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

[paul swed]

Well may be not a blow torch. Many of us have used a clean heat gun to do
the trick at least on the small bulbs. It works really well and seems to
return the reference to the optical levels that it started out at. It works
I did this some 5 years ago and the units are still good. (Operate lock and
reasonable light)
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Sat, Oct 26, 2019 at 12:01 PM JF PICARD via time-nuts <
time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:

>  Sorry, but I don't agree with your first statement about the 5065A :
> after long use, the rubidium plates on the inner enveloppe of the lamp
> (like silver on a mirror) and years after years the Rb light and photo I
> decreases. Finaly, adjustement becomes imossible. The solution (as
> described a long time ago by Mr Lazarus -- HP standards in Geneva--) was a
> little bit wild and tricky : put out the coild (which ignites the lamp) and
> heat the lamp with a blow torch to get the rubidium vaporised again into
> the lamp.     On Friday, October 25, 2019, 10:09:55 PM GMT+2, <
> cdelect at juno.com> wrote:
>
>  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
>
>
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