Minutes of the Tracker Technical Meeting

January 10, 2001

Gwelen reported on progress with the thermal testing of conductive adhesives at UCSC. The system has been tried out using silver loaded epoxy, for which the conductivity was not affected within our testing range (see attachement). They also tried gluing together six test pieces with the Nusil 2646conductive adhesive, 4 with 150 micron glue and 2 with thinner or thicker. None of them held together. There was some bonding, but with minimal strength. They ordered some primer from Nusil to see if it would solve the problem. Nusil said that their product should stick to aluminum but not gold.

Tom said that they should make a sample with the planned patter of two adhesives. He wants to talk to Gwelen about the test procedure. Ossie said that the pattern is 15 mm centers, with 9mm dots 150um high.

Gwelen also talked about progress on the right-angle interconnect. UCSC is building prototypes with Pisa pitch adapters. They did a bend test on the Kapton circuit, finding no damage to either the covered or uncovered sections. They now are making 2 pieces with chips and wire bonds to the Kapton, to test the encapsulation procedures. Alec already has glued one adapter to a BTEM board but is now machining G10 blocks to the size of the new MCM design. UCSC will send a sample to Pisa and will soon begin layout of a new pitch adapter, to the final design.

Ossie reported that the glue application machine is in the construction zone at SLAC and still unpacked.

Luca reported that a database for detector testing is available on the Pisa web site. It contains all the info from Hartmut’s data sheet. The data can be input via a web form. It is also compatible with Excel, and the output can either go to tables or to Excel. Hartmut said that he will fill in some data. Luca will present this system at the software meeting and will also report on how to expand it to ladders, trays, and towers. We need to agree on an Excel template for input. Luca, Gloria, and Nick are coming from Pisa to the software meeting.

Sandro reported that Pisa will make some updates to the production schedule. They would like to overlap the ladder and tray assembly times. They will provide their input to Tom by Monday. Hartmut said that in the schedule he made he assumed 600 ladders per month. Pisa’s change might allow that to go back to 500. Sandro said that Pisa now estimates 2.5 hours per ladder.

Sandro said that Monday, January 29 is now the most probable date for Pisa to participate in an engineering meeting in Los Alamos. Erik said that the 7^th of February or later is not good for Hytec.

Pisa still has not received the detectors from HPK, which seem to be sitting in Zurich.

Sandro reported that they have measured the tungsten plates and found them to range from 0.61 to 0.75 mm in thickness. They are discussing with industry how they might compensate for the thickness with glue. He also said that they cannot machine the stuff with regular cutting tools but will try wire EDM. Ossie said that wire EDM is what they use at SLAC, although water jets can also work.

Ronaldo said that Nick and Gloria will bring back to Pisa some DAQ items at UCSC. Wilko said that he would like to keep some connectors for BFEM spares.

Erik reported that PCI received the facesheet drawings and started fabrication. They will deliver in about 3 weeks. The carbon-carbon material is delayed. Erik is calling every other day. They expect to deliver on January 19. Hytec is now focusing on the assembly tooling. The concept is nailed down.