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This is the second quartz tube we attempted to assemble the very first test cell with.

We sealed the cell into the groove cut in each end flange with a ceramic adhesive intended to match the thermal expansion of the quartz.

The adhesive was cured in the break room oven at 250F for about 3 hours. (All in the afternoon, luckily, so nobody's lunch casserole was interrupted.)

The next morning, when the whole thing had cooled, the glass had broken off the flanges.  Unfortunately, the stainless steel flanges shrunk enough to compress and shear the glass right off, sending us back to the drawing board.

Fortunately, the glass sheared off relatively neatly (be careful still!) and it is now available as a keepsake.

This was the first metal and plastic we formed up to try to put the instrumentation and power supply together in a nice, transparent package.  It was abandoned for a new version, but played an instrumental role in shaping the product we eventually developed.

C1 Prototype Chassis

C1 Prototype Chassis

C1 Prototype Chassis

C1 Prototype Chassis open

Graphite washers (gaskets) made for next generation prototype we haven’t even talked about much about, yet.  The gaskets were featured in a blog entry, though. They were cut with a CNC router from a sheet of graphite gasket material. Unfortunately, the router made the edge fluff up and flake off too much to allow a good seal between glass and stainless steel.

These were the first mica strips cut from a sheet of mica and intended to help hold the wire in the test cell.  The strips were not perfectly consistently cut due to the crude nature of the saw, and were, therefore, the last to be used.  We kept them as spares in case we needed them, but since we got a nicer tile saw, we will cut more consistent ones for the next test cells, instead.  Note that one of the strips has test holes we made in the end.  Those holes are intended for the bolts that make the termination for the wire.

 

These are 100% copper gaskets used in test cell#1.

The cell is made with conflat type flanges that have a knife edge that digs into these copper gaskets to make an ultra-tight seal.

We have used these on vacuum systems down to to a trillionth of an atmosphere.

Once they have been used, they cannot be used again, though, so we are offering them to you.  Each of these were used on the first test cell which we have needed to open up the most to modify things as we learn.

On one of the gaskets you can see that the copper is discolored on the outer part of the surface.  That is where it was used as the cell got hot and that part of the gasket was exposed to air.

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