April 2020 Newsletter

COVID-19

To our valued customers and reliable suppliers:

We are putting the safety of our employees first. Our staff is taking extra precautions with hygiene and preventative measures as recommended by the CDC. Our Sales and Support Staff will be Telecommuting. They can be contacted directly via email or the phone numbers below:

Colin (970) 294-1853
Dan (970) 415-7259
Jim (970) 786-6218
Bruce (970) 215-7017

We have been monitoring our supply chains since January and we currently do not see any unusual changes. Our current inventory is healthy and we will let you know if there are shortages as we see them.

We will post the latest and all necessary updates on this website.

We will work through these new challenges as they arise and keep you informed.

We appreciate in advance everyone’s understanding of the situation.

Other news:

Our Optical Monitor (OM) is slated for installation next week.  We are planning on running preliminary tests in the near future.  Shortly after that we should be ready for customer demonstration.  Send your samples our way!

Quick Tech Tip

Proper maintenance on molybdenum grids is to clean them after about 250 hours of process operation. Removal of the grid assembly (and discharge chamber) is fairly straight forward. Installation can be tricky because the gas isolator needs to slide into the discharge chamber before the mounting hardware is attached. At the same time the Beam and Accel spring tabs need to make contact. To make life easier, install two 10-32 threaded rod pieces that are ~1.5″ in length into 2 tapped holes on the shroud. With care, slide the grid mount assembly (grids and discharge chamber) onto the threaded rods and slowly bring it to the shroud.  The threaded rods will help guide the alignment of the spring tabs and allow for an even installation of the hardware. Replace the threaded rods with standard mounting screws.