CAMD/GCPCC "PX" Beamline user information:

Scheduling beamtime:

Beamtime will be scheduled by the GCPCC management.  The schedule will be sent to the institutional representatives.  It is the institutional representative's responsibility to disseminate scheduling and other information within their institution.  At present the schedule will provide each beamline share with 2 periods of beamtime per cycle.  As part of our funding agreement with the NIH 25% of the beamtime is available to outside (non-GCPCC) groups.  Researchers at each institution should decide how to allocate their institution's beamtime.  Institutions which wish to trade beamtime may do so and should make the arrangements between themselves.  If the beamtime can't be used please notify us as soon a possible so that it can be reassigned.
 Only the institutional representatives should contact the beamline manager, Henry Bellamy: hbellamy@lsu.eduÝ (please cc Bob Fox  fox@bloch.utmb.edu) to indicate if the allocated beam time will be used and by whom.Ý Please contact Henry at LEAST 7 days before scheduled beam time.  If your experiment has special requirements or unusual features please give us as much notice a possible.
 Beamtime will start at 1:30   pm on the first day assigned to you on the schedule.  Beamtime will end at 10:30 am on the morning after the last day assigned to you on the schedule.  An exception is when the day after your beamtime is a "studies" day.  Studies days are used by the accelerator group for testing and maintenance and user beam will end at about 7 am.   The period between groups is used by the beamline staff for maintenance and alignment.  You may continue to back up and process your data after 10:30 but you should be finished with data collection by then.
Ý
Administrative matters:

All users who will visit CAMD must take the radiation training and test online at LEAST 7 days before visiting CAMD.  The test can be taken on line at:
http://camd.lsu.edu/msds/safety_pages.html.    You must have taken, and passed, this test to receive a dosimeter and an access card.  Please contact the CAMD Safety Officer, Dr. Lorraine Day, day@lsu.edu,  and cc Henry Bellamy, hbellamy@lsu.edu, at LEAST 7 days before your visit with an e-mail listing the substances to be brought to CAMD and the species they are from.  Any hazards should be listed, if there are no hazards you should state that.  List any heavy atom compounds and the amounts to be brought to CAMD.   State that you will take all potentially hazardous materials with you when you leave CAMD, and do so.  At present we are not set up to accept biohazardous samples.   No material classed as P3 or P4 (or meeting the standards for those classes) under NIH guidelines may be brought to CAMD.  P2 material should be so identified in the form sent to Dr. Day.  In the e-mail to Dr. Day include a list of all the people who will be coming to CAMD.  Unlike the DOE rings there are no special requirements for non-citizens at CAMD.   Dr. Day will arrange for a dosimeter to be issued to each person and for each person to receive an access card for the electronic door lock system.  It is necessasary to have an access card to enter the experimental hall.  A card is also required to enter the area outside the hall after 6 pm and on weekends.  There is a $10.00 deposit for the access card and you keep the same card as long as you are associated with CAMD.  You must wear your dosimeter whenever you are in the experimental hall.  You will be assigned a storage drawer for you dosimeter and you should leave it there when you are not wearing it in the experimental hall.  Do not take the dosimeters home with you.

Directions to CAMD:
 
By Car:  Take Interstate 10 to Baton Rouge and exit at College Avenue (exit 158).  If you are coming from the west (downtown Baton Rouge) turn left on College Ave.  If you are coming from the south (New Orleans) turn right on College Ave.  Follow College Ave until it ends at Jefferson Hwy. (about 1.2 mi.).  Turn right and go about 3/4 mi.  CAMD is the large white building in the middle of a field on the right.  Note; CAMD is NOT on the LSU campus, do not follow the signs on I-10 pointing to LSU.
 
By Plane:  Fly to Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR).  Exit the airport on Veterans Memorial Blvd. and turn left.  Go about 0.7 mi. to Harding  Blvd. and follow the signs for Interstate 110 south.  After about 6 miles I 110 merges with I-10.  Take I 10 east about 2.5 mi. to the College Ave exit (exit 158).  Then follow the directions above to get to CAMD.  Note that it may be significantly cheaper to fly into New Orleans.  The New Orleans airport is about 70 miles away from CAMD.
When you get to CAMD you may park anywhere, there are no assigned spaces.

Motels:

Two possibilities are:
Extended Stay America (which does not require extended stays) 225-201-0330, 6250 Corporate Blvd.
Quality Suites 225-293-1199, 9128 Bluebonnet Centre Blvd.  (special rate if you say you are affiliated with LSU).

Data Collection Equipment:
 
The beamline is equipped with  a MAR Research CCD detector mounted on a dtb (desktop beamline) base.   The ccd has an active area 165 mm in diameter and a 76 micron pixel size.  The system is optimized for 1 Å radiation but works well over the full range of wavelengths available on the CAMD PX beamline.  The dtb base provides motorized adjustment of detector distance and also a theta motion for raising the detector for collecting high resolution data.   There is only a singe axis for data collection, which is horizontal, but there is a "chi" motion which can be used to help mount the crystal.   Data collection is controlled by a program supplied by MAR research which allows automated data collection.  (Automatic wavelength changing is not yet implemented.)  For more information about the CCD and dtb see:
http://www.mar-usa.com/products.html#products

Cryocooling is provided by a Oxford Instruments CryoJet system with automatic refilling of the lN2 Dewer.   Data can be collected at user-selectable temperatures down to 100 K.   Liquid nitrogen for the cryosystem is provided from a large Dewer outside the hutch which will be refilled by the beamline staff.  The  large Dewer has an outlet that can be used to obtain  lN2  for crystal freezing, refilling shipping Dewers etc.

User Area Equipment:

Outside the hutch there is a set of benches and desks which form the user area.  There is a bench with a microscope for crystal mounting and an incubator for crystal storage.  The incubator temperature is adjustable between 0 and 40 °C.  Users should who want to use it should turn it on and set the temperature to suit their needs.   The beamline has a supply of small Dewers, several goniometer heads and a modest supply of cryotools.
In general users should bring their own cryotools so that they know they will fit the pins they are using.  If your cryopins are not from Hampton either contact the beamline staff in advance or bring your own magnet as they may not fit the Hampton magnets we have at the beamline.   We have a storage Dewer at the beamline that can be used for keeping samples.  If you want to keep a sample at the beamline after you leave talk to the beamline staff first, we don't want to have extensive long-term sample storage at the beamline.

Computers:
 
The beamline is equipped with 3 PCs running Linux.  We will be adding at least one more system.  One system (master.px1.camd.lsu.edu) is dedicated to controlling the beamline and is used by users only to change the wavelength and for fluorescence scans for MAD data collection.  At present the fluorescence scans will be done by the beamline staff.   Another system (marpc1.px1.camd.lsu.edu) controls the data collection system.  Instructions for data collection are provided in the section of that name.  Data processing and data backup are done on tardis.px1.camd.lsu.edu.  The data storage disks on tardis are nfs mounted on marpc1 so the data images are written directly to the processing computer.  Tardis now runs Denzo/Scalepack, XtalView and CNS.  We expect to have the Mosflm/CCP4 programs available soon.  For data backup tardis has both a CD writer and a DVD writer.  We will soon be supporting 4mm tape and firewire disks as well.  Data may also sent home by ftp although the transfer speed is not high.  The beamline systems are behind a firewall which restricts incoming connections.  There is also a network connection outside the firewall that is available for users who wish to bring their own systems for processing and backup.  For this connection use the following settings: Gateway     199.190.250.1
   1° DNS      130.39.3.5
   2° DNS      130.39.244.30
   3° DNS      130.39.250.1
   netmask     255.255.255.0
   IP address  199.190.250.202

Other notes:

Due to fire regulations you can't bring wood or cardboard into the experimental hall where the beamline is located.
So don't pack things in cardboard boxes.  Paper and plastic (such as foam coolers) are OK.

PX beamline contact person:

Henry D. Bellamy
Associate Professor - Research
CAMD/LSU                 hbellamy@lsu.edu
6980 Jefferson Hwy.      225-578-9342(voice)
Baton Rouge LA 70806     225-578-6954 (fax)