Today I opened up Megstat to add indium in between the copper bar joints, with the hopes of speeding up cooldown and informing the thermal model.

Outline of procedure:

• Disconnected RTD pins/sockets and removed suspension from chamber (with test mass)
• Removed inner shield and outer shield from chamber       
  • Cleaned up residual grease/aquadag from cold plate
• Opened up bottom conflat of the T to access ends of the 2 copper bars
• Unbolted copper bars and removed from chamber [Attachment 1]
  • Gave copper bars a good wipe down with isopropyl to remove old grease
• Placed 2 indium gaskets previously prepared by Stephen between joints of the two bars [Attachments 2, 3, 4]
  • Fed the bars back through the chamber tube and placed additional indium gasket between top bar and cold head
  • Placed last indium gasket between flexible strap and bottom copper bar in chamber body
• Bolted up the copper bars, passed through 2 sheets of aluminized mylar to insulate copper bars [Attachment 5]
• Resecured the cold head RTD with spring clamp, inserted mylar "cap" around cold heat [Attachments 6, 7]
• Touched up shields
  • Reapplied grease to bottom lip of inner shield
  • Added some more kapton tape to secure peek sheets to bottom lip of outer shield
  • Reinserted shields, bolted down inner shield
• Reinserted suspension frame with test mass [Attachment 8]
• Reconnected RTDs and closed up

The roughing pump was turned on at 7:20pm, followed by the cryocooler at 7:50pm.