Maintenance for M9A

The S2+ ceramic was replaced due to a huge arc flash. The damage caused a hole in the ceramic and SF6 gas leaked out to the vacuum space. The steps to do this replacment were:

• Stoped vacuum pumps, gauges, and shut all isolation/gatevalves/SF6 valves and connections
• locked out all high voltages and water to the separator
• reclaimed SF6 gas from feed-through volume of positive and negative side
• removed positive and negative feed-through cables super carefully without scratching corona shields using guide rods. Made sure the brass connector didn't fall inside the ceramic.
• disconnected the HV , magnet and water connections
• vented the vacuum space with argon gas. Note: when venting with Argon gas, make sure use a mechanical gauge not a convectron gauge!
• removed the argon shut off valve on the north east side and also removed the spare ion gauge from the north-west side of the separator
• disconnected all the grounding wires and other vacuum and controls connection to the Yoke magnet and separator.
• disconnect the copper flat bar conductors of the top/bottom yoke magnet
• craned out top side of Yoke magnet
• removed the bellows from upstream side of the separator ( make sure blank off all the ports/flanges)
• craned out the separator outside of the MESA clean room (work permit is necessary)
• cleaned and dust off the separator completly before rolling to the cleanroom - Separator sat on its yellow stand and was rolled-in using Hilman Rollers
• removed top lid
• removed ceramic flange using guide rods and supports from inside. Made sure the brass connector didn't fall inside the tank.
• There was a few suspicious scratches on the shim covers. 
• The shim covers were polished using a felt wheel on the battery powered die grinder on setting 1 and with white rouge compound.
• Some diamond powder was used to initiate the polishing and to remove the deeper scratches.
• New corona shields were manufactured for the inside end of the ceramic vessels.
• All this was reinstalled with a new ceramic vessel that was painted with SiCoat 570HS.
• Instructions for the coating process is on separate maintenance log.

Pictures can be seen in this link.