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EXP378T left San Diego and transited to Fiji. Only one USGS scientist sailed (Dale Griffin) to take atmospheric dust samples. The ship was tied-up in Fiji form Dec 11th to Jan 3rd. The Bruker XRD and Panalytical XRD were used minimally (maintenance and training purposes only) with some issues listed below.
Bruker XRD
The ship's crew performed maintenance on the chill water; and because of this, we had to shut down the Bruker XRD. After the maintenance period was completed, we were unable to turn on the machine, as there was no power going to the instrument. We replaced a blown fuse from the main power supply (going to the controller unit), and were able to restore power. We then ran standards successfully. The instrument has been functioning correctly since.
Handheld XRF
The XRF laptop has been successfully updated to Windows 10 and the newest version of Java.
Aeris Panalytical XRD
We trained on the Aeris XRD. Setting up a measurement file and changing hardware in the XRD as needed. We ran 1 sample successfully but on second attempt could not get the XRay generator to start up. Errors encountered were O.BootsstrapperBlockedOnXsafeUnsafe and O.Safety.XsafeUnsafe (these errors are logged on the machine). The manual procedure for clearing this error includs turning off, opening cover and making sure it is closed correctly, restarting, toggling the HT key. We tried this several times with no avail. Steps leading to the error are: before the second run, I tried to open the cover while it was still locked (gently tried) - this may have caused the error. We have set up a Work Order with Malvern Panalytical and emailed Vladimir (XRD techs are CC'ed). WO # 001511.
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