Cold Start of A0 Abort Kickers with Beam in Tevatron, A Guide:

On Friday Feb 6, 2004 we lost power to the A0 kicker room and the kickers did not fire.  These are the steps that were followed to return the kickers to an operating condition while a store was in the machine.  These instructions are taken directly from the Tevatron e-log as authored by Chris Jensen.

1) Turn off or unplug high voltage supplies (they come up in an unknown state on power up)

2) Turn on room power/power to kicker racks. These need to be on for at least 15 minutes to allow the thyratrons to warm up to operating level.

3) Force the voltage reference level (C:AAKnF, C:PAKnF) to 3 kV. At this level, the thyratrons will not fire even if triggered. 

4) Turn on/plug in high voltage supplies.

5) Reset all the kicker power supplies. The local abort must be made up before step 6 or the kickers will not fire when asked to.

6) Place an event in timers C:A0AAKR and C:A0PAKR. This will cause the power supply reference to ramp to 3 kV.

7) Make sure all power supplies are at 3 kV. This may take local action as the power supplies come up in an unkown state.

8) Remove the event from C:A0AAKR and C:A0PAKR

9) Change the reference to flattop value (about 36 kV)

10) When all kickers get to voltage, kill beam. When the kickers are cold started they have a tendancy to prefire so kill beam without prejudice.

11) Breathe