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Message ID: 85     Entry time: Fri Apr 28 19:00:13 2023
Author: Cao 
Type: Physics 
Category: VAC 
Subject: Tighten CF ports on vacuum chamber 
[Cao]

After Jon's comment yesterday that some of the connection did not seem to have good metal-metal contact, in particular the gate valve connection, I went through the ConFlat connections today and retighten them. I found a lot of the CF connections are not particularly tightened and there were a lot of range left that can be tightened with the wrench. After re-tightening, the copper gaskets are not visible anymore. For example, see the attached images for the difference before and after tightening.

Note for future installation of CF

  • After tightening the bolts/ screws in jumping order (to provide uniform torque) and there is resistance appearing in further tightening, start going through each screw/ bolts in a direction, each time applying a small torque until it resists to further tightened
  • After each time going all the bolts/ screw and returning to the starting point, one will find they can further tighten the screws/ bolts. Repeat the process until no further tightening can be achieved
  • The copper gasket should not be clearly visible at the connection

Attachment 1: TightenCF.png  12.707 MB  | Show | Show all
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