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Additions to the US Lab [UPDATE#1 - V1.3 Cells Installed]

Scritto da Wes Baish on .

We've made a conscious effort to reform our blogging approach, bringing new posts and updates on our progress more often. Think of it as a resolution for the new season, which up here in Minnesota isn't showing any signs of change-we're still bound up in an icy pseudo-arctic. Expect a new post around every 2-3 days. Hold us to that! 

Things are definitely slower around the shop as we await software updates that allow us to monitor the analog output from a new vacuum transducer for V 1.3's dynamic vacuum. We need the software to handle logarithms to give us a nice linear correlation. 

That doesn't mean we have been sitting on our bums! Numerous alterations have been carried out in the LENR lab to make room for the V 1.3 cells and their protocol. After much cleaning, organizing, and remodeling we are well set to expand our experimental reach. It's a very exciting time even if it doesn't involve a data stream, and we promise we'll keep you better informed so you can be excited too!

 

On the V 1.3 front, Malachi and I (Wes) will be plenty busy the rest of this and next week as we lose Ryan to some well-earned time off.

We have the control and active reactors assembled with oxide-coated isotan wire, planning to get them commissioned sometime next week. The V 1.0 massive air flow calorimeter gave its power supply to the cause, and will be remembered as the daring, unreliable, cat coffin that it was. A tear shed for those lost. 

We'll be engineering 3 of the  1/4" calorimeter mini cells as well, examining its consistency from trial to trial with a heat source attached. So far the calibration has been tight as a drum, but we'll see. . .

We also look forward to the return of our beloved machinist as we can flood him with requests to tool new additions to the concentric tube calorimeter. So not all is lost in the desire for accurate temperature measurements; we're just getting started! Until the next post, here are some tantalizing pictures too keep you going. 

We're going back to horizontal orientation, but with a twist. More to follow in the installation blog.

Thermally-tough fiberglass wire insulation promises safer passthrough isolation. 

Shameless plug: I have other projects like this one, but with more room for imagination. Check the collaborate page to get an eye-full as I begin revamping nanopowder experiments on the reef.


Update #1 - Version 1.3 Cells are Installed in the US Lab!

Inch by Inch we approach the commissioning of our newest experiment protocol, the long anticipated version 1.3 cells. It's a thorough process, further refining every aspect of the previous versions. Likewise we've experienced that the new additions to the US lab add their own flavor of maintenance, and the taste is an acquired one. . .

My little headache of the week has been the new pressure transducer. Several blunders in product orders and connectivity issues (controller interface to sensor) delayed our ability to integrate it into the vacuum line, not to mention the software update required to handle logarithmic scale output (Thanks Scott!). And when the time came to plumb the vacuum line, the transducer reported 30 Torr below atmospheric pressure! Device manuals and grumbles led us to a relatively short fix, and we finally have a working loadlock transducer!

Foregoing Wayne's return, we forged boldly ahead to fabricate mounting brackets for the V-shaped rail placed in the experiment hood. However our original material choice proved adequately flimsy and unsupportive of the new cells, making handling and further installation a near impossibility. 

Though the triangle is the strongest shape in nature, we found the new, thicker supports a little tougher to bend in such short lengths, and settled on the twist along its length to add further rigidity to our mounting brackets.

It looks pretty cool, too. True: we're all about the straight and narrow, no-nonsense scientific exploration here at Quantumheat, but a little aesthetic flair never hurt anybodyWink

So currently we've got the cells installed and NEARLY plumbed in totally to the vacuum and H2 supply cross. Really, all the connections have been swaged in, and they do look pretty impressive.

However the line is LEAKING right now and cannot pull a vacuum below 90 mTorr. How frustrating! We checked for leaks with negative pressure by squirting ethanol on the joints, but this method had little success. Next we charged the line with a few dozen PSI of H2 and sniffed around with the combustible gas detector. It gave us plenty of false positives as it picked up the evaporating ethanol dripping off the entire assembly. Wiping it off and giving it a moment to dry allowed me to sneak away and drop this little update on you! 

C'est la vie! We will undoubtedly find and fix that pesky leak in the coming afternoon and draw a tight vacuum in the cells. All that remains is sensor installation. . .along with verification tests, troubleshooting, offgasing, power supply assembly, and of course EU coordination to run these dueling tests in parallel with a live data stream. Thanks for reading!

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+1 #15 Malachi Heder 2013-04-01 22:00
@ Ron B

I like it. We will have to see how it fits into our new protocol for the V1.3 cells, but I think we have all the tools in the software now to do it.
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0 #14 Ron B 2013-03-31 01:26
@Malachi,

Just brainstorming a bit here, let me know what you think.

An interesting experiment would be to slowly march the input power up at a very slow rate. I am thinking that the temps would increase very linearly until the temp was reached that would trigger the AH effect, and at that point we should have a non-linear temperature rise. It seems that might indicate that AH has occurred. To rule out random environment changes this test would be repeated several times. If at the same temp each time, the non-linearity occurred we would have a good indication that AH has occurred. Each test run would pressurize to 1.5 bar at room temp so that variable is now addressed. Probably the time between steps would have to be a bit longer that the saturation time of the cell.
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0 #13 Malachi Heder 2013-03-29 20:35
A feeling, I think we all share :) The TC's are all hooked up. We will be checking the electrical connections and circuits, so you may see the power come on for a few moments periodically.
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0 #12 Dieter Seeliger 2013-03-29 15:17
Sorry, but I cannot await these cells running :-)
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+1 #11 Malachi Heder 2013-03-29 15:10
@ Alan G

The labeling problem has been fixed, we had to sync some device settings between our server and the Mathieu's laptop in France.

@ Dieter

Be patient :) We are still setting up the sensors. This means some of the sensors are unplugged or not even attached to the cell yet (none of the exterior TC's are yet). We are devising a way to attach them with a copper band. Pictures will follow.
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0 #10 Dieter Seeliger 2013-03-29 14:29
The readings of T1_in1 and T2_in1 of the US cells differ about 2,2°C also the T1_EXT3 has some positive offset.
Were the TC`s calibrated before mounting ?
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+2 #9 Robert Greenyer 2013-03-29 11:32
@Dieter Seeliger

Going to try and do a bit of site re-organisation today.

@AlanG

We are working on this labelling error thanks.
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0 #8 Malachi Heder 2013-03-28 23:11
@ Alan G

The units and labels are a shifted from the correct values. We are working on this now. The tests are designed almost identically. The exception is there is a vacuum input in the EU test A and an ambient sensor in test B.
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0 #7 AlanG 2013-03-28 18:57
The HUGnet data displays for the Euro 1.3 cells are different enough that comparison will be difficult. The item labelled "Vac (°C)" is particularly obscure and its scaling causes the graphic display of the other parameters to compress down. It can't be degrees C at that range - is it showing millibars or something else?
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+1 #6 Dieter Seeliger 2013-03-28 05:32
@MF
Why not move the new experiments to the forum.
Setup a single thread for every experiment with all the results, changelogs and comments from the crowd.
The blog with the news and the general discussion could be published here at the front site.
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0 #5 Robert Greenyer 2013-03-28 01:41
@Ecco

The experiments are not yet live, they are running through initial pressure / vacuum and thermal testing in both the US and EU - Mathieu is writing a blog entry currently for the EU cells with photos.
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+1 #4 Ecco 2013-03-27 23:30
@MFMP: it would have been nice to get informed in advance about the start of new experiments on the v1.3 cells, currently ongoing, and also to read a short description/tim etable of what is going on, and what is going to be performed in the short term. Basically what I'm asking is more communication like you did during the initial experiments in 2012

Doing everything semi-silently and then writing a megablogpost to wrap it up gets confusing and hard to follow, in my opinion.
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+1 #3 Robert Greenyer 2013-03-26 20:53
@Team

That really does look beautiful - any chance paul can add the flashy LEDs to represent PXs visually ;-)
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+1 #2 Wes Baish 2013-03-25 13:57
Yes @Andreas, these are the the same cells mentioned in the calorimeter post from earlier.
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+2 #1 Andreas Van Rooijen 2013-03-21 16:53
You wrote:
"We'll be engineering 3 of the 1/4" calorimeter mini cells as well.."
Are these the "next generation tubes" as described in your post of March 12th?
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