My experience is limited to the MHM-2010 at the Arecibo observatory, but I suspect they all handle the H2 supply in pretty much the same way.
Th hydrogen comes from a reservoir, in the case of the MHM-2010 from a small "lecture" bottle of H2 under pressure. I assume that this is isotopically rather pure, and also fairly pure of other gaseous contaminants. In principle this should be field replaceable; however special procedures including a good vacuum pump and probably some special fittings would likely be required. You should consult the mfr of your maser about the availability of a new bottle of H2 as well as correct procedures for making the changeover. We at Arecibo had to replace one of the vacion pumps in our maser about 6 or 7 years ago. and we decided to get help from Symmetricom in the form of a field service call, to the tune of $12k. The guy who came was a physicist at heart, and was the very guy who had put together the physics package in our very maser. This included replacement of the still-working pump as well, done the following day. So on the first day, he replaced the failed pump while I asked questions and took copious notes. Then on the 2nd day, I replaced the 2nd pump while he kibitzed and stood ready to stop me before I did anything stupid. In both cases there was some difficulty getting the pumps "started up", arising because they had been open to the atmosphere for some time beforehand. They both required a lot of teasing of the voltage in little steps, while intently watching the current to be sure not to exceed ratings. IIRC, they each required more than an hour of vigilance before we could safely stand down. The interesting thing was that this maser could (and did) run quite well with only one pump working, for over a year. The delay was on our part, shuffling stuff around in the clock room to clear generous working space around the maser. The job involved a lot of "on-the-floor" work, much like working under a car without benefit of a lift. But the maser was well thought out in that subsystems could be isolated with high-vacuum valves and switches, with the result that we kept the maser operating throughout the two procedures, with only a subtle glitch in timing accuracy visible in the records when I checked after the fact. The observatory continued to operate with no disturbance the whole time. Dana Whitlow On Fri, Jul 5, 2019 at 12:01 PM Luiz Paulo Damaceno < luizpauloeletric...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi friends, > > We have a hydrogen maser here at the university that i work. It seems the > hydrogen is over. This is possible? If yes, It is possible to recharge It? > > Best regards, > > Luiz. > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
