Exp 395 Physical Properties Tech Report

Owned by jr_novak
Last updated: Aug 10, 2023 by jr_avila
8 min read

Technician: Alejandro Avila

 

Summary:

After the previous expedition where a deep cleaning was carried out to remove traces of asbestos, the computers and workstations were disconnected, immediately proceeded to connect and test all the equipment without finding major problems.

3825m has been recovered in 4 sites of this expedition, last site present hard rock cores so some samples has been shared between P-Mag and MAD, hard rock Mad samples was applied procedure of saturation in vacuum pump as normal protocol described in the manual.

IODP software has been updated, some MUT issues detected immediately and fixed by developers.

 

Received onboard

  • Gas gauge for MAD stored on MAD drawer

  • Spare parts, such as the filter valve that goes on the actuators, and the bronze parts with graphite pwave, stored in NSK Track HRDW (PPTRKA6) drawer, (bronze-graphite parts has been used on P-Wave as spare)

Requisitions

    No Items

MAD

  • For second time in the expedition the software collapsed and closed after requesting the MAD calculations, this happened when executing the calculations of cell 3 of the pycnometer (just 38 samples on the main page), data was saved and the MAD software is restarted. Same situation has been reported in X398

AVS

  • AVS has been tested at the beginning of the expedition, no issues detected

  • Not used on X395

PWave Velocity Gantry

  • After connecting the instruments and the computer there was a lost communication with the laser AR700, it was solved by re configuring the laser bud rate as explained in the manual.

  • caliper also lost communication but it was easily fixed by coping the configuration parameters of exlar in the configuration utility.

SHMSL

  • New bulb installed on Aug 8th very close to the end of expedition. (calibration value was 0.2)

  • after IODP software update, MUT does not upload some files  and copy that to the error folder but the files has no problem, we move it to the in folder again and MUT upload with no issues

Therm Con

  • From the beginning of the expedition, the pucks and the needles were tested, problems were seen in the reading of the ceramic and rubber standards, in no case were results obtained (poor data quality).

  • All the pucks and needles were tested and none of them gave good results, different settings were tried and no changes, that's why we started testing the low pass filter and the UPS to see if the problem was there (with help from Garrik) , it was even tested connecting the wall plug directly to the instrument, testing in regulated power (blue plug) and in normal power (white plug), in all cases the result was the same ('Low data quality"), in a point was randomly achieved to take one of the three measurements, the first site was taken under these conditions.

finally, we connected the instrument on the opposite side of the boat through a power extension, inside the UT shop in a white plug (normal electrical current), in this case the measurements began to be taken normally and continued in this way throughout the expedition (in transit the good reading is maintained consistently), since when plugging back in the place where it is normally used the reading again falls to "poor data quality"

  • Taking advantage of the time without measurements, we tried other white sockets next to the door of the core entrance, we found that the L37-20-1 (just under the phone) works well for T-Con measurements, we moved the connection to that place at the beginning of the site U1602 E

  • Good results with mini puck H51033

  • The white socket next to the corer entrance (L37-20-1) remains permanent, the extension cable was hidden in the ceiling to make it look more aesthetic. The readings are consistent for the rest of the expedition with the H51033 mini puck for sediments and for the rock samples, the H11090 was used with consistent data

it is necessary to test the pucks using different cables since it is possible that the problem is not the puck but the connection cable.

XMSL

  • not used

NGR

  • "no memory" sign has appear during background at the beginning of the expedition so we  need to restart IMS software and do the background again.

    no issues after that

STMSL

  • Twice now during the expedition the offsets recorded for the GRA and MS measurements have been swapped. Where the value recorded for GRA is reported as coming from where the core is located at the MS Loop, and vice versa, for each measurement. This is caught when comparing the STMSL data to WRMSL and the peaks in data can be seen to be offset by 30cm(difference between instruments on the track) between instruments. It is unclear what is causing this issue but clearly the communications from IMS to the instruments are being crossed. Right now the best fix is to close IMS and re-initialize the system. Then re-run affected sections/cores.

  • Upon further testing with the STMSL in this 'broken state'. If one instrument is disabled in IMS with measurement editor, for example GRA is measuring but MS is turned off. The core will push to line up the first measurement under the GRA as normal but then the MS loop will trigger and take a measurement. This will happen in reverse if GRA is off and MS in active. Core will be pushed under the 'correct' instrument, but IMS will trigger and take a measurement with the disabled(wrong) instrument. Clearly the communications are crossed somehow. Only fix known now is to re-initialize IMS. It is unclear when or how this problem is occurring. Suspicions point to the PC restarting before IMS can close properly. 

WRMSL

  • After IODP software update, MUT2 issue has been detected, some files (randomly) has been not uploaded for some reason so it keep in the IN folder, and MUT does not seen it, the developers are informed about that.

  • A couple of times throughout the expedition the signal was lost with the GRA, the change of port and restart the IMS continues to be used to recover the signal

  • services has made to the peristaltic pump at the end of the expedition and brass-graphite alloy of actuators has been replaced (now all of them are new)

XSCAN

  • Computer was removed during 399 for asbestos cleaning.  Once the computer was reinstalled and system worked properly.

  • We encountered issues with the wall outlet for the UPS many times during the expedition.  The 20 amp non regulated power GFCI outlet would trip and the UPS would start to beep, warning us that the battery was getting low.  The ship electricians installed a short 20 amp to 15 amp converter plug to allow us to plug the unit into a non GFCI outlet on the regulated power.  After this change we had no further issues with the power supply.

Xscan IMS code was modified to correct for multiple issues.

  •  

    • The XSCAN code was rolled back to revision 568 for the start of the expedition.  Prior to this roll, an error window would pop up every time the software tried to process an image. The error indicated the image was not large enough for operation, see image below.  New image processing code, provided by Bill Mills, was installed on June 25th to correct issues with the image processing VI.

  •  

    • The section vs section half selection on the sample entry window would default to the scanned label instead of the selected option on screen, resulting in a large number of Xscan images needing to be reassigned to the right parent.  The programmers assisted with the bulk reassigning.   The IMS VI was modified to retain the users selection on the sample entry window rather than using the scanned label information.

    • Minor modifications were made to the sample processing window after June 25th to correct lingering issues.  The save button was set to activate, the save processed images button is set to default to true, and the crop slider was modified to allow narrower cropping.

  • On multiple occasions Xscan lost communication with the source.  We could not get the source to ramp down and the safety light was flashing.  We attempted a reset of the CRIO, but this did not solve the issue.  We had communication with the door locks and the shutter.  While trying to save a calibration the following error window appeared:

  When trying to shut down the software we received the following error message:

 

We shut down the entire Xscan system and rebooted the computer.  This resolved the issue.

  • Xscan had multiple instances when the motion stalled/source stopped on the way back to home after scanning a core.  Every time it stopped about a quarter to a third of the way back to home.  There was never an issue while taking an image, only while returning to the home position.  When using the home commands from IMS, the track returned home without any other intervention.  The motor, belts, and worm gear were all checked, and the acrylic tube was cleaned and rotated to ensure the issue was not related to friction between the tube and source housing.  The issue progressed until the track was stopping after each image.

    • The issue was traced to a memory issue with the computer.  After 5 hours of scanning with images and files appearing to save, scientists noted every file was 0 kilobytes.  We copied data to Data1 and deleted images from the Xscan computer.  Immediately after removing files, the Xscan unit quit stalling on the return to home position. 

    • A new larger hard drive was installed in the computer.  The computer had a 500 GB hard drive and the MCS installed a 1 TB drive.  The computer now has a total of 1.5 TB.  We did not experience memory issues after adding the drive, but we continued to move files off of the computer regularly to ensure the computer did not become overloaded.

  • We had issues retrieving short sections and sections with extender caps from the Xscan unit.  We 3D printed a new tool that can be used to pull these sections from the unit. The normal hook tool does not work as the caps are smooth or sections with shrink wrap. 

  • Xscan images were added to the LIVE templates, but the programmers have to manually trigger the thumbnail creation.  The programmers on 395 set it run the script every 15 minutes to allow the describers to view the scans along side the section half images.  There are issues with the image display if more than one image is taken for the section.