[time-nuts] Rubidium cell or lamp rejuvenation. WAS-HP 5065A owners, a question!

[cdelect at juno.com]

There are two separate Rubidium migration problems.

The first is Lamp flooding which occurs when too much Rubidium enters the
main bulb and plates onto the bulb envelope. (usually after long storage
or storage at high temperatures) This mainly in the small telecomm
Rubidiums due to design flaws. The 5065A is immune to this problem and I
believe the PRS10 is also.

The second is cell flooding where too much Rubidium enters the resonance
cell and blocks the light.
This is mainly a 5065A problem although older Varian V4700 and R20 units
also can be effected.
The procedure in the manual cools the tip of the stem and collects the
Rubidium back where it belongs!
This takes about a week and then after reconfiguring the TED back to
normal cooling levels another week to stabilize the Rubidium level in the
cell. Telecomm units have "starved" cells and don't exhibit this effect.

Cheers,

Corby