• A new vacuum chamber and the beginnings of a sputtering head!

    Steve Hernandez • 11/15/2022 at 03:33 • 0 comments

    A few important developments this past weekend:

    I upgraded the vacuum chamber to a larger size. I picked up a nice 5" round glass vase from a local craft store.  From left to right is the current progression of chambers so far. The far left original chamber was too small and had only a single passthrough for both the vacuum and high voltage. It ended up getting way too hot way too quickly. The middle chamber was suffered from a crack due to running the device too long and generating heat that wasn't dissipated. 

    Another development from the weekend was that I decided to research magnetron design and to construct a sputtering head that will be in the chamber. Using what I learned from various papers and from watching the "Applied Science" channel video on Sputtering - I designed and 3d printed a sleeve that was used to create a metal casting for the magnetron. 

    Shown above are some various parts of the disassembled sputtering head. Hopefully it will all come together this week.

  • Some successes and a failure

    Steve Hernandez • 11/09/2022 at 00:47 • 0 comments

    Had my first failure. After running the device too hot and too long, I heard a snap! I was able to turn off the vacuum before an implosion. Now I need to build another vacuum chamber. Two steps forward, one step back!