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Re: [Amps] Ion Pump

To: Hardy Landskov <n7rt@cox.net>
Subject: Re: [Amps] Ion Pump
From: "Roger (K8RI)" <k8ri@rogerhalstead.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 22:02:04 -0400
List-post: <amps@contesting.com">mailto:amps@contesting.com>
On 7/20/2014 8:07 PM, Hardy Landskov wrote:

This is well outside my realm of experience. The claim of 1 X 10^-12 would be extremely difficult to obtain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum . So far, I've not found a definitive answer to the actual vacuum required in normal production, power tubes tat are use at amateur power levels, or several times higher.
73

Roger (K8RI)



Roger,
As an EE myself now retired, have any experiments or production units of vacuum tubes been done while the shuttle program was ongoing? Maybe there is the vacuum of outer space that might be better than what's achieveable on earth but you might collect particles floating by as well from space junk that would negate the advantages. Just curious or maybe it's classified....or maybe just impractible.
73 Hardy N7RT


----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger (K8RI)" <k8ri@rogerhalstead.com>
To: <amps@contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2014 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Amps] Ion Pump


On 7/20/2014 3:12 PM, John Lyles wrote:
Although this doesn't have much to do with the building of amplifiers, it does shed insight into some of the complications of making good tubes and how the technology there has impacted other industries.
General Electric was one of the first to recognize that vacuum tubes 
(their Pliotrons and Kenotrons) required better vacuum than the 
Audion's had that were made by DeForest companies. So naturally, a 
lot of development came from GE and also benefited their Xray tubes.
K8RI's experience (below) is helpful here. I am in RF engineering 
and only observe vacuum experts doing their stuff from the 
sidelines. We work hand in hand, of course, in not applying RF power 
until vacuum is sufficient. I know of several instances at particle 
accelerator laboratories where oil contamination from diffusion 
pumps created a costly mess. I didn't think we have them for pumping 
between 10^-1 and -6. The big roughing pumps are indeed rotary. We 
use cryo pumps and ion pumps, maybe the cryos are for in-between? I 
know they have to be regenerated regularly.
I should add that the chilled water or liquid N2 "cold traps" are 
also called "Back gassing traps" whose purpose is to prevent the 
gasses in the pumps from getting into the chambers on which they are 
pumping.  The liquid N2 traps also aid the pumping as they remove 
many molecules of gas. When you fill the N2 trap, the vacuum goes 
down almost immediately, but they are not filled until there is a 
vacuum on the pump or any moisture would freeze to the baffle and 
then slowly sublime, slowing pumping substantially.
The diffusion pump is a very simple device, but might take a bit of 
space to explain.
73

Roger (K8RI)

Our accelerator cavities need to be in the low 10^-7 Torr or we get 
many discharges from the extreme RF voltages there. Electron 
accelerators need much better vacuum. I believe that big tubes must 
be better than -6 to minimize damaging flashovers during conditioning.
73
John
K5PRO

From: "Roger (K8RI)" <k8ri@rogerhalstead.com>
Roughing pumps do not normally get anywhere near the vacuum needed to
start an Ion pump. We used a roughing pump to get to 10^-1 Torr, then a diffusion pump to make 10^-6, (-7.with a liquid N2 cold trap) At that point we'd start the ion pump. Once it was working, we'd valve off the diffusion pump inlet as the ion pump would not work in parallel with the diffusion pump. It would pull oil, or mercury fumes out of the diffusion
pump.

We used ion pumps on a mass spectrometer. It created a beam of ions
containing the material to be analyzed. This beam passed between two
curved and charged plates inside a powerful electromagnet. IIRC the
poles were about 10" in diameter with the magnet weighing around a ton.
However the last time I worked on that was "maybe in or around 1980.

   An ion pump is basically a big diode that collects ions on the
surface, or getter. They have no exhaust. Starting one at the typical
10^-1 Torr of a roughing pump would quickly contaminate the ion pump.
Penning tubes will light up with plasma around 1 X 10^-1. The ionization will go out around 1 X 10^-2. The ion pump would need much better than
that to start.
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