Since the pressure only reached 1.0E-6 after 2 full days of pumping, I decided to leak check again. There was no leak 180° from the past leak on the plate I rotated, indicating the plate was fine (a visual inspection showed it to be fine as well). There was a leak in the same place as last time (bottom right (south) of the west 6" x 12" plate that goes to the 2D MOT), but maybe smaller, around 2.5E-10 Torr L/s. Interestingly, closing the valve at the end of the leak check spiked the measured leak rate to 4.8E-10 Torr L/s.

I vented the chamber and removed the plate to inspect it and the frame. There was very slight discoloration on the plate in a few places, but I couldn't feel anything. The chamber looked fine. I replaced the plate. Putting in the screws was harder with the 2D MOT in the way, but I don't see an easy way to redesign. We shouldn't have to take this plate to add or adjust components in the vacuum chamber. Due to the awkward angle, I very lightly stripped the top of the head of a screw. This is cosmetic as I could easily get a hex key in, but the screw should be thrown out if we take off the plate again.

I started the scroll at 10:55 PM. Since I suspect the 2D MOT is tugging on the plate through the bellows, I pushed the plates that hold the 2D MOT foward after the pressure was ~1 Torr. I turned off safe start and turned on the turbo at 11:01 PM, the turbo quickly ramped up to speed, maxing out at 99 W drawn. As of writing this at 11:39 PM, the pressure is 3.9E-6 Torr and slowly dropping. If the pressure doesn't get close to 1E-7, I want to take off the 2D MOT, rotate the plate, and add a 2.75" blank flange. We should also use the RGA to confirm the presssure is from a leak and not outgassing. If the leak stays in the same place, the next step would be taking apart the frames, which would be a total disassembly. Being able to valve off the turbo would also make leak checking a lot better, so hopefully the gate valve arrives soon.