There is a facebook page for the MFMP project at http://www.facebook.com/MartinFleischmannMemorialProject It is not that much to look at right now, but we are working on it. If anybody expert in dressing up such a page is interested in helping, please let us know.
So last night Malachi ran the power stepping script to do a calibration. It resulted in a nice stepped temperature graph, but the power readings were not accurate enough. After a little reconfiguration we were ready to start again. It takes several hours because of the temperature time constant. Tonight wire 1, tomorrow wire 2, and then both wires up to maximum power.
His report:
The set up of the laptop that pairs with unit two was completed yesterday. Unit two's data acquisition was switched from unit one's laptop to the new one. A test was then made to accommodate the temperatures, pressure and the two power channels. With the new laptop and test up and running we switched focus on the software.
Scott has been working tirelessly on the software portion and, as a result, there have been several new and improved versions of the firmware. It takes time to test out these newer versions and while they are being tested the unit cannot be calibrated. Last night we came to a point where we believed we could go ahead and run our calibration using one channel. We initiated the test and left it run over night. In the morning we found that the data file was incomplete and that we only had a few of the temperatures actually recording. This was because the test was created that morning and there was not sufficient time to update some of the new data channels, namely the voltage, current, impedance and power of our two channels.
Today we fixed the data collection as well as a few more bugs in the software. The calibration for channel one (Blue) began at approximately 3 o'clock pm.
Unit one's reactor needs a new pressure sensor, new heating wires and wrapping strategy, and some ceramic adhesive to prevent the shorting of wires, as happened in unit 2. The pressure sensor has to wait until a new union tee arrives from Swagelok. The old wires were taken off of the reactor insert and the improved wrapping strategy that was used in unit two was then employed in unit one. Ceramic was added to keep the copper connector wire from sagging onto the heating wire and causing a short during thermal expansion. Also, additional ceramic was used where one of the mica fins rests in the flange. This fin was unseated during disassembly. This ceramic will be left overnight to allow complete curing.
Sorry I don't have any pictures. I spent the day attending a venture finance conference and left the hard work to Malachi. I guess I'll have to put twice as many in tomorrow.
The plan in the near future is to pack cell#2 up and ship it to Mathieu in France to play with. Mathieu's plan is to ship us the Celani wire when it arrives! I'm so excited!
