Abstract:

Azad and I spent part of the morning assembling the frame of the bottle-based OPEnSampler. I found quite a few changes I will make when assembling the next sampler. In the end we found the device didn’t quite fit in the duffle bag and so some machining will need to be done to reduce a couple dimensions.

Assembling:

The assembly of the frame was a simple but tedious process. There were only a few unique parts: two different lengths of 15mm square aluminum extrusion, aluminum brackets, M3 screws, and M3 square nuts. The aluminum extrusion was cut by the manufacturer to specified lengths to skip right to the assembly stage. Azad and I each assembled an end face and attached a long extrusion, though it would have been easier to attach all the long extrusions to one face first and then attach the other face afterwards.

We found that attaching all the brackets at once to an extrusion resulted in sliding and flopping brackets while joining the opposite end to the frame; I’ll be sure to write the instructions so that brackets are attached only when necessary to avoid headaches. If that was unclear, most of the problems can be summarized as not attaching brackets when we should have attached them. 

Fitting into the Bag:

Unfortunately I failed to dimension the frame to fit into the bag opening, which is slightly smaller than the bag space itself. Additionally, the height and length of the sampler were a bit too large to fit in the space anyways, so tomorrow I will have to disassemble the frame and head down to the machine shop to reduce a couple dimensions. Luckily it is easier to reduce the size of the device than to expand it, and there seems to be plenty of space for the bottles if I remove the ice tray from the design.