styropyro

the switch

Added 2025-08-16 04:39:00 +0000 UTC

I am absolutely fried after this past month. There has been so much manual labor involved in this project. I've enjoyed it, but I'm pretty worn out to put it lightly. I'm looking forward to finally doing the experiments. I ran out of 4/0 cable so waiting on the new order to arrive is the only thing holding me up now. So, this is a good time to talk about the switch.

It took me a lot longer to build than expected, but it was my first welding project and it seems like it is solid enough for the job now. Machining the copper was absolutely awful and took me forever. I didn't realize I forgot to do 20 of the 3/4" countersinks until after assembling everything, so I had to take it apart and drill all those out. I need better machining tools.

I'm using a winch to load up the switch since I have the internal spring compressed to the point where I can barely pull it back on my own. I felt like the added spring force was necessary to combat the magnetic force that will try opening the switch. I do worry it won't be enough though.

I had to wait to finish the switch until I could finish the rest of the wiring, but at least that went fairly smoothly. The most time consuming part was cleaning every contact point right before making connections. I do this for every single connection individually, since doing a bunch at once means more time exposed to air, which means more oxides, and thus more resistance. I need just 5 more cables until the setup is complete. Tracking says the new cable will be here Monday, so maybe that will be the day of the first shots.