Alexis Armstrong and Heather Barnes
Overview
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
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. Because it is Xmas holidays we may not hear back from them before port call. Hopefully Makenzie will provide some insight during port call.