Fusor Forums

Richard, John: The oil was a little bit over the half mark in the viewer. I still turned it on because it rotated freely when turned by hand. Regarding the manual, or who made it: I have no idea!! The only specification is a little placard that I attach below. I've spend quite some time searching fo...

Today I was able to extract the oil from the pump. I attach a photo.
As you can see, the oil is very dirty and is probably the reason the vacuum was so poor. Luckily, there are no metal chips or fragments.
As soon as I can I will purchase new oil and do new test runs.

Maciek: Thank you very much for your reply! Can really any tipe of industrial oil work? Is it "that easy" for a first try with a roughing pump? For example, would this oil from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Octopus-Aceite-Bomba-compresor-m%C3%A1quinas/dp/B07QBPGZ54/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=aceit...

Richard: I understood that some type of special oil would be needed, but what is most often recommended is to use the one recommended by the manufacturer, which I don't know. Is there any generic brand I could use? Regarding soap: this was an idea that had a friend of mine who works semi regularly i...

Hello: I've recently started my journey into the vacuum world. Having absolutely no experience whatsoever, my first step was to fully digest the FAQs, read some literature and then to buy a tested MKS901p gauge. A friend of mine who makes neon lights for a living kindly gifted me an old vacuum pump ...

In a spanish forum, they constructed a Penning Gauge from zero. They used a CCFL inverter and measured the current from the low side of the transformer to the ground of the primary, in order to avoid arcing and safety issues. As Richard stated, calibration is a problem which is pretty much impossibl...

Thanks for letting me know about the physics circuits on the 2nd edition, I have only read the 3rd and I am quite surprised by the amount of content that was removed...

Is that the Art of Electronics peeking in the corner of the photograph? Great project too, a really convenient way to measure vacuum! By the way, have you considered optical isolation or, more simply, just using a usb isolator if you ever connect this to a PC? I feel it would be an easy way to prote...

A basic vacuum system and gas management system can also be used to make gaseous radiation detectors. With a pump that could reach about 10 microns you should be able to avoid the worse effects of electron attachment created by oxygen residue. Backfill this with a P10 mixture (commonly available) th...

I feel that the concepts I have to physically get working always stucks with me (while the things that I'm supposed to memorize at class don't really!). It really was a different a time. I think now repairing the various modules like you did back in the 70s would be unthinkable in most cases, due to...