BlueForsxLDFridgeInstallationTimelapse

Installation of the new BlueFors xLD fridge at UNSW in January 2017.
Note this page does not contain technical photos / information. That is elsewhere.

Monday 23rd - unpacking crates and installing frames

Today, with a huge team effort, the lab went from this to this (click for bigger images):

to

Low res timelapse video (9Mb): Day_1_900x600_crf_35.mp4

Tuesday 24th - pumping lines, gas cabinet

Today we hooked up the pumping lines, installed the top-loading mechanism, and connected the gas cabinet. We also took the cans off. The system went from this:

to and finally

Camera 1
Camera 2	Low Resolution (5Mb) CanonDay2-900x600.mp4

Wednesday 25th - connecting power, water and gas.

Today we got 3 phase and single phase power and UPS connections made, while Oleh also managed to connect the nitrogen and cooling water systems. We also set up the additional vibration isolation on the Cryomech cold head, as well as installing the probe loading gallows.

Thursday 26th - leak testing and checking the top-loading mechanism.

Checking it goes in straight:

Friday 27th - putting the magnet on, sealing up cans, pumping out and starting the cooldown.

Today would have been a shorter day if we hadn't discovered two leaks in the vacuum line and OVC cans.

Mon 30th - cooling to base.

Today we enjoyed finding out that the magnet power supply needs two 10A mains sockets, and that the door to the room with our electrical switchboard needs a key that nobody on campus has. After considerable stuffing around Oleh and Juho loaded the mixture from an old dilution fridge (thanks Bob!), and we started cooling the system to base.

Is the 30 year old mixture clean or will it block the fridge? Will there be enough He3? Will it phase separate?

Tue 31st - optimising mixture.

We added 3l more He3 today, with help from Rod and Dave.
Before adding the rate of cooling at 10:40 wasn't great. Adding 2l more He3 and the rate of cooling at 13:00 was much better. After some cooling power tests we added a further litre of He3. System now goes below 7mK (15mK on the probe).

Wed 1st - Testing the magnets.

The system has a 5/1/1 vector magnet. The 5 and 1T magnets worked perfectly. The 1T magnet had a quench at 0.75T, and now doesn't pass current. So we will have to fix that. Until then we have a two axis vector magnet.

Thu 2nd - Changing probes.

Today we tested the probe removal and reinsertion process - all looks good.

Fri 3rd - More tests and warming up again.

Probe 2 reached 12mK, which is nice. After some more cooling power tests, we had to start warming the system up so that we can look at the magnet problem.

Sun 5th - Opening the system up again.

With a bit of encouragement, the magnet is now back at room temperature. Oleh and Juho opened the system up again to diagnose the magnet problem. Hopefully we can get a replacement part and fix it quickly.

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