Physics307L F08:People/Dougherty/Notebook/070910

==Cary M. Dougherty 13:32, 11 September 2007 (EDT)

summary
we began by setting up the lab as instructed in the manuel. origionally it said we needed a stand which wasn't in the box but after thinkin about it, we realized the only reason for it was to make the setup eyelevel in order to keep from moving it during the experiment. since we were on a table that was fairly high we decided to move on with out it. the experiment went on exactly as planned from the manuel. we had 500 V set up to the capacitors when we needed it. the light was plugged in and we had the thermister measured to resistance so we could see how hot the bulb was to incorporate that into our calculations in the end results. since the bulb would be on the entire time it said to measure the resistance every 15 min because with the change in temp, there would also be a change in resistance.

now with a small hole in the top of the capacitor and a small hole in the bottom, the entire drip system would work as a vacuum. the spray would come from the top and then air from the atomizer would push into the drip container and force oil into the space between the capacitor because the air would have only one way to flow. pushing air from the top through the holes and out the bottom of the capacitor. at this point we could not get any oil into the space between the capacitors. we had the lens focused by the focusing wire earlier but we could not see any oil drip or spray into view. we had the lights off and multiple times we tried different techniques. we tried fast sprayin with lots of oi.. slow sprayin with only small amounts of oil.. we tried with the capacitors plugged in with 500 V.. lights on or off we were supposed to see a small amount spray into view through the eye piece. we worked on it for about an hour. then devon was able to come in and we explained the situation. and what we were doing. he wanted to see how we were doing the experiment so we showed him while he followed in the manuel. he helped us for about half an hour to 45 min. he couldn't see why there was no oil in the spacer. one experiment we did find oil in the spacer. it looked like there was way too much though and the magnified view would've never caught it as it came into the spacer.

conclusion day 1
at this point, my conclusion for the first day is that there could still be cloggs in some of the holes. there might be a problem with the eyepiece, such as dirty or off center as i pointed out to proff. koch. but i think the main problem is the technique of spraying. i think it has to be done exactly right to get the intended results. a long spray then slow sprays pushing only air through and no more oil. we tried this also but it still wouldn't come out in the desired way. but we still may not have been doing it exactly right....