And… it works!

We measured the temperature at the sample during warming of the pin base, and preliminary tests so far show that the heat is not transferred to the loop during two minutes of base warming. Tests are continuing now to determine how well the warmer removes ice and frost from the bases.

Images of a crystal in a loop before and after using the pin base warmer:

We are very fortunate to have an outstanding Scientific Advisory Board for the new beamline (“Gemini”) we are building in sector 2 at the ALS. The board members are: Bob Fischetti (APS), Dan Harrington (SSRL), Gwyndaf Evans (Diamond Light Source) and Dan Harrington (SSRL). All of the committee members have extensive experience in building microfocus…

A special welcome to our SULI student, Sayan Roychowhury, who is majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois. He is here with us for the fall term, and writing code to process visual images of protein crystals and center them automatically in the x-ray beam. SULI is the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program in which the host lab (in this case, LBNL) pays for a student to work for a few months to gain experience at a national lab and to encourage students to remain in STEM fields.

The next test is to run the 501 and 502 Pilatus detectors simultaneously off the same PPU.

The BCSB had its first User Forum meeting on Feb 5. We discussed the possibilities for the new b3 software interface, showed some screenshots of new the new interface, and gathered information from our users on what they wanted in the “new b3”. It was a very productive discussion! The next User Forum will be…