Hi,
The desiccator in my lab has been working fine for a year, but now it has become harder and harder to open it. I have changed the grease several times in the past month, cleaning as well as I could the ridges with paper soaked in acetone to remove the old grease before applying new one, but afterwards it was still quite hard to open it. I bought a new grease (https://goo.gl/C2P6E3) and it took me like 25 minutes to get it open the day after applying it.
It might be a nice workout for me, but it can't go on like this, some of the students in my lab can't even open it by themselves, do you know how to solve this? Am I using too little/too much grease?
Thanks in advance,
Nacho
Try to remove all the vacuum first ( if at all you are maintaining it) you can also apply small reverse gas pressure (but generally not advised), apply as small amount of grease as you can, which is just sufficient to prevent air leakage. Low temperature also makes the grease hard, so place the desiccator near hot air fan or heater to make grease loose.
Perhaps using less viscous greas is better. Heating gently with a hair dryer makes it easy to open. Some materials like NaOH destroy the smooth surface of glass and causes the surfaces to stick tightly.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Computer Science and Engineering
- Computer Graphics and Animation
- 3D