[time-nuts] FRSc RB lamp experiment

[Magnus Danielson]

Dear Paul,

On 12/02/11 21:34, paul swed wrote:
> Hello to the group
> Finally received the heat gun this week and attempted to recover a FRS c Rb
> lamp.
> In the bad lamp you can actually see a small silver blob and on closer
> inspection the center of the bulb front has a small circle of something.
> When heated by the normal oven at 177 degrees F the silver blob will move
> around. The center dark area does not.
>
> I wonder if this dark center is attenuating the Rb light.

I bet it is a thin layer of Rb... so yes.

> Do not really want to take the temperature higher. Magnus could remove his
> Rb capsule. The FRS lamp is glued in and I can not get it out.
> My concern is that the surrounding electronics might literally get fried.
> (Suppose it doesn't matter)
>
> Magnus any idea how hot you may have run your lamp to get the stuff to boil
> off and how long at that temperature?

I did not measure the temperature, but I was able to heat it up fairly 
quickly with my small heat-gun, despite the fact that the removal tool 
was cooling it off... maybe I was heating it for 5 min or so... but I 
was able to have the dark shade evaporating.

> In order to prove there is more light I will need to do a lot of re-assembly
> to get the system to the lamp detection stage so I can measure it. The
> voltage had been 1.83 volts before it simply would not work. So anything
> above that would make all this worth while.

It is well worth the effort, but the ability to heat it may vary.

Cheers,
Magnus