I had the micromaze isolated but there was so much crap in the lines (even though I had cleaned them and baked them out in my oven) that I lost the bakeout.
I did a bakeout of the micromaze last night, changed the pump oil this morning and was able to get to 40 microns in the chamber within ten minutes. The micromaze seems to add an element of crispness to the pump down. Then I turned on the air cooled diffusion pump. It took about ten minutes to heat up, and then the chamber pressure dropped like a rock to 3 microns. This is with all that plastic outgassing! I am sure that the pressure is getting below the range of accurate thermocouple readings.
It is on to the power supply, and eventually to a stainless steel chamber.
Created on Monday, April 16, 2001 5:37 PM EDT by Thomas D Dressel