Alcator C-MOD Weekly Highlights
		      November 26, 1996



	Work on the EF1 heaters is complete, and we are ready to begin
installation of the lower EF coil package.  The modification to the OH2L coax
is finished and the coax is now temporarily installed on the machine where
pressure sensitive film is being used to check fitup.  Force/deflection
tests will also be made before the coax is permanently installed on
the machine, or the OH2U and OH1 coaxes are modified.  The TF inspection
of the lower arms indicated that a careful cleanup of a passage behind a
fiberglass spacer plate would be required.  After several years of operation
and two disassembly/assembly cycles this region had collected enough metal dust 
to be of concern.
	General maintenance and some upgrades continue on the power systems.
Digital pots have been added to all Robicon margin angle control
circuits.  The new pots will allow adjustments to the margin angles
to be made much more reliably.  The OH SCR junction overtemp circuits
have been checked out as has the TF Hybrid to PLC control circuitry.
	The glow discharge system is being upgraded to include the ability
to switch in larger ballast resistors under PLC control.  Hall current sensors
are also being added so that the current to each glow electrode can be
monitored without consideration to the ballast resistor in use.  Trends
of electrode voltages and currents have been added to the Paragon display
and are also now archived to our data system.
	Several upgrades to engineering PLC/Paragon systems have been made.
New pop-up alarm screens have been added.  Rather than simply
generate audible alarms, as was the case, the PLCs now bring up the screen
from which diagnostic evaluations can be made and corrective action taken.
An new alarm on the UPS system (Un-interruptible Power Supply) for the
C-Mod control room has been installed. Any status change of UPS
operation will be detected by an engineering PLC and reported via e-mail to
the appropriate personnel.
	A computer based technical assistance request program has been
implemented for all C-Mod engineering activities.  Requests for technical
help can be submitted by anyone with access to our computer network.  A Web
page has been  created that lists status and priority information for all
jobs, and provides links to description files used for these jobs.
Collaborators are urged to become familiar with the new system (e-mail to
irby@pfc.mit.edu for information).
	A reconfiguration of the C-Mod data acquisition and analysis computer
cluster was performed to increase performance. A new AlphaServer system
was installed complementing a previously installed server. These
two AlphaServers, equipped with RAID (Redundant Array of Independent
Disks) disk sets, will provide very fast access to C-Mod data, applications,
and operating system files. In addition, six new analysis AlphaStation
workstations were brought online. A fast ethernet network (100 Mbit/second)
has been installed linking the new AlphaServer and AlphaStations to the rest
of the C-Mod computers.
	The C-Mod group will hold an "open ideas forum" to aid in
planning the  next experimental campaign on January 9-10,
1997, at the MIT Plasma Fusion Center.  Interested parties
should contact Steve Wolfe  (wolfe@pfc.mit.edu) or see our Web page 
(http://cmod2.pfc.mit.edu/~wolfe/cmod/forum.html) for details. 
	Yuichi Takase was at PPPL last week at the NSTX PAC meeting.