LOL well "guess what" didn't make it. According to the last "update" it left Boise 11AM. So I guess the aircrew switched to the "drop tanks" put 'er on autopilot and went to bed. It's probably the one I hear go overhead every few hours!!!
THE GOOD note is another delivery (expected) came, a "fancy" new CHINESE built Robinair 15500 vacuum pump This is nothing to write home about. Cheap, Chinese, non repairable throw away junk. But I can still pump down (and it turns out maybe enough) with my old pumps, and put this on for the last "microns."
I ALSO found that all this junk I bought with the ancient thermocouple gauge tubes and controller was somewhat worthwhile. I don't have a lot of money in these, and "plenty" of material to work with. One tube does not seem to work well, but it's a "different series" and may actually be wired differently
This is one old controller and it seems to work just fine. what the tubes are is a thermocouple welded to a tiny precision heater. The power supply/ controller feeds a tiny AC current to the heater, and the thermocouple measures the heat output by generating an output. The deeper the vacuum, the less heat is dissipated from the assembly. The meter reads backwards. "To the left" is deeper vacuum, and "more heat" stays in the TC unit
Two of the tubes I bought for 20. Both work. Had to soak the internals in isopropyl shake them up as the heater/ tc gets contaminated sometimes. "The new pump" will pull down less than 200 approaching 150 microns according to this "old ****." the old pumps barely wiggle the 1000 micron which would have been enough had I been sure
