1.) Anatol machined a Teflon standoff (the white piece) to go between the chamber and the vacuum hose. We installed it, and it was effective in stopping all plasma discharge down the hose.
2.) The old grid (the one that was soldered together) finally couldn't take the heat anymore, and the solder vaporized, ruining the grid. After tediously scraping the bits of solder from the inside of the chamber, we decided that all future grids needed to be either spot welded or made out of one continuous piece of wire.
3.) We found a box of TC probes in the lab, and attached a T joint to the end of the chamber to accommodate the probe. (see picture 1) Now we can measure the pressure in the chamber without using Dr. Bulman's chamber in series with ours! With this new setup, we were able to max out our 1 mTorr gauge (i.e. pressure below 1 mTorr) and the chamber only takes minutes instead of days to pump down.
4.) We found out that the positive "ground" from the power supply is not the same as earth ground, and actually floats above earth ground by about 1200 volts when the system is at maximum power.
5.) Fabricated a new grid 1 3/4'' in diameter with a continuous piece of wire.
6.) Fixed up the deuterium gas handling system (see next post) and bought 3 BTI bubble detectors.
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