too good to be true

Remember the thermometer (see blog header above) I've spent the last four months rewiring and finally got it to work on my birthday?

Well.

We have bigger problems now.
Something was wrong with our power supply or something so the temperature in the calorimeter/cryostat (the thing the calorimeter goes in) was way hotter than the temperature we were reading off the computer and well, the solder holding the calorimeter together melted.

It is now in four lovely pieces and the inside of cryostat is fried.

Instead of rewiring a centimeter diameter, three inch tall piece of metal, we are rewiring the entire three foot tall cryostat. Estimated time of completion(isn't there a better way to say that? I can't think, I have a headache): end of August. Awesome.

I'm sort of grateful though, for all of these mishaps. They have allowed me to really learn all the little details about my instrument and my research in general. With the one postdoc in my group being the only real calorimetry expert in the lab, it's good for me to gain this kind of expertise. So I'm not complaining...

I just never thought I'd say I wish I could just rewire the thermometer again.