Reports until 14:54, Friday 02 May 2025
Vacuum Systems General (RbQ)
Daniel Grass - posted 14:54, Friday 02 May 2025 (12305)
RbQ Vacuum Chamber Leak Test

I leak tested the RbQ Vacuum Chamber with LIGO's leak checker. Since the 4.5" gate valve hasn't arrived yet, we had to keep the turbo on which makes leak checking more difficult. However, I did fine at least one leak: the bottom of the rectangular prism to cube interface on the south side (roughly 5 Torr*L/s, but this is pretty arbitrary since the turbo is on (and helium spray level ambiguous)). I also discovered all three screws that secure the windows were loose. I gently tightened them. I turned off the leak checker and the helium line. 

I plan on letting the turbo pump a bit longer and seeing if the pressure gets lower. I want to take off, inspect, and reattach these plates since it should be easy. i could rotate the 6" square plate to try to see if that changes the leak spot. The leak could also be caused from the rectangular prism to cube interface itself. We would have to take off 8 plates to fix that, so I want to try that last. If we do that, I think I want to take off the cube entirely and evaluate the pressure with just the rectangular prism. We can make a MOT without the cube, but not a conveyer belt. We could attach the tee and include the ion pump as well as the electronics flange.