JK Fall 2013

This semester was spent mostly under Alex soldering various boards. I completed all of the Backplanes and all of the other boards that needed to be done. The only parts that are not filled are the individual LIMOS for the top and bottom rows which were left open on purpose.

I also fixed one of my three pulse generators that was broken. The issues with the board that I fixed were that some of the grounding wires were not connected properly and there was a short circuit underneath one of the surface mounted resistors. Once those issues were resolved the board worked properly. The other two boards that are not working appear to be broken because of the transistors. The process of making the transistors avalanche only works 82% of the time so the current thought on why they do not work is just that we got unlucky with the two transistors that are on the boards. Unfortunately we do not have very many spare transistors, otherwise I would replace them. However, they are not a very high priority to purchase since we already have three working pulsars and can only use two at a time.

Other than those two tasks I help Ann Marie with various stages in the fiber bundle production throughout the semester. I am currently helping to polish, fuse, straighten, measure, and cleans the fibers.