Between yesterday and today, Gerardo and I successfully bonded the ears to core optic mass ETM15, destined for LLO for post-O1 eventual replacement.
Ear s/n 195 bonded to S3 flat of mass June 29, 2016
Ear s/n 196 bonded to S4 flat of mass June 30, 2016
The first ear (s/n 195) has a series of bubbles along it's edge, but the surface area of these do not add up to more than the allowed amount as per E1000277, so it passes, see pix attached.
The second ear (s/n 196) has no bubbles and is nice full bond.
Inspection of the bonds this morning showed no change to the nice S4/Ear surface bond.
The small edge bubbles along the S3 Ear have migrated a bit (not worse, just moved a bit). Therefore, we decided to rewet the edge with solution to see if it would wick in and close some of the bubbles. This worked to close one of the larger bubbles, but one bubble continued to morph so we'll reinspect Monday. Note, none of the sizes of the bubbles got bigger, so the surface area of the bubble total remains the same and below spec.
Attached is a picture of what the bubbles in the ETM15 S3 Ear bond look like today (recall, it was bonded last Wed so it has now been over 5 days since initial bond). Apparently over the weekend, the bubbles ran inbound a bit further. I estimate the surface are of the bubbles to be near 20mm sq., still under the 50mm sq. spec. E1000278, although it isn't pretty. I measured the longest streaks to be almost 3mm long, with a width of 0.4mm. There are no bubbles inward from the edge near the center - anything shown in the picture is a camera reflection.
The S4 Ear bond looks unchanged from inspection last week, very good bond, very little bubbles.
Pictures of this ear bond taken by Danny at LLO just before use at LLO, indicate that the bubbles have not changed shape or size since the picture attached July 2016. Phew, said both Gerardo and I.
