Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2024 21:24:39 +0000
Hi AMMRL!
AVAILABLE for unintended purposes: two late-1980s-vintage Oxford magnets that
have been in storage for about 15 years. We need these out of the storage
room ASAP, so they will go for free to the first person/people who commit
to driving up to our dock and taking them away.
* Oxford 300 widebore, presumably unshielded. Magnet book (recently
discovered) says it was first energized in 1988.
* Oxford 400 narrowbore, presumably unshielded, presumably same vintage
as the 300. Magnet book location unknown.
See this page for more photos:
https://chemnmrlab.uchicago.edu/surplus/
ACTION: If you want one or both, let me know right away! We need commitment
to remove them by Sept. 30.
Though we’ve seen this week that a 40-year-old magnet can still be useful
for spectroscopy, I don’t think these particular magnets here are recoverable
for NMR use.
* Simple cost/benefit analysis of restoring one is surely higher than the
cost of a regular used magnet
* Helium consumption must be relatively high
* Lack of shielding poses siting problems
* Neither magnet appears to have been secured with shipping restraints.
The people working through the stuff in the storage room thought the magnets
had liquid in them because they “sloshed” when shoved. I’ve found a
few objects in odd boxes that appear to be restraints, but I’m pretty sure
it’s not a complete set for either magnet
* The widebore suffered some water damage on top during its time in storage.
I’d love to keep these out of the trash. You could do a number of interesting
things with one or both if you wanted to:
* DISPLAY: Cut a wedge or window into it as an educational display. Several
people have done this, as was documented in the old Spinsights community; maybe
the photos and methods are still there in IVAN/Spinsights. Personally I like this
destiny, but I don’t have the bandwidth to handle this, and we don’t have
anywhere to put such a thing on display. If you can do this, please go for it!
* KEG: Some creative person at JEOL made a magnet shell into a keg, and
they dispense beer with it at conferences. You can try this, too!
* SMOKER/BBQ: I’m sure someone could cut the outer shell in half, turn it
on its side, and repurpose it for smoky food preparation
* ARTWORK: Use the big, shiny, stainless steel cylinder as a starting material
for sculpture. Gift it to an artist who can make good use of it. If
no one here wants them, I’ll try the art community.
TRANSPORT: Each magnet is on a pallet, and we can use a pallet jack to get
it to our building’s loading dock, which is 44” off the ground (best to
have a truck with a bed this height, not a U-Haul). If you want to arrange
for a freight company to pick it up, go ahead. But it’s probably
easier/cheaper/faster if you rent a truck and drive up yourself.
TIMEFRAME: My department wants these gone by September 30. I think they’ll
accept it if we have a serious commitment by that deadline, indicating intent
to pick up by mid-October. If they’re not taken we’ll try and give them
to a metal recycler, but that might not be simple either. Advice on magnet
recycling/disposal would be appreciated.
BACKSTORY: Institutional knowledge about these magnets is fragmented. My
understanding is they belonged to Prof. Philip Eaton
<https://news.uchicago.edu/story/philip-eaton-renowned-chemist-and-founder-cubane-1936-2023 >,
who earned fame for being the first to synthesize cubane
https://web.archive.org/web/20031216064742/http:/chemistry.uchicago.edu/fac/eaton.shtml.
Piecing together information from different sources, I think the 300 widebore
started out as part of a GE NMR spectrometer, and the 400 started out as a Varian.
The 300 was upgraded with a Bruker DMX three-channel two-bay console and solids
bay, and the 400 was upgraded with a Bruker DRX two-channel (plus lock) two-bay
console. Sometime in the mid-2000s, Eaton stopped taking students, but the
spectrometers remained in his lab. In 2008-2009, the building was renovated and
the instruments were decommissioned and placed in storage. Over the years, lots
of other technical equipment was stored in the room, making it quite crowded and
difficult to access these spectrometers. Recently I began a program of going
through the old equipment, giving it away or selling it on eBay
https://www.ebay.com/usr/jokur40
ADVANCE NOTICE: The two consoles and solids bay were also in storage, and we
have urgent need to get rid of them. I’ve harvested the components from
inside the DMX 300, 300 solids bay, and DRX 400, but the empty cabinets will
go to metal scrap in the next week or two. I’ll soon be putting the components
on eBay for redistribution. (I use eBay https://www.ebay.com/usr/jokur40
primarily to facilitate shipping, not to make people bid up prices in auctions).
I’ll let AMMRL know when these console components, amplifiers, probes, etc.
are available through this channel.
Thanks for your attention. Please take a magnet!
* Josh
Josh Kurutz, PhD
NMR Facility Manager, Chemistry Dept.
University of Chicago
https://chemnmrlab.uchicago.edu/
jkurutz_at_uchicago.edu
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(image/jpeg attachment: UChicago_Oxford300_00_Both-Full.jpg)