OT Vacuum pump maintenance / repair

$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

This must have been a cheaper vehicle. Most vehicles are built with a pressure switch in the low side which shuts the system down long before it pulls a vacuum on the low side.

useful story snipped

In my particular case, at least one of these cars was open for several weeks while I sent the compressor out for repair, the one with the exploded hose was open for at least a week. I think the drier climate, and the fact that I wasn't operating the compressor with the system open might explain some of it - still, the very different results surprises me. I have pulled a vac (no, I don't have one of the "good" gauges) and just let the pump run overnight on one system - I didn't notice any improvement, but it wasn't worse either, compared to the ones that didn't get this treatment.

On my 59 cad, the car was empty of freeon for probably 30 years - I added freon and it worked (but leaked down after a year or so, I haven't recharged it in a long time) - but it was stored (in very poor shape) near Oildale - a very very dry area.

I wonder - maybe the careful treatment for moisture applies only when the humidity is above 5%? 10%?

Florida - the place where you can walk into the ocean and not notice the change in humidity - that explains a lot

BS. There are no fish or sharks swimming in Florida's air. OTOH, ESD isn't a big problem here.

Right now the least expensive micron/thermistor gage at Network Tool Warehouse is $157. I'm thinking that I'll have to take the risk and do without (doing a long evacuation and changing the vac pump oil once during the process), knowing that the accumulator/dryer will be new. Thanks for the link - I did order an inexpensive flush gun, a few extra qts of vacuum pump oil and a 134A fitting for my vac pump.

Oh???? Isn't that where one of the nation's top lightning research centers is?

jk

Woooooooooooooooooosh! ESD isn't lightning. A lightning strike causes a hell of a lot more damage than a HV discharge you don't even feel. Do you think a wrist strap with a 1 M ohm resistor to ground will protect you from lightning? Have you ever worked in Electronics manufacturing, or even a properly designed repair center? Have you ever certified workstations or soldering tools to comply with a company's ESD procedure and ISO 9001 process?

LAND SHARK !!!!!

come on - has almost everyone lost their sense of humor?

EBAY SHARK !!!!!

Laugh all you want. You auctioned off your mind & soul on eBay, anyway.

A big part of my career in electronics dealt with mission critical systems, and dealing with idiots who thought it was funny to damage them.

Would you like to live downrange of a missile launch, if the command destruct receivers we built were defective?

Or need accurate weather data to save your life and the earth stations we designed & built for NOAA were ESD damaged and they failed due to poor ESD control?

Here's some humor for you: Lick the drill bit in your drill press while it's running to save money on cutting fluid.

But lightning is ESD, sure enough. BIG ESD.

MT - I guess you really do lack all sense of humor - that is very sad, and you have my sympathy - you will perhaps live longer by not responding to my posts if you cannot understand them. I am sorry for you, truly sorry. I will not engage in a debate with you.

How often have you had lighting hit your workbench and leave lecetronics working, but damaged?

Yawn. A lot of people love my sense of humor. Some on this group email me quite often, and I reply with jokes they say they liked. I've never seen anything from you that was remotely funny. You never engage in debate. You just expect people to kiss your ass, and that won't happen.

Magnitude notwithstanding, lightning IS an electrostatic discharge.

Joe

And the sun is a flashlight?

I suppose you have lightning rods on your workbench and a piece of antistatic mat on your roof.

Not quite; the sun is a big fusion reactor, although, come to think of it, both give off light by incandescence (assuming the flashlight is the old style).

As a matter of fact, I do have a (single) lightning rod on my workbench. A few weeks ago, I found a really cool antique twisted copper rod at the flea market. It was six feet tall, had a multicolored glass sphere about 4 inches diameter, in addition to a clear spool-shaped glass piece. The forked tip elements were curved inwards toward each other. I never have been able to justify paying the price dealers get for those old rods, but when he said "Five bucks", I just about tripped over other shoppers to give him the money. It now is lying on the workbench while I try to figure out how and where I will mount it.

I don't have an antistatic mat on my roof, however; since both my house and my garage roofs are metal, it would be somewhat redundant.

Joe

Other than scale, they are both portable lights with a limited life span.

And? It won't prevent ESD (Electro Static Damage) to elctronics on your bench.

Are those roof panels bonded & grounded? If not, you will have a real mess if lightning strikes.

On Tue, 18 May 2010 07:02:33 -0400, Joe wrote the following:

Cool. I'd never seen one until you mentioned it. Here's a hand-crafted one:

It's properly grounded?

-- Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. -- John Adams, December 1770 'Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials'

But that issue wasn't part of your original reply to me.

Yeahbut, you didn't explicitly stipulate grounding in your reply, and I make no claims as to the effectiveness of the metal roof in any other sense than how well it works at shielding my buildings from cumulonimbus discharge.

Joe