(Corey, Gerardo, Vern, Betsy on phone)
9am - 10am
As noted earlier, TCSy CO2 Laser was down and we had a chiller flow alarm.
Went out to the Mezanine to assess the TCSy Chiller. Here's what was noted for the chiller:
- Had power (it was NOT tripped OFF).
- LCD window stated: WARNING! LOW LEVEL
- The fluid level indicator was completely empty (!)
- We also went out to the TCSy Table area and noticed lots of air bubbles in the clear tubing...it was also noticeably loud.
- Returned to Chiller.
First thing we did was start filling the Chiller (there was a little "DISTILLED LABORATORY WATER" [1st pic], ended up filling remainder with a jug labeled "Premium Distilled Drinking Water" [2nd pic]). It took about 3L before we saw the float indicator move from EMPTY. After that it was filling 0.5L at a time and watching. We took it up to about 6L and had a level near FULL. As we were chatting for a minute or two, we noticed water pooling at the base of the front of the TCSy Chiller (!) [3rd pic].
Investigated by removing the resevoir cover assy (this cover allows you to see resevoir filters and also holds the cap for filling it). We could clearly see RETURN water splashing all over the place due to the Stainles Steel mesh RETURN filter [4th pic]. Water was easily escaping this resevoir by having some water flow out of the resevoir & down the exerior panels of the Chiller and dripping on the floor. (In contrast to TCSx Chiller [5th pic] which was a pristine and calm waterfall from the RETURN down into the resevoir.)
Removed the mesh filter & reseated it. It wasn't trivial. Our first attempt did not look as nice as TCSx. Vern reseated again but this time flipped the mesh filter, and this time it looked much better [6th pic] (& more importantly, similar to TCSx). The OUTPUT "coffee filter" looking filter (which has been noted as being partly green) looked like it had an air bubble under it. We tried pushing it down, but it didn't help. But overall, we looked better after reseating the mesh filter. When reinstalling the Resevoir Cover, we saw a tab under it (most likely to keep the mesh filter in place); our guess is the mesh filter might have been dislodged by this tab when the resevoir was reinstalled yesterday); see [7th pic]
Since we lost some water due to the leak we witnessed, we topped off the Chiller again with another 0.5L (so total of 6.5L was poured, with some splashing out).
After we were done at the Chiller, we went out to the TCSy table area. We looked inside the enclosure to make sure there wasn't a puddle of water (there wasn't). We then turned on the laser controller. (The water tubes were much quieter than before...no visible air bubbles.).
