More Preparations

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

I have started running two of the cameras I will take to AZ on TOM.  They 
focused and I was able to see stars.  The weather is not very good.  I 
cannot really get them cold enough to see if they have ice problems.  They 
have not had dry air circulation for very long.

I spent most of the day getting the water system working.  Since the 
chiller is not working, I switched to the garbage can in the workroom.  I 
could not get the water flowing.  I am using these very nice self sealing 
disconnects.  When you break the water connection, they seal.  This is a 
pain in the neck for testing.  No mater where you break the seal, the 
system tests tight.  So I had to make up a bunch of adaptors to unseal the 
system so I could test for the water flow.  I finally found a kink.  It is 
amazing how tight it was "sealed".  I now have the water running but it is 
at 31.5 C.  This only allows me to get to -10 C for sure.

There is a new Wall-Mart dehumidifier sitting in the living 
room.  $130.  Much cheaper than anything I can buy from an instrument house 
like Cole-Parmer.  But I will have to take it apart and build a tank around 
the chiller coils.  I will do a more workman like job than I did with the 
last one.  The last one I was not sure that it would work, so I just bent 
the coils into a bucket.  This probably caused a loss of the 
refrigerant.  That is the symptom.  The entry part of the coil just gets a 
little cold.  Eventually the chiller motor gets very hot.

Tom Droege