D1 Troubleshooting

Detlef Smilgies, CHESS

Remark

The following procedures are written for SAXS and GISAXS/GIWAXS users as well as for the CHESS operators. It is recommended that the users work with the CHESS Operator to start-up the station computers or troubleshoot the detector. Read the whole subsection dealing with your problem carefully, identify which symptom fits your problem best, and then go through the steps in order. If nobody has any idea what I'm talking about, you should give me a yell.

Rock'n'Roll Trouble Shooting

Rock'n' Roll refers to the semiautomatic line-up macros for lining-up samples for grazing incidence scattering and for calibrating the incident angle.
Rock'n Roll works in over 95% of all line-ups, but occasionally there can be a problem, either due to a non-ideal sample or an operator error.

Here is a trouble shooting list
  1. Check whether the shutter was open during the line-up scan; if not, redo line up with shutter open
    1. you can redo "rock" as many times as needed, but do not repeat "roll"
    2. if "roll does not work (only noise in the scans, no reflected beam), your sample may have poor x-ray reflectivity
    3. for poor reflectivity samples run rock a couple of times, and then set "samth" and "samz" to ZERO
  2. Check in the hutch whether something is blocking the beam
  3. Type "wsam" and compare user values and dial values for motors samz and samth.
    1. I carefully align the sample stage relative to the beam; these motor positions are saved as "dial" values
    2. if values differ by more than 10%, use the "set" command to set the motors to the dial values: set samz <dial value>;set samth <dial value>
    3. use the "mv" command to move motors to zero: mv samz 0; mv samth 0
  4. Make sure that you use a proper sample name containing only (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, _); otherwise an error results
    1. redo "new" with a proper sample name
  5. Make sure that you supply the correct sample thickness when using the "new" command
  6. Check that the shutter is open.
  7. Run the "rock" and "roll" macros again.
If this does not help
  1. Remove the sample, move samz and samth to ZERO, and carefully line up the sample holder with "rock"; then set "samz" and "samth" to ZERO as you new starting values
    1. you may want to note the dial values shown by "wsam" in your logbook
    2. if the sample stage does not look horizontal, you can level it with a water level, before doing "rock"
    3. if the Imon signal is low or high throught the samz scan in "rock", the sample stage is either too high or too low, respectively
      1. type "gclose" to protect the detector, then "shopen"
      2. move the "samz" manually with the "mv" command
      3. note a position when the beam intensity is starting to decrease
      4. redo "rock"
  2. Put the sample back on, do "new" with a new sample name, and chose the correct sample thickness (wafer: between 0.5mm and 0.7mm, glass slide: 1-1.5mm, ITO/FTO coated glass: 2mm)
  3. Try "Rock" and "Roll" again
    1. Does the sample look flat? rough samples are always hard to align - "rock" is you best bet, "roll" won't work most likely (see above)

The monitor intensity Imon has steadily dropped - what's wrong with the mono?

Background: Eversince we have been running in the special orbit for the undulators, the D1 beam  has been less stable.


The Pilatus detector doesn't take images and/or SPEC gets stuck during taking an image


The laser printer does not print - how do I get the printer to cooperate again ?


SPEC refuses to let me open a new data file

SPEC only permits the user to have a finite number of files open. Usually thsi does not cause problems, but under certain conditions that I have not yet clearly identified SPEC "forgets" to close old data files and  hence new ones cannot be opened. Here's the fix:

I accidently closed the SPEC window - how do I restart SPEC ?

Call the CHESS operator for help. Often the SPEC process is still active in the computer, and does not allow you to start SPEC again. In this case, first the old process needs to be killed, before SPEC can be restarted.

How do I recover from a crash of the D1 station computer ?

Only the CHESS operator or other qualified CHESS staff should reboot the station computer. This following shows how to reconfigure the SPEC interface:


How do I recover from a crash of the D1 analysis computer ?


Film thickness monitor hung up 


Microscope computer


Microbeam stage: motor does not respond








NOTE:  After 15 years of faithful heavy duty at D1, the MedOptics detector has been retired in favor of the Pilatus 200k.

What do I do when the CCD camera seems to be hung up?

sympton 1:

go through checklist:
  1. is the personal safety shutter open?
  2. is the garage door open?
  3. is the ion chamber removed?
  4. is the sample at a reasonable position (wsam)?
  5. is the beamstop at a reasonable position (wbs)?
  6. is there signal on Idet in line-up mode (GISAXS users) or on the photodiode (SAXS users) ?
  7. is there an obstacle in the beam, like a fallen down cable, shielding etc. ?
in many cases steps 1-7 fixed the problem, and the CCD turned out to be just fine.

if none of the 7 steps bring an improvement, move on to symptom 2

symptom 2:

explanation: the IDL interface does not notice, when it loses connection to the CCD controller - this time the CCD is definitely hung up

troubleshooting steps:
if the CCD is still unresponsive:
whenever you feel completely lost at one of these steps

symptom 3:

when an image gets terminated with Ctrl-C before the end of the exposure time (NOT recommended !!!), the CCD can end up in an undefined state