boohoo
Today was made of fail.
Science cell is still probably leaky, but improved. As part of preparing to leak test again, we needed to bake out the valve we were about to open*, which meant wrapping it in heating wires. Unfortunately we weren't careful with which phase we plugged into (the lab has 3 separate phases for power), and put too much stuff on our experiment's phase. So, after working fine for a couple of hours, a fuse blew on an ordinary power strip, of all things. Unfortunately, this was the power strip that everything else was plugged into, so suddenly everything that wasn't plugged into the UPS turned off.
To solve the problem, we replaced it with a power strip with no fuse :-P
All the lasers survived.
The air conditioner fuse (on the switchboard) blew as well, but I don't know why because it's independent O_o
It would be nice if the experiment worked before it started falling apart...
* When exposing the "outside" to an ultrahigh vacuum (even a leaky one), precautions must be taken to not contaminate it! This means heating the relevant area to around 300 degrees to bake off impurities such as water from the inner surfaces.
Science cell is still probably leaky, but improved. As part of preparing to leak test again, we needed to bake out the valve we were about to open*, which meant wrapping it in heating wires. Unfortunately we weren't careful with which phase we plugged into (the lab has 3 separate phases for power), and put too much stuff on our experiment's phase. So, after working fine for a couple of hours, a fuse blew on an ordinary power strip, of all things. Unfortunately, this was the power strip that everything else was plugged into, so suddenly everything that wasn't plugged into the UPS turned off.
To solve the problem, we replaced it with a power strip with no fuse :-P
All the lasers survived.
The air conditioner fuse (on the switchboard) blew as well, but I don't know why because it's independent O_o
It would be nice if the experiment worked before it started falling apart...
* When exposing the "outside" to an ultrahigh vacuum (even a leaky one), precautions must be taken to not contaminate it! This means heating the relevant area to around 300 degrees to bake off impurities such as water from the inner surfaces.