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Vacuum

Vacuum

There were neat little cubes that looked to be used to measure an exact amount of mass, as well as some mysterious metal pellets wrapped in what looked like tin foil... I began to wonder how safe this stuff was.

This panel has a NASA tag and a logo reads "Venco Vacuum Gauge Control"; colored buttons on the right set the "torr Range" at 10 to various negative powers, and the meters in the center measure microns and torr. Definitely something I wasn't expecting at an abandoned state school!
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Wow, that sure gets a person wondering!!
Jude
Tue 05-09-2006
If I remember correctly, a torr is a unit of pressure (I believe they use them in blood pressure readings) related to 1 mm of mercury somehow (can't remember now, science was a long time ago!). Having negative pressure would make sense in a vacuum, and I think you found what that giant heat sink was for too! Those metal pellets... dunno. My first thought was mercury, but it would be a liquid at room temperature.
Dr Sketch
Tue 05-09-2006
Definitely some unusual pieces of equipment in this place!
Charisma
Tue 05-09-2006
were they building rockets?
Tom
Tue 05-09-2006
bet you anything this monster still works perfectly
Joe
Wed 05-10-2006
Dammit, all I see is a little dial face.
derelict sensation
Wed 05-10-2006
It appears so Sketch. I have an engineering utility called "Convert" that lists "Torrs". 1 PSI = 51.71 Torrs. 1 Torr = 1 mm of mercury.

This is important stuff to know when somebody wants to use that old equipment to make a Frankenstein monster.
autoguy
Thu 05-11-2006
Possible that this is a vacuum coater - used to deposit very thin layers of metals onto optical glassware...
Bill Door
Fri 05-12-2006
Torr is a unit of pressure, and 10^-something isn't a negative value, just a very very small value. Useful for measuring pressures as you approach a vacuum.
DT
Fri 05-12-2006
I am not familiar with a "vacuum." Isn't that the thing we're supposed to push around the house every year?
Lynne
Fri 05-12-2006
Were they trying to build a magnetic resonance imaging machine? Only thing I can think of.
Amy
Sat 05-13-2006
Well... Dang it... Someone get the Flux-Capacitor and fire the thing up! Let's see what it does!!
Bill Romjue
Tue 05-16-2006
Lynne - I believe you're thinking of a mop. Vacuums sit in the back of your utility closet collecting dust and when boredom sets in they work wonders when scaring cats, dogs, and small children.
CAS
Thu 05-18-2006
Nope, never heard of a mop. Well, somedays that's what they say my hair looks like, but other than that if it falls anywheres in the category of "domesticity," well, let's just say I got a C- out of home ec cooking and a D- out of home ec sewing in junior high (they wouldn't let me near the home ec areas after that). And I think she gave me a higher grade than I deserved because she took pity on me. :-)
Lynne
Thu 05-18-2006
Yes, that's what happened to me with my high school accounting teacher -- she took pity on me and gave me a D so I could graduate. And haven't used accounting since. I'm a great cook, though! hee hee
Janice
Thu 05-18-2006
If it was a question what was it asking?
CAS
Fri 05-26-2006
What were they doing at this school anyway?No wonder it shut down.
Nancy
Tue 05-30-2006
Radiation? Shock treatments?
Nancy
Sun 06-04-2006
Motts - If I may quote your location introduction:

"The facility eventually closed 1990. A university now uses many of the old buildings, as well as storing equipment in the still abandoned ones."

The equipment you are seeing is being stored by the university that is using the property. You are not seeing the many torture devices and experimental machinery used when the facility was open. They took those with them.
CAS
Fri 06-09-2006
CAS,

You are forcing me to take stock in Attends, I am laughing so hard. Stop it! 8`-)
Lynne
Fri 06-09-2006
Gross... I just googled "Attends" and wasn't expecting those.
CAS
Sat 06-10-2006
Never thought I'd need a college education ; looking at these pictures and people trying to explain them. Some of this is WAY over my head!
Nancy
Fri 06-16-2006
HOLY S...
CSA fr USA
Mon 10-23-2006
Torr, millitorr & microns are used to measure high vacuum. A company called Veeco made vacuum gauges, essentially like a light bulb with a long circular filament that had an opening to the vacuum chamber. You had to have a high vacuum in the chamber before you turned the gauge on or the filament would burn out! Someone else hit it right on the nose: it looks like you found an old vacuum metal depostion system, where metals were evaporated onto different types of substrates. I used to do that kind of work / research.
Former Bell Labs guy
Tue 05-08-2007
Man this sucks. (yes bad pun)
Resident Wolf
Sat 09-29-2007
. . ." of Hg vac
Guitorman
Tue 01-22-2008
No matter how strange or expensive it is, you can always count on a piece of school equipment having something written on it with a black Marks-a-lot.
Mike
Mon 06-09-2008
man i wish i was you... not in a creepy way. i just wish i was there. how many of the places you visit still have electricity because it looks like the lights are still on.
TYREX
Tue 11-30-2010

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