[time-nuts] PRS10 dying from old age...

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Sun Oct 14 02:26:02 UTC 2012


On 10/13/2012 11:19 PM, paul swed wrote:
> Poul
> If it is dying there should maybe be a lamp voltage you can check and see
> what it indicates. If you consider it dead then you can always checK to see
> is it something going on like low RF or maybe the RB truly is an issue. I
> have recovered some olf FRS by reheating the rb bulb and essentially
> getting the RB that collects on the bulb back into circulation.

What I did was that I heated it up with an air gun. First try, it 
depleted onto the glass, but then I realized that I had left the 
collection dot to the side, so it had to deplete on the colder glass, 
but when I turned the collection dot to the top of the lamp and then 
heated, as the hot atom raised to the top, they would deplete into the 
rubidium dot and the glass surface would be free of them. The later is 
important, because if they deplete on the glass, then they will absorb 
the wavelengths of rubidium and this is the energy you want to get out 
of the lamp.

I was fortunate as the R&S rubidium is built such that you can get the 
rubidium lamp out of the clock without even turning it off. The special 
tool you need is part of the assembly.

Looking at the graphs, you have had some intermittent operations with 
glimpses of operation. I wonder if this is the lamp. You can open it up 
and check the lamp, it may be part of your problem. I would look for 
contact problems, like bad solder joint or something.

Cheers,
Magnus



More information about the time-nuts mailing list