❗ Tarkin Status & Updates

Space Teams LASERS
1

As many laser folks know, Tarkin was running at a diminished capacity for an extended period of time recently. I believe it is back to full power, however we have not received confirmation of the current power level from @dannym yet.

When a significant disruption to machine use like this occurs, it is important to us on the leadership team that members are well informed about it. @dannym, please use this thread to update members and the leadership team on the items I’ve been requesting in our email thread:

  1. How did Tarkin get to the state of operating at half capacity?
  2. What is the current power of Tarkin?
  3. Why did it take over a month to repair?
  4. What will be done differently in the future to prevent such long lapses in the machine being in full working order?

We don’t want to see problems like this occurring in the space. We also don’t want any single individual to carry the stewarding weight for an entire shop area. This has largely been the case for the lasers and is something we’d like to change. We are a community and should be working together to keep our space and machines running. As a community, we should also be sharing our knowledge and expertise with each other to further expand our collective knowledge. If you’re interested in exploring being a laser steward and expanding your knowledge on lasers or sharing your laser machine expertise, please speak up!

2

Moving the respond I typed here-

Tarkin is back to running on its full system as of 6/29.

All CO2 lasers fade with use, and we’ve put an exceptional number of hours on it. Nothing gets replaced, it does need a regas to get back up to its maximum power. It’s time to do that now. We will not involve extended downtime during that as there are backups to work from.

3

Thanks for sharing the answers to 1 & 2 here for the full membership to read @dannym. Looking forward to reading your responses to 3 & 4.

4

Had probs with the temporary backup component swap, putting Tarkin at half power for now. This will be resolved when we get the backup sources regassed, and will keep fresh backups after that.

5

What does this mean, Danny? And how long will the replacement take?

6

It’s about two weeks to get refurbished to full power- which will be significantly more than you’re used to.
It’s usable in the meantime.
I may have another one to swap in this week to get better power until we get the refurb done.