[time-nuts] FRSc RB lamp experiment

[paul swed]

Hello to the group
Finally received the heat gun this week and attempted to recover a FRS c Rb
lamp.
In the bad lamp you can actually see a small silver blob and on closer
inspection the center of the bulb front has a small circle of something.
When heated by the normal oven at 177 degrees F the silver blob will move
around. The center dark area does not.

I wonder if this dark center is attenuating the Rb light.

The experiment.
With power off heated the lamp to 260 degrees F for 15 min. No noticeable
change in the blob that will move in size.
Tried at 280 degrees for 15 min no change again.
On re-powering the lamp I have noticed several good behaviors.
The lamp seems to reliably ignite.
There is maybe more output.

Do not really want to take the temperature higher. Magnus could remove his
Rb capsule. The FRS lamp is glued in and I can not get it out.
My concern is that the surrounding electronics might literally get fried.
(Suppose it doesn't matter)

Magnus any idea how hot you may have run your lamp to get the stuff to boil
off and how long at that temperature?

In order to prove there is more light I will need to do a lot of re-assembly
to get the system to the lamp detection stage so I can measure it. The
voltage had been 1.83 volts before it simply would not work. So anything
above that would make all this worth while.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL