Wet micrometer

[Evan]

That gave me a chuckle.

Several years ago a co-worker baked a few potatoes in our 10kw convection oven that we had for die work.

He set the thermometer for 400 degrees, centigrade. Not much left of those potatoes.

Heh. Back in the early '60s I was assisting my father with his research on fusion at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He was using a coaxial reactor design to quantify plasma instability modes. The plasma was created by a microwave injector with an output of about 20,000 watts. The wave guide had a few ports in it for assembly purposes.

We did a few calculations and some trials and figured out the precise time required to heat up a danish in the waveguide. The injector could be controlled to millisecond intervals. I don't recall the exact timing but it was only a few milliseconds to make a danish too hot to touch. There were a few "experimental failures" during the trials.

[bborr01]

Am I the only one here with an air compressor? I would want to get as much of the water out as soon as possible after taking it apart. Compressed air would do this.

I have not seen anyone else recommend using compressed air to get the water out of the mic. Am I missing something?

Brian

[garagemark]

Compressed air is a great tool, but only if you have a GOOD air dryer; otherwise it can do almost as much harm as good. warm wet air is not good.

I've never been a big fan of "taking it apart" unless there is little recourse. If the mic has been wet for a short amount of time, I would simply use a slow heat source to evaporate the water out. It's unlikely that the tool would turn into a giant rust ball in a short amount of time. And the lubrication that is already on the tool is probably somewhat protecting the guts anyway and will not be lost.

I had a caliper get wet once, and I placed it on a stove element; the one that has the oven vent in the center. Then I turned the oven on very low. The heat vented through the element dried things up quite well with no ill effects to the workings.

If the mic has been wet for a long time, as in constant condensation, then yes, it should probably come apart and be well cleaned and re-oiled.

2 cents,
Mark