Estimate reading time: 3 minutes
I accidentally skipped several levels in my research and bought a helium leak detector. It was located in France so I had to ask seller to arrange a shipment to Czech republic and.. it arrived yesterday! It is Alcatel ASM 51, 30 years old machine, but if it is working it will be much mightier tool than I actually need 😉 Ron Soyland offered me remote assistance in firing it up (to be honest, I would be hardly able to get it to work without him, thank Ron!), so with little luck it must work!
It weights 150kg, 40kg weight the roughing pumps inside..
Well packed..
Looks like a new machine!
Pumps, I like the vintage look of the Alcatel mark here..
Wow, no clue how it works.. Hope Ron have 😉
The tube with black cap in the left down corner is main inlet port, the tube in the center is cold trap nitrogen trap (I wont use that). Next to the trap is a diffusion pump (with a fan on it). 3 orange things on the left are electronic valves.
Disassembled..
Roughing pumps..
Update 5. July 2012:
Some vacuum sensor, pirani I guess. It looks like a homemade one 😉
Probably also some sensors, there is large magnet around it.. Do You know someone what is that? Update: this is spectrometer tube 😉 Thanks Ron!
No idea what is this.. Update: it is a molecular sieve trap, thanks to Lindsay!
Strange thing in the center..
Overall view, pump installed
Perfectly clean cold trap bottle – where the liquid nitrogen could be filled..
Cold trap itself..
L.R.B.A means probably french “Laboratoire de Recherches Balistiques et Aérodynamiques”.. I know from the seller that this piece comes from French Army research labs, nice story..
I hope everything is OK there, don’t want to look for errors in electronics 😉
The sensors with magnet from the top..
Some counter build into construction.. Maybe a run hours counter, we will see..
counter from the side..