Now that I’ve gotten the basics of lathe work (HAH) I’ve machined a pair of low voltage feedthroughs using copper for the conductor, PTFE for the insulator, and aluminum for the KF flange (threads are bad for high vacuum). Hopefully this will work and be a lot less leaky than the last ones.
I found a local eBay seller with a well-used 10″x12″ bell jar, and I had to buy it. I have so much more room for activities now! Also, I’m no longer at risk of the salad bowl shattering. I honestly have no idea how close that thing was to giving out considering it was under at least a thousand pounds of stress when under vacuum.
I purchased a tungsten boat for metal evaporation and used some aluminum wire to try my hand at thermal evaporation in my high vacuum chamber. It works! I got a mirror finish on my first try.
I drilled and tapped the copper feedthrough and connected the variac and transformer to create a variable low voltage, high amperage source inside the chamber. Now I just need to connect the tungsten wire or boat and it should be good to go.
For the thermal evaporator I’m in need of a feedthrough capable of handling at least 200A while being able to hold a vacuum and be electrically insulated from the aluminum base. For starters I’m attempting to make them from a threaded pipe fitting and a 3/8″ copper rod glued in with JB-weld. I have no idea if this is going to work.
I salvaged a giant transformer from a microwave and wound two turns of 4 gauge wire instead of the secondary. This should theoretically give me a couple hundred amps for thermal evaporation in the future.
I’ve wired up the power supplies for the vacuum gauges and the turbopump. I’m going to avoid sticking my hand in there while anything is plugged in…
Well, the time has come to start putting the turbopump into a proper table. I don’t have thousands of dollars of stainless steel, so a cheap wooden table will do the trick. I also have a glass salad bowl as a simple bell jar. I think it will hold the vacuum- hopefully no explosions :/
The turbomolecular pump and baseplate is assembled and I’m using a stainless steel stock pot as a makeshift chamber. I connected it to the giant Leybold pump for backing and everything looks good!
I’m making a baseplate for my first high vacuum system and holy crap do I need some real machine tools. It took me an hour to get through this 1″ thick aluminum with a tiny drill press and a 4″ hole saw. Then afterwards I had to jerry-rig a sanding drum to smooth it out sufficiently. Safe to say I blew the tolerance and the hole is significantly oversize, but it’ll work.
