Construction of the Full-Scale Tagger Microscope

Current Work
We are currently in full scale construction mode, working full time on building the fiber bundles. If you want to see our previous construction goals you can access them below.

Previous Construction Goals

A List of Specifications/Manuals for Items in Lab 405
This page has the documentation for the various procedures and pieces of equipment that are used in the bending tank, the splicing unit, and elsewhere in 405.

Documents for 405

LabView Program
This page details the work that has gone into the LabView program that was written to control the heaters and pumps for the bending tank in 405.

LabView Program Explanation

Temperature Measurements
This section describes the work that has gone into the construction of the thermistor for the bending tank in 405. It also has some materials devoted to describing the function and properties of a thermistor and the method used to build the one used here.

Thermistor Construction Journal

Water Tank Information
Water Tank Instructions and Diagrams

Pictures

=Miscellaneous Fiber Testing=

Below are the various tests that were conducted on the fibers to determine their durability when in contact with the alcohol that will be used to clean them. Also included are the strength tests that were conducted on the fibers that were fused with the old ferrules.

Alcohol Tests

Epoxy Tests

Strength Tests
In order to test the transverse strength of the fused bonds created with the splicing unit, fibers were fused and then broken in order to test their strength. The size of the fiber and the fused joints were measured and recorded as well as the mass that each fiber held on the fuse point before breaking.

Below is are links to the Google Spreadsheets of the raw data and graphs. It is interesting to note that, in the first test, the joints that expanded the most were also the joints that withstood the most transverse force. This may have been because the fibers that did not fuse successfully were the fibers that did not melt all of the way, and consequently did not fill up any extra space that may have been in the glass ferrule.

The expanded joints in the second test did NOT turn out to be good indicators of bond strength as I had previously thought.

Strength Test 1 (Completed April 4, 2013)

Strength Test 2 (Completed April 12, 2013)

=Ferrule Measurements=

In hopes of understanding the bulge in the spliced region of the fibers, the ferrules they are spliced in were photographed under a microscope and measured using a tracker program that allows for in-photo calibration and measurement. The ferrules were placed as perpendicular to the table as possible in order to get the most flat, head on shot of the ferrules. The error in the measurement of the angles was quite high. Moving the compass only a little bit (in the tracker program) lead to very different degrees read. Because of this I would estimate the angle to be off anywhere from +- 1-2 degrees. I would say that the lengths measured have an error on the order of +- .05-.1 mm

Measurement Photographs

New Ferrule Measurement Photographs

=Quality Control Procedures= Fiber transmission measurements were carried out in Lab 402 using a flash ADC and a VME-based data acquisition system that was loaned to UConn by Jefferson Lab. Our contact at Jlab for this system is Alex Somov. Setup and operation of the CODA data acquisition platform is described here.

=Microscope CAD Drawings=

Collar Drawings

Popsicle Stick Drawing

=Lab Journals / Research Progress=

Ann Marie's Lab Journal
In the past I had kept my journal in a Google Document.

December 2012

January 2013

February 2013

July 2013

Jonathan Kulakofsky's Lab Journal / Research Progress
January, 2013

February, 2013

March, 2013

April, 2013

July, 2013

Liana Hotte's Lab Journal / Research Progress
Jan 2013

Feb 2013

Mar 2013

Apr 2013

Summer 2013 Work Journal

Aaron Carta's Lab Journal
My day-to-day log can be found here.

John Bartolotta's Lab Journal / Research Progress
JB Student Worker Log, Summer 2013

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