On Sep 28, 2011, at 7:15 AM, Artem Evdokimov wrote: > Are you indeed referring to the oil-filled high voltage transformer core in > the older model generators?
Yes. > (Newer ones tend to use solid state voltage multipliers). That sounds much more sane. > I recall that there were issues with those things that were > eventually traced to elevated humidity. Now, that was humidity around 80% > which should not be the case for most systems these days since most of us > seem to prefer humidity controlled environments (for the sake of the > cryostreams) but it might be worth checking some local leaks etc. Well, I'm at DIY-U, so this very likely is a potential source of the problem. We have to supply our own hamsters for the electrical generators, too. > One more reason that the tank transformer might go bad would be inadequate > matching between power input and drain, especially high-drain situation > caused by an undetected high current (like a parasite current too weak to > cause arcing, but strong enough to damage transformer over time). Did > your/Rigaku's engineer check the voltages and currents in the tube tower? Do > you have the option to record currents while no one is attending the > instrument (in the even that the problem is intermittent)? I don't think anything like that was ever done, but I am not sure. We shipped it back to them, and they need more money to continue diagnosis, so we are probably just going to cut our losses on this decade-long nightmare. > > Artem > On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Patrick Loll <pat.l...@drexel.edu> wrote: > >> Bill, >> >> What do you mean by "high voltage tank"? When I hear this term, I think of >> the oil- (and PCB-) filled tank housing the transformer on an old generator; >> but there's nothing like that on the R-Axis. Do you mean the blue box >> housing the detector controller? If so, then I can tell you that we've had >> ours plugged into a 1000 VA UPS (APC Back UPS Pro) for 10 years, with never >> a glitch (and I'm told that Philly power is not pretty). >> >> If instead you're referring to the high voltage tank on the generator, then >> I have no idea of what to do (although replacing the power cable doesn't >> sound like a bad idea)...you'd probably need to steal an entire 7-11 to pay >> for a UPS large enough to condition power for that. >> >> Pat >> >> On 26 Sep 2011, at 10:15 PM, William G. Scott wrote: >> >>> Hi Citizens: >>> >>> We seem to run through high voltage tanks on our Raxis IV like guano goes >> through a goose. Has anyone else had this problem, and, more importantly, >> what is the best way to protect them. I am assuming it might have something >> to do with our electrical supply, which is a bit unreliable. >>> >>> Also, does anyone have an extra used functional one they want to get rid >> of? We've run out of 7-11s to rob to pay for this, and our friendly and >> helpful radiation safety staff think the best way to deal with this problem >> is to hack apart the power cable, so it is a current (so to speak) source of >> frustration. >>> >>> >>> Thanks in advance. >>> >>> Bill >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> William G. Scott >>> Professor >>> Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry >>> and The Center for the Molecular Biology of RNA >>> 228 Sinsheimer Laboratories >>> University of California at Santa Cruz >>> Santa Cruz, California 95064 >>> USA >>> >> William G. Scott Contact info: http://chemistry.ucsc.edu/~wgscott/
