Last night my shop mate Stuart hosted a cryogenic cocktail party using his cryo-freezer and my liquid nitrogen.
The cryofreezer goes down to -120˚ C, cold enough to freeze liquor! We had vodka, bourbon, and gin ice cubes:
Ben made a silicon cast of a drinking glass to cast an ice glass:
We used the liquid nitrogen to make flash ice cream. Delicious:
I made white russian ice cream:
Yesterday I did a tear down of an old unused turbo molecular pump I’ve had laying around. Very instructive to see the insides. Here it is to begin with:
To assist disassembly, the pump has pry screws to push off the top case (Stuart’s tip):
Once you remove the outer shell you see this:
Sliding out the stators allows the removal of each pancake.
The rotor appears to be in perfect condition. It is machined from a single solid piece of metal. The stators are flimsy and largely bent out of shape.
At this point we still haven’t figured out how to remove the main rotor.
Back in the lab today after some travel out west.
Previously I designed a bellows holder to keep the high voltage feedthrough from moving.
I received the part and installed it successfully today:
A real win using 3D metal printing.
Prometheus Fusion Perfection 