Monday, Nov. 25, 2013
I finally got around to uploading pictures of how we got the chamber home. Here they are!
Neither of my family's cars could handle the weight and size of the chamber, and no trucks we could borrow had any means of raising it/lowering it from the truck bed, so I opted to rent a moving truck with a lift gate. Rental costs included, the chamber was still only fractions of the cost of anything else I could get my hands on or build myself, so I'm ecstatic. I've only got so much cash stockpiled until summer rolls around and I can work again, so it's always nice when something comes in underbudget.
Ted and Dorothy Ciszek, from whom I purchased the chamber, posing next to the Truck. (With my lurking in the shadows in the background)
You never know what you're getting into when you pursue a craigslist ad, but Ted and Dorothy were both kind and helpful. They seemed interested in the project. Ted consults for companies on high-purity silicon crystal growth, so he had a lab bursting at the seams with all sorts of interesting items. High current transformers for inductive heating, high voltage power supplies, and all sorts of high vacuum equipment, all sitting in an outbuilding he'd built himself, and those weren't even the beginnings of it.
The two also make all sorts of gemstone jewelry and small stonework crafts. Custom stonework they'd done themselves covered the interior of their home, along with some very interesting mineral displays. It was fun to look around.
Here are their websites for those curious:
http://www.siliconsultant.com/default.htm and
http://geolite.com/default.htm
Here's the hill we were faced with. Thank god for Ted's trailer! There was no way we could have gotten the moving truck up their.
Me steadying the chamber as Ted drove over some bumps
Me posing next to the chamber, back at home safe and sound
Right now I'm looking for a shop with a CNC Mill that can handle stainless. I need to machine a couple flange covers, and some obscure converters to go from KF flanges of one size to conflats of another. My school's lathe can only handle aluminum, so no dice for conflat parts (Plus my lathing precision leaves something to be desired)
I scored a Swagelok valve from a recycler in Denver who currently has a contract cleaning out labs in the solar industry. He had lots of vacuum equipment, but he'd already scrapped a lot of the useful stuff. The valve, however, is an SS-4BK-V51 with KF flanges connected. No picture of mine on hand, I'll grab one later and upload it. Here's the company's picture instead:
Mine looks completely unused, or at least in very good condition. And I got it for scrap steel cost, so I'm very pleased.
Still a lot more to find for the gas systems, but it's a start!
I also ran over to Home Depot this afternoon and picked up a couple things. I cut a section of thick-walled PVC tubing in half, put some hinges on one seam, and tried to put a clasp on the other in hopes of building a
safety mechanism of sorts to prevent the entire 100-pound chamber lid from coming crashing down should the lift fail. The latch I tried was about a millimeter too small in one dimension to close properly at the angle of the PVC tube. I'm either going to try some heavy-duty velcro or see what else I can find at the store.
Will post pics in the next update.
To continue the news front. I heard back from the engineer at the power company. He said liability is a major issue for them, so they can't tell me a transformer. I did, however, get in contact with a recycler who says she gets high voltage equipment in semi-regularly. She had a 15KVA pole-pig at her yard just a few weeks back, apparently. I'm hoping I might be able to find something through her. I'm also contacting industrial recyclers around the area looking for xray transformers, but no luck as of yet.
Thanksgiving break is coming up, so I'll have plenty of time to drive around the front range digging through scrapyards.
