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Cautionary tale about vibration dampening foam

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 2:20 pm
by Tisha Hayes
Last night I fired up one of my neutron detector probes and was quite surprised that it pulled down the high voltage. Taking the probe apart I found that the foam that was near the C connector had turned in to a black sticky (partially conductive) mess.

I have seen this problem before; in bandpass filters for some radio equipment that was manufactured back in the 1950's.

The neutron probe has a manufacturing date of 1984. The foam died a pretty early death in comparison to my other experiences.

I would suggest that if you have any instrumentation that uses these types of foams to check and see if it has deteriorated before tossing out the gear.

Once I removed the foam and cleaned it off with a solvent the probe worked fine and the high voltage is not being dragged down.

Ms. Tisha Hayes
Lookout Mountain Alabama

Re: Cautionary tale about vibration dampening foam

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:15 am
by Andrew Seltzman
Hi Tisha,

Yep that problem's pretty common with old equipment, good catch in fixing your probe.

Welcome to the forum, please take a moment to post an introduction in the "please introduce yourself" section as per forum rules, and good luck with your future fusor work.
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