Our outgassing (ECSS-Q-ST-70-02) test facility has seen increasing demand over the past few years and 2020 it seems is no different. The facility is currently booked until the second half of January 2021. If you are looking to book an outgassing test please contact us sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment.

As our customers will know, our thermal vacuum chambers are very flexible in terms of temperature ranges, thermal exchange plates and instrumentation they can be fitted with. We design and build our chamber systems ourselves so we are able to break them down and re-configure or upgrade them when required.

Since we commissioned TVAC#2  in 2018 we have been planning to install a custom shroud to improve thermal performance for larger items under test (both monitored vacuum bakeout and thermal vacuum cycling tests). Due to demand for the vacuum chamber we have had to delay this work until now. Final fitting and testing will take place over the next few weeks.

We are currently underway with several close match solar simulator builds. It's always great when we are contacted by new customers who want to buy our solar simulators, but we are also very appreciative of our repeat customers and we are extremely pleased to be building systems for both situations right now.

Our standard range of Unisim solar simulators can be built with varying number of spectral zones and beam configurations. Our smaller Unisim Compact solar simulator can also be built with various aspects included/excluded to the customer's specification. Infrared boost zones, SMU and AM1.5 filter units can all be easily fitted at a later date if required.

Update: 05/05/20

We continue to be open as normal. Please see the previous updates below for details.

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Update: 17/04/20

We hope all of our customers and colleagues are safe and well at this time.

With the UK COVID-19 lockdown being extended for a further 3 weeks we wanted to let our customers know we are still operating our test house and continuing our solar simulator builds. As mentioned previously, due to our company's size we are able to continue work while maintaining an effective "social distancing" protocol where, with the exception of courier deliveries, we can continue in isolation from the public and in compliance with the government's instructions.

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Update: 25/03/20

We are still operating our test house and continuing our solar simulator builds. Due to our company's size we are able to continue work while maintaining an effective "social distancing" protocol where, with the exception of courier deliveries, we can continue in isolation from the public and in compliance with the government's instructions.

Our 3D printer is currently dedicated to making visors/PPE for health workers as part of a coordinated effort by the National 3D Printing Society. If you have a 3D printer and want to help out sign up here.

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Update: 23/03/20

We continue to monitor and follow the government's advice for  COVID-19.

Due to our company's size we are able to continue work while maintaining an effective "social distancing" protocol where, with the exception of courier deliveries, we can continue in isolation. Our test work and simulator manufacturing is proceeding as scheduled until government advice or regulation means we must stop.

We wish all of our customers well and hope you are staying safe during this time.
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Update: 13/03/20

We are monitoring the government's advice for  COVID-19. Currently we are still in full operation and normal business hours pertain. If this changes we will provide notification via our website and social media.

One advantage we have in being a small business is a minimal exposure that can be managed to reduce any risk even further. However, if future government advice means we have to pause work, we will inform any customers affected by the delay as soon as possible. 

We thank you for your understanding.

So far 2020 has seen our test house facilities in fairly constant use. We are also planning improvements to our laboratory space along with the movement of some equipment and tooling facilities to another unit. As such we are currently booked out to the end of May for longer term testing, with some short-term availability at the beginning of April.

For our outgassing customers, our dedicated outgassing testing facility will not be disrupted by the planned facility works.

At the end of 2019 we took delivery of a new chamber which is to become TVAC#3. We are expecting delivery of the pumps and other hardware in the coming weeks (the pumping system will be the same as TVAC#1 and #2 i.e. oil free). We had planned to begin work on setting up the chamber at the start of 2020 but our test house has had a rather busy start to the year so it has, frustratingly, had to wait.

We are also about to start, in the coming month, upgrading our lab facility. A new floor will be poured and laid as well as an overhaul to the power distribution and facilities within the lab. As with all big projects, we plan for everything to go to schedule and be back up and running within 1-2 weeks but there is the possibility of delays getting our chambers re-commissioned and ready.

We are continually looking at where we can improve our equipment and test services as well as invest in additional equipment. In 2018 our second TVAC chamber TVAC#2 came online and toward the end of that year  we purchased and and set up our in-house FTIR facility for molecular contamination monitoring (in accordnace with ECSS-Q-ST-70-05C). Throughout 2019 our existing TVAC chambers have been in high demand so we are pleased to announce that we will be commissioning our third TVAC chamber (surprisingly called TVAC#3) in early 2020. The chamber is identical to TVAC#2 in terms of size and will be configured with the same oil-less pumping system and thermal interface plate. For additional details and announcements on this system follow our news section or contact us to sign up to our newsletter.

We have seen an increase in requests for offgassing testing throughout this year (not to be conflated with our outgassing test services). We have developed a method which is a variation of the “Gas Accumulation Method” (J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 20(5) Sept/Oct 2002 p 1667). This test can only currently be conducted in our TVAC#1 chamber as the experiment requires a gate valve.
 
If you require offgassing testing for your sample and are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us for a discussion.

This year has gone by incredibly quickly and we'd like to thank all of our customers and welcome those who have found us in 2019. We look forward to working with you in 2020 and beyond.
 
Our Christmas closing period will be from:

• Last day 2019 - Friday 20th December
• First day 2020 - Thursday 2nd January

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a very happy and productive 2020.

​We have just shipped a custom outgassing chamber to a US customer. While our own outgassing facility is in virtually constant use, we haven't been contracted to build an outgassing test system in some time.​

The thermal, vacuum pump and valve systems are fully computer controlled with the bell jar being lifted via an electrical screw jack. This makes operating the system in terms of loading samples, pumping down and bringing the Knudsen cells to temperature extremely user friendly. We were so pleased with it we were tempted to keep it for ourselves!

If you are interested in our outgassing chamber build, or our in-house outgassing services, please feel free to get in touch.

We are lucky to have had the problem of too much work for our TVAC chambers through most of 2019. Both TVAC#1 and TVAC#2 are currently occupied, with TVAC#2 finally getting some down time for maintenance at the end of this month. TVAC#1 is currently occupied with a longer term R&D contract but is booked to be turned around immediately after.

We have upgrades for TVAC#2 currently in production, with a new cold shroud and IR mountings to improve cooling rates/min temperatures as well as reduce down time for things like IR lamp replacements. We've also increased the data feedthroughs available on the chamber which was necessary for another last-minute test, for which we were able to manufacture, clean, fit and leak test our own dual-dsub connector feedthrough in just under a week.

We are very pleased to announce that our new FTIR facility is now available for analysing molecular contamination witness plates in accordance with ECSS-Q-ST-70-05C on site. With this we can now offer MOC plate processing on-site for bakeouts and TVAC testing (if required) which will reduce the time between pre-bake qualification of the chamber and beginning hardware bakeouts.

We also have an ATR module for the system which will serve our outgassing facility for analysis of any condensate deposited on the collection mirrors during testing (at customer request, of course).

Last year our outgassing facility took part in the inter-laboratory comparison for ECSS-Q-ST-70-02C and in March this year we were told to anticipate an ESA certification for our outgassing facility.

We have conducted outgassing testing for over 20 years and it is an increasingly popular test we are contracted to perform. The impending ESA certification of our outgassing laboratory  is a testimony to the diligence and skill of the facility manager, Sue.

We will be closing at 17:00 on 18/04/19 for the Easter bank holiday weekend. The office and test house will be open again at 08:00 23/04/19.

If you would like to contact us during this time please use our Contact page and we will get back to you as soon as we re-open.