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Building a Personal Clean Room?
eagleyezx asks: "I have a rather large basement with nothing currently sitting in it (I moved all my crud to my garage). Since I am really into space and satellites, I have a satellite all designed. It's kinda based on one of the Amsat designs, but all it really does it beep, just like Sputnik. However, I would need a sterile clean room to build one that would function properly and not go beserk in orbit. I know everyone out there has thought about this at least once? Has anyone ever built a room like this? Any suggestions on equipment?" If you had the drive to do something like this, what would you need to do to be able to build a workshop that would even come close to "clean room" standards. Has anyone ever built an airlock on the cheap?
If you can afford to put a satelite up in orbit, can't you find a a better place to work that a basement?
So you don't give the spacemen a deadly (to them, harmless to us) cold when it crashes on their planet?
Is that like military and intelligence?
seriously though I really don't think it is possible. Though to start with you would need:
1) A large air conditioner
2) Several filters of variing ratings (start with normal airconditioner filters then move to heppa filters then ionization filters and liquid filters
3) A way of sealing the room completely maybe like the thermal sprays they put on buildings (it is air tight and non brathable IIRC)
4) a decent multistage airlock
5) Appropriate dress
Seriously the trick to a clean rom is all in keeping things out. so a good start is to us ethe previously filtered air to create an over pressure area inside teh clean room. This if there are any leaks they would be to the outside not the inside. Good luck
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Satellites won't go bezerk in orbit if they're not built in a clean room. Especially a beeper like the one you envision. You've got your horse before your cart too. When you build this thing, how are you going to get it into orbit? For that matter, when you build this thing, how are you going to get it out of your basement? The satellite and mounting hardware and mating ring to attach to the rocket are not going to fit up your stairs!
Anyway, just in case you are the next Werner von Braun, I wouldn't like to be remembered by history as "that guy who treated a genius rudely" I will answer your question. Remember the train conductor who was wrongly blamed for making Edison deaf when he actually saved his life? You know what I'm talking about...
Take a look at pages written by those who paint their cars at home in their garages. To get those nice smooth paint jobs there can't be any dust around.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
(I was on the ASU Sat1 team. && !(I know what I'm talking about))
Go to radio shack! Buy all your parts there.
If you're a farmer, build it in the pig pen. If you're not a farmer, find a farmer.
If it can work under those conditions, it can work anywhere.
You do know, the larger you build the thing, the less likely you'll ever get it launched. If you can build it tiny and light, you may actually get a shot at it. If it's going to be small, then you ought to be able to build it in a glove box. Take the money you'd have to spend on a clean room and use it to help miniaturize the thing.
Clean rooms are rated as class 1, class 10, class 100, class 1000 and class 10,000. The numbers are the maximum count of 0.5 micron sized particles permitted in a cubic foot of air. The old federal standard for clean rooms is FED STD 209E, recently replaced by the international standard ISO 14 644. I'm guessing the ISO standard costs bucks and the FED standard is probably free so pick and choose. A class 1000 clean room would not be that hard to build and maintain. Clean, painted surfaces all around, some sort of air filtration system with positive pressure, no textiles, pencils, powdered gloves allowed. You'd have to wear clean room smocks, booties and bonnet. The room would have to be vacuumed daily (with a vacuum exhausting to the outside) and the particulate count verified daily. An air shower and sticky mat at the entrance would be a good thing. Now that's just for a class 1000 clean room. Imagine what it takes for a class 1 clean room.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Swiffer. I used one in my bathroom today, really a cool product. Picked up everything.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
I would recommend looking for information on micropropagation (cloning plants). It is a fairly popular hobby and you need cleanroom like conditions, so most micropropagation books have plans for mini cleanrooms. I would recommend talking to people who have done this before (which you are trying to do ;), seems there is at least some discussion on Usenet about the subject.
For starters you'll need a really big fan, just to driver the air-flow through the filters and your room. The trick is to have an over-pressure and a good flow. The over-pressure prevents stuff from getting in, and the flow removes stuff that already are in (you'll probably carry in some dust, etc.).
What parts are you going to assemble in a clean room. I'd rather suggest a clean-box (i.e. a box with a good clean air-flow and gloves epoxied to a couple of entry points to allow you to work in there. Simply put your working project (in transport protection) in there, your tools (do *not* forget anything), then let the air flow through. When the air has been completely exchanged a few times you can get your working project out of the transport protection and get working on it. When you are done, simply wrap it into something air-tight again and then remove it from your working box.
Such a solution would be easier to work with and have a higher wife-acceptance-factor. Of course, it requires that whatever your doing fits into the box.
However, I would need a sterile clean room to build one that would function properly and not go beserk in orbit. I know everyone out there has thought about this at least once?
Maybe I'm just weird, but the idea of constructing a clean room in my house has NEVER occurred to me. But then, I'm probably just the odd one out.
*sheesh*
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
If you want a really clean room, you should ask your girlfriend for advice, rather than Slashdot. If you don't have a girlfriend, one of your friends might have one. Check around.
So what do you want to do, anyway? Fab some chips?
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
If he actually starts to buy the parts for the clean room and or the sat lets start a pool as to how fast the FBI comes to investigate now :)
man
No manual entry for
Uranus jokes aside, I think the conversations will go like this:
Potential Girlfriend: Wow, what's this?
Geek: A satellite
Potential Girlfriend: Gee, has it been to space?
Geek: Nope, but its built to spec. I build 'em in my spare time.
The Woman Formerly Known As The Potential Girlfried: That's, um, pretty dedicated.
Geek: Yup. Want share a Mt Dew with me?
-Sean
First of all, you need a Rotary Space Wave Generator, as commonly found on the NII's Winnebagos of doom. To make one, first you need two coat hangers, a 9V battery and two plastic plates. Then you need an anti-gravity source and amplifier consisting of at leas 125g of element 115 (ununpentium) obtainable in quantity from intel corp. For the gravity amplifier you will need an oak wardrobe and a flux capacitor. Connect the flux capacitor (in the wardrobe) with copper wire to the ununpentium. The rotary space wave generator may now be mated to the other end of the wardrobe. There will be a pleasant smell as you drill through the oak. Pick up a sencond hand anti-matter regeneration unit form your local scrap yard. This will transmit anti-waves to the rotary space wave generator. To control the device you will need a dual channel K6-2/Pentium III 500 system running Windez 98 under Linux Technology and a 28" plasma screen with military spec. joystick. Good luck, and have fun.
Stick Men
We used a cleanroom like the following on the ATLAS Muon Detector project at the University of Washington. It was pretty low-tech, but it did a good job at keeping things clean. I don't remember the rating of the clean room, but all we had to do was wear a clean suit over our street clothes, latex gloves, shoes over our street shoes, and a cap. The clean suit, show covers, and caps were made from a special material. You can buy them in bulk from companies like 3M.
The room was constructed like any other room. The "airlock" was more like a changing room / entry way. There was a coat hook where we hung our clean suits, and a sticky floor that would get the majority of the grime off of our shoes. When the sticky floor got all dirty, we would peel off a layer. Inside the clean room and in the entry way, the walls were made of white plastic that didn't get electricaly charged and so wouldn'a allow lint to stick to it. The sections of wall were joined by aluminum strips about three inches wide.
The roof had several holes with air filters in them. One end of the room had a "wall fan" - the entire wall was a fan behind some air filters that would suck the air out of the room. So the air flow would come down through the roof filters and out the wall. The filters were better than the variety you might have in your house, but weren't super expensive. The floor was made of linoleum - a light color. Light colors help expose dirt and lint and such.
We mopped the floor every week as it would slowly accumulate dirt and gunk. The actual "clean room" was everything above our waist as the air below that couldn't be trusted as it wasn't being constantly filtered. As long as the air was flowing, we were pretty clean. We also made sure to stay out of the airflow of what we were working on. This means we couldn't lean over the parts and machines we were building.
We assembled a table that had a stainless steel surface. It was easy to keep clean with lint-free wipes and alcohol, but rarely needed it unless we spilled something.
We also made sure the parts were meticulously cleaned before being admitted into the clean room. Once in the clean room, we would clean them again.
Our clean room didn't have a machine that would count the number of impurities in the air, but I once worked in one that did. However, that clean room was much more strict and had the fans under the floor. We had to wear full body suits and face masks for that. That was the clean room for the Sudbury Neutrino project. They assembled the nickel tube detectors in that one.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.