weather:  Patchy clouds and winds 15-20 MPH.
French turned the telescope over to us at ~4:30pm. We tried starting up
the TPM logging facility to log the voltage from the drive motors during
the balance test but was not able to get the facility to work.  We got the
following error messages:
**** Looking for v9 format, found v10. Need to recompile.
**** Looking for v9 format, found v10. Need to recompile.
File as bug report tpm/677
We started out with the balance test outlined in the MCP acceptance test.
For both the case where the telescope was balanced and the case where
the telescope was 100 units out of balance the the telescope did not fall
(or rise).  We tried this at 10degree intervals from 10d -> 90d and 90d ->
10d.
French had disabled the 15 degree stop so we could test to see if that was
causing us to go out of closed loop when slewing from 30d -> 6d in the TCC
interface.  We tested this slew several times and it completed as expected
at 6d.
We then tried to move the Az axis, but we were unable to clear the brakes
in this axis, the amplifiers were in a funny state and would not reset, so
after a few seconds the brake would re-engage.  The trick we used on
Saturday of switching to the TCC interface to clear the brakes using the
'axis init' command did not work. We tried clearing the brakes and
resetting the amps in both the MCP and TCC.  We tried resetting the amps
manually and power cycling the amps with no luck.  The interlocks display
showed that the flat_field_scr_clsd interlock was in the proper state, so
this was not the cause of the problem.  The wind_az_plc_perm had a status
of bad, the wind_mtr_cw_perm and wind_mtr_ccw_perm both had a status of
bad and clamp_dis_stat and brake_dis_stat were bad.  We called French who
suspected that the air system that sends status bits from the
clamps/brakes was not sending the correct messages to the PLC.  He will
look at this in the morning.  After talking to French we realized that the
15degree_stop being retracted maybe inhibiting motion in the Az.  Russell
reminded us that it maybe possible to override this interlock in the
interlock splitter chassis.  We gave this a try, and with the interlock
overridden we were able to clear the Az brakes, but the amplifier status
was still bad after several attempts to reset it, so there is still
another problem to uncover.  (Bug Reports interlocks/678 and
25m-amplifiers/679)
We went on to test the offsets in Alt and the Rot axes.  The offset object
command for Alt worked for large offsets in the positive direction, but
not the negative direction.  Offsets of -.5d in Alt resulted in the
telescope coming out of closed loop and the braked being engaged.  We had
exiting the MCP Menu, but were still logged into the MCP at the MCP->
prompt.  When ever the telescope came out of closed loop during offset
object commands the following error messages came up in the MCP:
Max Vel exceeded by a factor of 1.7500
Max Vel exceeded by a factor of 1.7500
Max Vel exceeded by a factor of 1.7500
Max Vel exceeded by a factor of 1.7500
Max Acc exceeded by a factor of 4.0000
Max Acc exceeded by a factor of 4.0000
(Bug report mcp/680)
We then tried 'offset calib' and were puzzled to find that they seemed to
work for both large positive and negative offset, we would have expected
that the offsets would work the same.  We asked Russell about this and
after a moment he realized we were tracking in mount coords because we
could not move in Az. He reminded us that calib offsets will be ignored if
tracking in mount.  We will retest the 'offset calib' command when we are
able to track in both Alt and Az.
We tested rotator offsets using the 'rotator  object' and 'rotator
 mount' commands.  Offsets using these commands worked without
problems for offsets of =/- 0.1, 1 and 10.
During the night we upgraded to astrotools  v4_12, sdssmath  v4_15,
dervish v7_9 and sdsstools v4_5 on sdsshost and declared them as current.
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Ellyne K. Kinney
SDSS Observer			INTERNET: ekinney@apo.nmsu.edu
Apache Point Observatory 	Voice: (505) 437-6822
Sunspot, NM 88349
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