Heat Chamber Improvements

Organize electronics used to control, monitor, and power the chamber for better accessibility.

These adjustments made using the chamber easy and were put to use many times as I used the chamber during testing. 

The heat sink that acted as the heat source for the chamber suffered issues where the power resistors would become displaced in their casings from repeated thermal expansion/contraction. This caused the solder that held them to break, which in turn led to more power passing through adjacent resistors which would eventually crack and brake. 

Mount power resistors to the heat sink such that the casings and internals cannot move. 

• Removed all old resistors and cleaned the heat sink

• Used Solidworks to create a drill template for holes to attach the resistor casings and bolts that would 'cap' either end of the casings

• Printed out the drill template on paper and calibrated the image size, reprinted with accurate scale

• Used the drill template to create holes in the base aluminum plate using a drill press

• Tapped all of the drilled holes and attached all of the casings making sure to add thermal paste underneath

• Delivered the heatsink to a technician who soldered all of the connections

• Due to the proximity of the bolts to the solder joints there was a problem with electrical shorts, so kapton tape was added to fix this issue 

• Tested the new heatsink in the chamber 

The improved heatsink did not experience the same problems as the old one and proved to be more robust through the rest of the testing.