Getting Started

File:Raw video of a Baltovsky chamber with a µ5 resonator disturbance   File:Placeholder
The target audience of this page is VX newcomers. If you have recently acquired a VX system and want to avoid dangerous deplanarization, or if you have been using rough approximations of Yalgeth's Constant and don't know why your calibration results aren't stable, this is a good place to start.

If you are completely new to the field, the guide will help you gather the required modules, link them together, and produce your first rotational quark-retardant vincibility matrix. The final assembly will closely look like a VX2 (see VX Modules Versions for details), but will be much safer.

Note: Your first VX setup might not reach the stability threshold inside the final Baltovsky chamber, but it will allow you to grasp the first concepts of VXing.

## Tool Set

You should have a basic tool set, including (but not limited to) the following items:

* Low-capacitance variator (to distinguish high-variance and low-covalence protocalistors)
* Photoresistant recombinator stylus
* Tweezers, preferably made of ballistically shielded tungsten (to guard against microplasma)
* A copy of The Orange Book. The Green Book is OK, but the fundamentals are not covered as completely, even though it's more recent.

You should carry these tools at all times, as you might need any of them when you least expect it.

## Base VX modules

To get a first general impression of the vincibility matrix of your system, you will need the following modules:

* Isolated-frame flux emitter, ideally with integrated planar boost,
* Set of 5 ferrocores, with interplanar capacitivity between 4 and 5.5 µB (in the case of German ferrocores, you can easily convert from Fg to µB by multiplying by 3.6\*10-4),
* Main bus controller, with a power-to-variance factor of at least 500. Stay away from 3rd gen Exasurf Industries MBCs though, as they tend to dissipate wavelet incongruities as acoustic radiation,
* 7-stage betaform amplifier, with a bandwidth between 700 and 1200 THz (less bandwidth means increased noise in the output stage),
* A Baltovsky chamber capable of dissipating at least 700 W/g.K of flux

## Assembly

Before starting the assembly, make sure:

* You're wearing a grounded Faraday suit,
* Your modules are unwrapped, excluding the Ferrocores that must stay in the oxide-free packaging until installation,
* You have access to a flare-free power source of 600V, 150A, with a varistance-isolator.

Assembly is pretty straight forward for an older VX setup:

1. Place the flux emitter on its side, flux intake at your right, with the main rotary collector on top.
2. Attach the main bus controller to the 37-pin connector with the supplied cable, making sure the cable is not twisted (to avoid reverse electroflux deviations).
3. Screw the bus controller to the attachment socket, with the nylon-kevlar screws. To avoid risk of fire, do not over-tighten.
4. The amplifier should then fit to the left of the module. Remove the protection screen, add a bit of lubricant and insert it all the way. It should snap into place.
5. With the tweezers, grab a ferrocore and gently, but firmly insert it in the slot named "Photocoupler", then close the cover. If you take a reading right now with the varistor, it should indicate between 35 and 43 MH. A reading higher than this indicates that your ferrocore is deplenished, or dead-on-arrival.
6. Finally, the Baltovsky chamber can be placed behind the module. Make sure that each color-coded wire is attached to either the bus controller or antiacclimator.
7. Double-check every connection, screw and seal. You don't want any radiant leakage. You can test for radiant leakage before startup by mounting a Fromitz probe in the Baltovsky chamber and measuring the microradiant transclusivity with a hyperfine detector. If you don't have access to a Fromitz probe, you will need to be extra careful in the assembly, and run a slow startup ramp, because you will have no way to prevalidate the system integrity.

## First Run

Now on to the serious issue of commissioning. Be sure to follow this guide carefully, and make sure you don't miss any steps. Any cavitation that may occur during steps 8 or 9 will cause very fast ferrocore erosion, and might lead to rapid unplanned disassembly.

1. Make sure every switch on the controller is in the "Off" position, and the Gamma fluid valve is closed.
2. Plug the power cable in your source, and close the circuit.
3. Flip the power switch on the bus controller. It will take between 2 and 5 minutes to initialize, and the green LED will light up when ready. Do not ignore any error messages. Error messages starting with W should be looked up in the manual and addressed before proceeding, and error messages starting with E mandate an emergency shutdown. If your system doesn't shut down automatically, hit the emergency stop. If unsure, ask a more experienced VXer for help.
4. Set the variance to 300.
5. Place the "Emitter" switch to the "ON" position. A light buzzing sound is normal at this step.
6. Activate every amplification stage in order, from 1 to 7, energizing one every 5 seconds, to allow a stabilization period.
7. Your VX is now running, but at a slow and safe speed. The main display should indicate about 0.2 delta. With a basic VX setup like the one described here, you should not expect to get past about 0.4 delta.
8. Now, to ramp up the delta, slowly increase the variance, turning the knob clockwise very carefully. Be aware that ramping up too fast might damage the ferrocore unless the system has been equipped with a nanocore Bose-Einstein radiator.
9. Somewhere between a variance of 500 and 550, the delta reading will start to go down again. This is your sweet spot. Going too far after this will not only damage the ferrocore, but might induce distortion in the amplification module, which can crash the bus controller.

Once you have found your sweet spot, you can now enjoy the view inside the Baltovsky chamber, and be proud of your first VX run! If you'd like to save the data collected during the initial run, select "Stream Management" by pressing the appropriate button on the bus controller. Select a sensor index from the list (beginners may wish to try "2: Parallax Distortion" or "3: Ambient Thread Spin") and an output vector. In most cases, the output vector should be the I/O Bus multi-port, which accepts many common data transmission protocols. Make sure that interplanar cooling is on and that the ventilator is stable before mounting the data transmission hardware, then press the "Dispatch" button on the side of the bus controller. The hardware will be ejected automatically when transmission is complete.

To turn your VX off, turn off each amplification stage backwards, from 7 to 1, then power off the controller. Wait about 15 minutes for it to cool off, then you can unplug it from the power source.

## Tips

* At any point during the run, you can tweak the phase-adjustement knobs with the stylus. This can help clean up the signal, and have a more consistent display on the controller. Adjusting with a regular screwdriver is not advisable, due to traverse induction which can occur due to inadequate shielding, making accurate calibration extremely difficult.
* If the Baltovsky chamber starts to emit a bright yellow light (reminiscent of the sodium D-line, but not monochromatic), that means your ferrocore is out of commission. Follow the standard fast-shutdown procedure (not emergency stop - this can cause unnecessary damage to the stage 5 intermodule) and swap out the damaged ferrcore (check the system log printout for the hub location).