Yesterday I tested one of the heaters that will be used to warm the seismometer housing. I soldered wires onto the heater leads, finished with shrink tubing, and then hooked them up to a power supply. The power supply was set to the max power output that our new temperature controller can provide, which is 18W = (750 mA)(24 V). After the system equilibrated, the small frame piece we were using for the test was at 37oC. This power output was no trouble for heater, other than its adhesive paper backing starting to cook (this backing will be gone once the housing is assembled).
Clarification: the heaters are going to go inside on the aluminum sheets, not between the aluminum and the insulation on the outside. When they're on the inside, we don't have to worry about the heaters burning or melting the foam, and routing the heater wires through the side of the box becomes easier. Thanks to Rana for clearing this up for me.
Lastly, yesterday I drilled the last holes in the aluminum sheeting. These will allow hignes to connect the sides of the lid to the top face of the housing.
Attachment 1: The setup used to test the heater. The heater is the small orange strip laying on the yellow kevlar band, and the silver box on top of the heater is a small piece of the supports that make up the frame. The power supply is on the left, and the thermocouple used to check the framing's temperature is on the right. The power supply reads 25.1V and 0.81 A, and the thermocouple reads 37.1oC.
Attachment 2: Koji and I were wondering where the heater's bad smell was coming from... the paper protecting the heater's adhesive started to burn.
Attachment 3: The new holes that I drilled in the aluminum sheeting yesterday are the smaller ones in the center, that come in sets of two. |