[time-nuts] COTS cesium standard physics package life

John Ackermann N8UR jra at febo.com
Thu Sep 29 13:50:16 EDT 2016


I think there are two separate issues to consider:

1.  Cesium depletion, which only occurs when the tube is operating with 
cesium oven on, and high voltage at the other end; and

2.  Tube vacuum and other physical aspects that may deteriorate over 
time, whether or not the tube is operating.  The routine ion pumping 
helps keep the vacuum up in storage, but is not as effective as the 
continuous pumping that occurs during operation.

This is guesswork, but I suspect the warranty period was based on (1), 
which is why it is shorter on the high-performance tubes, which deplete 
cesium more rapidly.  There may also have been an assumption that not 
many customers were buying Cs standards and putting them in storage.

John
----
On 9/29/2016 1:16 PM, Ruslan Nabioullin wrote:
> On 09/29/2016 01:03 PM, Bob Camp wrote:
>> 2) How long on average is the tube likely to be useful.
>
> So you are implying that the package life is depleted at a roughly equal
> rate regardless of whether the package is fully operating, has just the
> pump operating, or is completely shut off?
>
> -Ruslan
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