June - July Status Report

[Thomas Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

Status Report.  Sigh!  It is mid August and I have not done one of these in
two months.  Call this June-July.

We collected about 130 CDs of data in June, about 40 in July.  Everything
just fell apart, and July and early August were spent getting everything
working again.  The big problem was TOM1.  Because the wet bulb thermometer
failed, I ran with the chiller on all the time.  This caused condensation
on the tubing, which somehow got into the camera head connectors.  This
caused electrolytic action on the connector pins which failed.  I was able
to rescue one camera, but the other really failed.  So there is a new I
camera on TOM1.  

We have changed the design of the thermometer used for the wet bulb
measurement.  Before it was globbed in epoxy and was exposed to the
moisture of the wet bulb.  This has failed twice.  I made a little copper
rod and glued the thermometer in one end and put the wet bulb sock on the
other.  Now the thermometer is not wet all the time, so the epoxy does not
have to be perfect.  

There has been a long term problem on TOM3.  It was a transmission problem
were it picked up noise on the strobe line.  An IC change to a type with a
different noise margin seems to have cured it.  

TOM2 I camera has had a long history of the shutter sticking.  I finally
tore it apart and replaced the shutter guides with ones with a wider track.
It now seems to be working OK.

As of yesterday (8 August 2003)   everything was working.

It is now taking long enough to process data that I have an excuse to buy
the latest and greatest computer.