From lserna at aoc.nrao.edu Thu Dec 2 15:40:53 2004 From: lserna at aoc.nrao.edu (Lew Serna) Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 13:40:53 -0700 Subject: [Escoordminutes] ES Division Coordination Meeting Minutes- Nov. Message-ID: <41AF7DD5.4070401@aoc.nrao.edu> Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, November 30, 2004, at 10 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending were Eric Carlowe, Ramon Gutierrez, Lew Serna, Pat Lewis, Guy Stanzione, Gene Cole, Selfa Lucero, Mark McKinnon, Jim Ruff, Tom Frost and Jon Thunborg. BUDGET Serna. The budget report that has been distributed reflects same operating budget as you had beginning fiscal year 2003. Budget spending should be held at a rate consistent with last years beginning budget levels; this means no project money i.e. only maintenance and repair spending should occur. Real budget numbers will not be available until next March or April. Bearing refurbishment is on hold until more information about next years budget is available. AZ Bearings. Antenna #16 bearing was replaced on 10/25/04. Parts from the bearings removed from antennas should be stored until they are scheduled to be shipped to Rotek for repair. These parts are needed for measuring and fitting of new parts. Antenna #14?s & #16?s bearing will be shipped to Rotek for possible refurbishment hopefully sometime in FY 2005. Antennas 18, 20 and 26 have bad bearings that will eventually need to be replaced. A spare bearing should be maintained at all times. An estimated three weeks in the AAB are required before a bearing change can occur. Antenna #18 should enter the AAB around mid March for outfitting and bearing change. Try to prepare as far in advance as possible. It is possible that visitors from Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK will witness the separation. NEW PROJECTS: AZ bearing pocket mill- the AZ Bearing Pocket Mill is used to machine the antenna azimuth bearing pocket. At best the mill will currently achieve an accuracy of around .008 inches or .009 inches of tolerance. The spec calls for less than a .012 inch tolerance. The use of a different bearing on the mill would achieve a higher degree of accuracy for milling the pocket. The bearing has been ordered and has arrived. Installation and testing will occur prior to the next bearing change (estimated 2 months) VLA tachs? it is desirable to replace the analog tachs with digital brushless tachs on the VLA antennas as is being done on the VLBA antennas. Bob believes this can be done with normal operations funding with a plan to replace tachs as they fail. Tachs would have to be replaced at a minimum rate of 2 per failure or one axis (AZ or EL) at a time. Replacement of these tachs should improve reliability of the servo system. Board design is complete and the prototype cards will be fabricated soon. ANTENNA doors? many antenna vertex room and pedestal room doors are in bad shape and need replacement. Ramon has investigated the problem and decided that bad doors will be replaced during outfitting. Insulated steel doors cost around $400 each. EVLA Antennas are being outfitted with Yale door locks since the original door knobs are obsolete and no longer made. Antenna #14 already has the new door knobs and Antenna 16 is slated for one soon. Keys will be made available to employees that need access to antennas soon. Employees needing new antenna keys should contact Selfa. Selfa will issue and log the new antenna keys. A key will also be issued to VLA operations. A column will be kept on the VLA Antenna Modifications/Retrofits page of the Socorro Coordination Meeting Summary, indicating the antennas with new locks. VLBA painting ? The VLBA SC site antenna is in dire need of painting. Other sites will be investigated to establish a priority. The first visit to SC would entail painting areas difficult to access. Also some repairs to stairways, platforms and other structural components should be made prior to painting some areas. A cursory trip to SC is being planned sometime in April to areas of the antenna and to train site techs in antenna painting techniques. At the same time FRM balancing and troubleshooting will occur. Hopefully two weeks can be scheduled for these tasks. Cost is estimated at around $12K. VLBA antenna panel adjustments? a program to set VLBA antenna panels at a rate of 3 antennas per year is also being considered. Holography measurements for Pie Town made and panels were adjusted in September. Because of the backup structure design, the panel adjustments can be made without a manlift. PT panels were marked and adjusted in a period of around 3 days. The basic plan is 4 men for 3 days on site. No conclusive results have been obtained at Pie Town consequently this project is on hold. ACU Modification. A new ACU replaces the ACU in its entirety is desirable. The new ACU would hopefully improve the position loop response, improve reliability and replace the obsolete components. A PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) based upgrade would cost around $3K per antenna. EVLA has funded the prototype and design work is in progress. No funding commitments are made for retrofitting. Control Building Stairways. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to stop the corrosion on the Control Building Stairways we are forced to replace the stairways with an improved design conforming to ADA. Estimated cost to do this for both stairways is $25K. A kick plate on one staircase has fallen off due to corrosion and the stairway has been closed to the public. Owens Valley Wheel replacement?The Owens Valley VLBA antenna needs a drive wheel assembly replacement in addition to an elevation motor replacement, idler wheel alignment and installation of modified motor filter boxes. A 1 week trip is planned in February. EVLA STATUS Cold Storage (Shop Space) ? The EVLA Cold Storage Building is complete and has been turned over to the warehouse for operation. It is requested that packaging of material allow stacking. Some existing large storage items currently in the warehouse will be stored in the EVLA Storage building to make room for temperature controlled storage in the warehouse. Transporter Generators- Two John Deere 70 KW generators are ordered to replace the existing 40 and 31 KW Detroit generators on the transporters. There is an 8 week delivery. The new generators should be able to carry both the transporter and antenna loads and are much quieter than the old Detroit generators. Some modification to the transporter will be required to fit the new generators since they do not have the same footprint as the old generators. It is desirable to provide an electrical plug for running auxiliary pumps during bearing changes at the same time that the generator work is being done. Acceptance Tests? After Antenna 16 is outfitted it will undergo numerous required acceptance tests prior to being turned over to Operations. Leadmen and supervisors are asked to compile a checklist for their area of responsibility that will ensure that the EVLA antennas will be completely operational prior to entering the array for operations. All L Band (and possibly S band) rings will be fabricated at the VLA. The old Subreflector Shop will become the new feed ring shop. Antenna Mechanics should review their manpower requirements to see if they can accommodate this additional work. ModComp relocation will occur on Feb 14 with an anticipated power outage of 2 days. This outage should only affect the operations area. There is temporary power available in the area now and some auxiliary equipment can be located in the new modcomp room now. QUARTERLY REPORT UPDATE Selfa Selfa will distribute the quarterly task list for update. Please update & return to Selfa. The end of the Quarter is December. Please add tasks for the next Quarter. SAFETY REPORT... Announcements: Safety Inspection on December 2nd. All Hands Safety meeting on December 9th. Announcements: There will be an all Hands meeting with Ethan Schreier, AUI President on Wednesday, December 7, ?04 (9:00 am?) at the VLA Cafeteria. New Shipping request form. Make sure you fill in the account #?s and get approval signatures before you submit them. A policy change has been implemented to provide added latitude in the use of NRAO departmental credit cards. Effective immediately, all departmental credit card holders can charge up to $2,499.99, or the limit of their card, (whichever is less) for a single item. The Fiscal Manual section 7 and the Procurement Manual section 6.5 have been modified to reflect this change. All items of $2,500 or greater must be requested via a Purchase Requisition. ES Supervisors may limit to lower values at their own discretion. Tiger Team Trips for 2005(tentative) ? HN April or May; MK last week of July- first week of Aug; LA first two weeks of September.