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We stared the gluing process with the less demanding joints: the scoop and the tubes that will be under compression. As we got better we moved into the more demanding tubes. We used a jig to fix the clocking of the inserts, we cured the tubes vertically in the jig for 24 hours and then […] We prepared a new non-grooved test tube as the fishing lines spacer approach behaved poorly in the pull test. And the results were excellent: the tubes where pulled up to 45700 lbf before the glue joint failed. Here are some pictures of the gluing procedure. Enzo wanted pictures of Mark Halpern’s BLAST pivot tester. So, here they are. It has turnbuckles for grabbing the pivot tabs (on the stator) and holding tension. Currently nothing grabs the rotor, but Pedro is working on that. The day after the joints arrived we got a big box full of carbon fiber tubes. We waited for Juan to get back from vacation so that he could open them. My self restraint wasn’t strong enough to wait to open the joints. They’re all cut to length and weigh almost nothing. If only we […] Where by “Machine Shop Update” I mean what would have been an update last week if I hadn’t just now discovered that I have these pictures (all from Juan). But the now-not-up-to-date progress shows nearly complete reaction wheel parts and SIP cage. The beginnings of an attitude control system have been integrated with BLASTpol. I’ve been working with Natalie on getting gyroscope readout working and Laura has been working in parallel with the help of Pedro to enable us to command the motors. Mostly, I took these because Giles requested photos of the gondola, and I didn’t […] Unlike the last two, this post is not long-delayed. On Thursday Natalie was assembling the Spider star camera to get a picture of it for her thesis proposal. As a side benefit, I also get pictures of it. And I (among others) get an assembled star camera. I think this is my first post for […] Another overdue post that I just got pictures for today: the SIP cage. Juan designed this cage, which lives at the base of Spider, to hold NASA’s SIP (Standard Instrument Package?), and also to support the reaction wheel. When these photos were taken (almost a month ago) many parts were just tack welded. Now, welding […] A few weeks ago, Barth was actually making cables (for me!). I took a few pictures as proof that it actually happened. Only one turned out well, so I’ve also included a great picture Juan took of Natalie’s solar head bobbing thing. The 50cm jumper/adapter cable Barth made contains about $200 of parts. I still […] |
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