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Things to do with Fluorescent Dye
Jan. 7th, 2008 07:12 pmGet it all over yourself. By accident!
See, it's a method of detecting cracks for when it can't be eyeballed, possibly because it is too tiny or it is in a weird spot where the shadow hides the crack. What you do is, you dip the part-that's-leaking-but-has-no-visible-cracks in fluorescent dye, then let the dye soak in, then wash off the excess dye. Then put the part in some stuff that pulls out the dye that soaked into the crack, and dry it. When looked at under black light, the dye glows and there's this vivid green line where the crack is.
It was a cracked transmission part, and oil was leaking. Instead of gently lowering it into the vat of green dye (which, you know those cartoons of mad scientists' labs, with the bright green stuff in a barrel somewhere? The stuff that gives the hero mutant powers, or whatever? It was that color) I dropped it. It splashed. Thank goodness for my lab coat.
The developer, the stuff that pulls the dye out of the cracks, fluoresces blue/purple. The dye fluoresces green. The white lab coat was blue with big green splotches. It looked like a Laser Quest, only on me instead of the walls.
But we were able to find the crack, so that's good.
Also, I saw more SEM today :3
See, it's a method of detecting cracks for when it can't be eyeballed, possibly because it is too tiny or it is in a weird spot where the shadow hides the crack. What you do is, you dip the part-that's-leaking-but-has-no-visible-cracks in fluorescent dye, then let the dye soak in, then wash off the excess dye. Then put the part in some stuff that pulls out the dye that soaked into the crack, and dry it. When looked at under black light, the dye glows and there's this vivid green line where the crack is.
It was a cracked transmission part, and oil was leaking. Instead of gently lowering it into the vat of green dye (which, you know those cartoons of mad scientists' labs, with the bright green stuff in a barrel somewhere? The stuff that gives the hero mutant powers, or whatever? It was that color) I dropped it. It splashed. Thank goodness for my lab coat.
The developer, the stuff that pulls the dye out of the cracks, fluoresces blue/purple. The dye fluoresces green. The white lab coat was blue with big green splotches. It looked like a Laser Quest, only on me instead of the walls.
But we were able to find the crack, so that's good.
Also, I saw more SEM today :3
