Alcator C-MOD Weekly Highlights
				Oct. 30, 1995


Re-commissioning activities on Alcator C-MOD are proceeding. Good progress
was made last week toward making the facility operational again after the
summer maintenance and upgrade interval. 

Overnight ECDC was continued last week. A total of about 72 hours of discharge
cleaning was performed. Base pressure and residual gas analysis spectrum are
now consistent with normal operating conditions. 

Power system tests at nominal operating currents were carried out. Open-loop
(PLC current control) tests were completed. Closed loop tests under hybrid
computer control were also carried out. Problems were observed and remedied on
one of the EF2 supplies, which has been reconfigured, and in the OH2 supplies,
which were not. 

Diagnostics are being brought back on-line. An intermittent problem in the
storage of magnetics data was traced to CAMAC errors which resulted from a
noisy power supply in a different CAMAC crate on the same serial highway. The
TCI density interferometer is operational. ECE electron temperature
diagnostics are on-line. 

Full system tests, including breakdown and current rise assessment, were begun
on Friday. Plasma startup was readily achieved, with currents up to 400kA and
pulse lengths of about 150msec. Difficulties with the crossover behavior in
the new EF4 supplies were noted. The crossover circuitry has been redesigned to
provide better protection against shoot-through. A bug in a new section of the
PCS software, intended to provide support for asynchronous (adaptive) control,
was identified, diagnosed, and fixed. 

All of the coax connections to the two ICRF antennas have been completed.
Tuning of the transmitters is underway, with one unit already up to its
nominal 2MW and the other producing about 1.75 MW. 

Dry runs for the Alcator presentations at next week's APS meeting are
underway. C-MOD results will be presented in poster session 3P on Tuesday,
Nov. 7, and oral session 6F on Wednesday Nov. 8, as well as in three invited
talks on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

System testing and diagnostic checkout and alignment will continue this week. 
There will be no weekly report next week due to the APS meeting.