SQUID army

Frame and top cover

There is something happening down in the basement, but what is really going on in the workshop?

Well, as the drag test is coming up it would be cool to have two fully functional prototypes in order to prepare one while the other on is being tested. So I started to produce another prototype and be sure, there are more coming.

However, as the prototypes need to have a functioning cover they will get a top frame and a cover according to a design from Mario.

More SQUID prototypes

Unfortunately the manufacturing of the frame doesn’t seem to be as easy as everyone thought. At first cutting the inner part out just using a jigsaw felt right, but cutting aluminium with a jigsaw is no fun.  So I am back to milling again. I just hope this works out without any incidents this time.

Workshop stories

Georg writes

Getting involved in the team doesn’t take long, especially as the CDR is inevitably coming closer and closer.

The first day I spend on the team David and me where sent to the deep dungeons in the basement where we should manufacture the first mock-up. The main idea is to have a model of the experiment to test the folding of the parachutes and the ejection mechanism for those.

So we got introduced to the machines and started milling the bottom plate. First everything went alright. However after some time, when we actually didn’t even mean to mill anything but wanted to change the position of the milling tool, we cut a deep hole into the rotary table the part was fixed on. I am still thankful and impressed how calm Lasse stayed, because I somehow expected him to lose it. Anyhow, lesson learnt, do never interfere with each other when working on a machine.

The next day we went even deeper into the basement and bent some sheet of aluminium to get the walls. Nothing special there except for the really noisy plate shear that sounded like a small gas turbine.

Some days later I drilled and threaded a couple of holes to set the whole thing together, while David bent some sheet metal as a model for the SCALE-System.
So now we got a preliminary mock-up and it somehow makes proud to produce something for real!