I had to take a two-week NASA soldering school when I began work at
Goldstone Tracking Facility in the Mojave Desert in 1971. Components
were all thru-hole back then. A lot of years have passed since them
but as I recall we bent the leads after insertion, soldered, and
trimmed flush. I forgot the part about making turns around solder
posts (gold). I remember all dc wiring was white teflon and we used
thermal strippers. All wire looms had the wires run perfectly
parallel and tied (before tywraps). Very time stacking process and
then QA inspected with 6x magnifiers. Anything "not perfect" had to
be done again.
I worked on equipment used in the tracking stations. All had to pass
same requirements as space-rated stuff (going into space). We had a
full machine shop along with Master Mechinist. I would draw up what
I needed as an enclosure and he would mill one from a block of
aluminum. He showed me how to drill and tap holes. Also how to make
waveguide. After being machined they were sent out for gold plating
(every one). They wanted a MTBF in the order of years.
I designed and built a fast shutdown (crowbar) for a TWT to take
1000v to ground in 30ms. The TWT were subject to RF arcing in the
waveguide and you needed to have them shutdown before the arc reached
the tube (think a photocell detector was used). It ran faultless for
over 20-years in temps from -10F to +150F. I worked in the MTF
(Microwave Test Facility) building prototypes of new equipment. It
was fun! lots of stories
73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
Dubus-NA Business mail:
[email protected]
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