It gets worse before it gets better

Anthony installed the first pin base warmer on 5.0.2 today. We have to wait until the ALS has LN restored before we can test it. One thing to note: the people we spoke to at NE-CAT about their pin base warmer told us that it does not actually solve the icing issue completely. They still do see pins move on the goniometer after mounting. Hopefully the warmer will help a bit, though!

From July 2017 to May 2018, the BCSB received (and shipped back after beamtime) 758 dewars. Most of these were handled by Anthony. Wow!

We are back up from the long ALS shutdown, and the beamlines are in good shape. We completed a number of projects on the sector 5 beamlines, in particular, as well as performed maintenance on a number of systems: – Pilatus3 6M installed on 5.0.1. The install went well, and tests with x-rays show that…

The next test is to run the 501 and 502 Pilatus detectors simultaneously off the same PPU.

We measured the temperature at the sample during warming of the pin base, and preliminary tests so far show that the heat is not transferred to the loop during two minutes of base warming. Tests are continuing now to determine how well the warmer removes ice and frost from the bases.

Images of a crystal in a loop before and after using the pin base warmer:

Newly painted floor at 501!