After all the re-organising of the clean room, The Boss found himself a cozy new office - conveniently close to the emergency exit...
The Strumpfer clan's returned to Sutherland - welcome back guys! - just in time to celebrate the Papa Bear's birthday :)
After pigging out on Francois' birthday munchies, we returned to the tracker for a close-up look at where the SAC attaches. The old (problematic) interface is the central aluminium ring in the image below, while the 9 disks just outside that ring mark the new attachment points for the SAC's aluminium collar.
These 9 points needed to be measured with the Faro Arm, which was hoisted up to the SAC installation platform on the dome crane.
The SAC installation platform's not the most accessible place in the world if you aren't travelling by dome crane... From the tracker access platform, one has to clamber down onto the bottom of the tracker bridge before making your way back up to the ledge that projects horizontally from the bridge.
A temporary Faro mounting base was bolted to the tracker bridge.
& the Arm securely attached.
With that, the Birthday Boy was put to work setting up a coordinate system based on the old interface ring & then measuring the Z values of the new attachment points. Looking quite relaxed for someone making Faro measurements while perched >11m above the telescope floor... :}
And that's one of the many wonders of the Faro Arm (for sale here in Canada). The tool's very valuable in coordinate measuring. Here in the manufacturing company where I work for, it has helped us in more ways than one. It's just as wonderful as 3D laser scanning services.
ReplyDeleteSo how did your measurement of the 9 disks go?