On-site installation

The on-site installation is almost complete. The console is set up and all tests are going smoothly. However, there are still many tests to be performed to gauge the quality of the system, these will be performed either remotely by Varian personnel, or by the facility manager. Some of these tests are required after the magnet has stabilized for three months, so if everything passes, the final installation and acceptance may occur in November. This is an approximate timeline, of course, but as we progress further, we will be able to be more specific.

Drift coming down

The magnet appears to be settling very well. The last of the cryoshims were put in last Thursday, and by Wednesday morning the drift was down to less than 6 Hz/hr. In addition it seems that there is very little drift in the shims, leading to a very stable lineshape. Tests are ongoing, but so far everything seems to point toward a great system. We are looking forward to opening the schedule up to users in the coming months. Keep checking back for updates and information on submitting proposals.

No strings attached!

The superconducting shim coils have all been set to their final values now according to the mapping data. So the leads have come out and the magnet is on its own for the first time. From here, the magnet will have to be mapped again, and the initial values for the room-temperature shim coils established. Then work on the calibration and acceptance tests can begin. We will be receiving the room-temperature triple resonance, triple axis gradient probe tomorrow. If you are interested in what tests we will be running before accepting the magnet/spectrometer, don't hesitate to contact us.

By the way, the star of this photo is Oxford's own Chris Morris, who has been with the spectrometer from its initial cool-down to full-field. Credit for the assembly of this magnificent instrument goes to Will Mander, who can be seen in several of the installation pics.

First Data

Well, as the mapping has begun I thought it appropriate to snap a quick pic of the very first spectrum run at 900 MHz. An exciting moment indeed!

Cryoshims

Just an end of week update! The cryoshims are all set to within 0.5 A of their factory settings. When Varian arrives next week, the field will be mapped and the shims will be dialed into their final values. Once that is done, the leads will be removed and that will mark the end of Oxford's involvement (as long as nothing is out of spec). The fridge will also have to be adjusted to minimize helium loss.

We have been hard at work getting the Sun workstation ready to run the console. Since we are not running experiments with it yet, now is the time to make sure it is set up properly for future use. In particular, remote operation is a key requirement. We have installed a VNC server on the machine which will allow users to run the computer from their desktops with very little latency across the network. Unfortunately it appears that vnmrj-2.1A does not play well with VNC, so we will have to appeal to Varian to get it working. We also will need to discuss with our IT department how best to forward outside traffic through the campus firewall to the spectrometer computer. We think remote operation will be the best option for our users in the future, so we are working hard to accomplish these goals.

As always, we are happy to hear from our potential users, so don't hesitate to contact any of us with your comments and questions.

[Update 08/12/05 2:39PM]
We have fixed the problem with vnmrj and VNC connections!

Update

Chris has arrived and has begun putting in the cryoshims. This magent appears to be rather well behaved as none of the cryoshims were very large in the factory. This bodes well for drift spec. Our eventual drift came out at about 4.5 proton Hz/hr after the 10 days of settling. This will of course change slightly as the shims settle in, but is a good starting point. Next week (the 15th) the Varian engineer will arrive to set up the console and map the field. Stay tuned!

Field Drift

The magnet has already settled well, over the weekend the drift rate was approximately 3 Hz/hour. This is already well under spec, so it looks quite promising. Hopefully everything else will come in just as well.


We have also added a user forum to the website. This is designed for users of the facility to interact with the managers, and with each other. Asking questions and sharing ideas is welcome here, we hope it will be beneficial to all!