BW September 2018

9/6: Jim replaced the RBC55 UPS batteries for the APC SUA2200. There were four replacement batteries. He took out the old battery cartridges but had to keep the connections and covers for them to use on the new batteries. The new batteries just had to be screwed together and wired the same way the old ones were. Jim put packing tape around them to hold them together. There was a piece of foam that may have been between the old cartridges. Now it is between the new batteries.

9/7: I put a blue strap around newly cut light guides that look good enough to polish and use in normalization. The black strap is on ones that have flaws. I will decide next week which ones I should polish. There are a few extras that can wait, but one of the fibers is bent because I was pulling when it was wrapped around the axle in the spool storage box.

I should write a more extensive note next week about what happened with that spool storage box today.

9/8

Incident While Cutting Light Guides

Last Friday I was cutting light guides. I came to a place where two sections were taped together. As I was supposed to do, I cut off the parts that were in contact with the tape.

A little after that the fiber suddenly stopped unreeling from the spool. I pulled hard to try to get it moving again, but not much would come out of the spool storage box.

When I explained the problem to Jim, he said I may have pushed the fiber back into the box at some time, and it had come off the spool. Now it was caught on the pipe that holds the spools. I was pulling the fiber taut around the pipe, and it wouldn't go any farther.

Jim was right about what happened. We had to open the spool storage box again, and Jim added an empty spool to try to keep the problem from recurring. My pulling put a sharp bend in the fiber where it was caught on the pipe.

I should avoid pushing the fiber back into the spool storage box as much as possible to prevent this problem.

I think this mistake happened because I had heard that it might be good to pull the fiber a little beyond the stop in case it slips back. As I was cutting the first few fibers, I pulled one out too far, then pushed it back into the box. It would have been better to move the cutting board farther from the box than to push the fiber back.

I think I should either take the fiber no farther than the stop or only very slightly beyond it.

9/14: I turned down the outlet pressure for the big compressor today as I was trying to clean the polishing sandpaper. It was set at 89 PSI for fusing. When I am done using it for polishing, I should set it back to 89 PSI to be ready for fusing again, whenever that is.

9/18: I made Kapton straps since the canned air had not arrived.

I also polished bundle 501 for a while with 400 grit. Jim made an extension for the compressor nozzle yesterday. I cleaned the sandpaper with the compressor air and took pictures of the cleaned sandpaper. Compressor air is still not as effective as canned air. It does keep the sandpaper fairly clean, but it doesn't remove all spots of fiber dust from polishing. As long as I clean the sandpaper very frequently, the spots remain small. If we really do need to get everything off, we will need the canned air or some other solution for the compressor.

I wonder if it would be feasible to 3D print something to put inside the compressor nozzle rather than outside. That might be a way to make a smaller outlet for the air.

9/19: I made Kapton straps as I was waiting for the canned air to come. I tried using wider tape than I did yesterday but kept getting air bundles, so I went back to the narrow tape. There is probably still a lot of work to do on the edges. I found it difficult to make the holes through the washers. Maybe more tape will have to be removed around the holes there.

Since I picked up the canned air around 4:30, I put the straps away in the usual box for straps.