How about some X-ray tube pics?

[James Snover]

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Welcome to the hurly-burly world of medical xray production! This is an ordinary X-ray tube cut away to reveal the inner workings.

The bright glow is from a pair of Thoriated Tungsten filaments, about twice as thick as what you would find in a 100-Watt incandescent light bulb. They get heated to near white hot temps, and pumped up to as much as -75,000 volts, more in some types.

The round disc is the anode, it is likewise pumped up to +75,000 volts. This makes the electrons travel across the gap, pick up a truckload of energy, and smash in to the anode, interacting with the Tungsten atoms, and convert that energy into a very specific band of xrays.

 

[04DeadShort]

Pretty cool. We run Sikora x-rays on our medium voltage lines. They consist of two linear movement scanners using the same Tungsten filaments. As you know, the filaments create loads of heat. So we have a closed loop chilled water circuit through the scanners. The produced cable is sealed in a pressurized nitrogen filled tube immediately after the extrusion process. The only way the operators can check their roundness and insulation density is with the x-ray. The cable can have up to 4 jackets of insulation and overall diameter is 4". Usually the conductor is copper and 1,000 mils (1") so the measurement has to be exact. One finished reel is about $200k. The most interesting part is beryllium windows allow the x-ray to scan the cable and also prevent contamination between the x-ray and nitrogen

 

[CobraBob]

Neat stuff, James. Are those photos from your work environment, or from some other source? Just wondering why it was cut away.

 

[James Snover]

Neat stuff, James. Are those photos from your work environment, or from some other source? Just wondering why it was cut away.

Work. I'm in for training this month at the company HQ. they have a bunch of exhibits like this around the place.


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[03cobra#694]

That's actually pretty cool.

 

[Smooth]

Very cool. Are you still growing that third arm or did you get it lopped off?

 

[Revvv]

I saw the word tubes, saw a warm glowing light, and my mind left x-ray and went straight to guitar amp.

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[James Snover]

I saw the word tubes, saw a warm glowing light, and my mind left x-ray and went straight to guitar amp.

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It is only a matter of scale of the energy used that separates guitar amps from xray machines.


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[James Snover]

Very cool. Are you still growing that third arm or did you get it lopped off?

You don’t get that with medical xray, sadly.


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[CobraBob]

Work. I'm in for training this month at the company HQ. they have a bunch of exhibits like this around the place.

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Ah, training. Must be a lot of cool and interesting stuff you work with in your field.