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Having a background in prototype engineering I remembered some of the discussions on heat treatment of metals we had for tooling. I searched in the Machinery handbook and the web, I found this bit on cryogenic treatment"in Cryogenic treatment the material is subject to deep freeze temperatures of as low as -185°C (-301°F), but usually -75°C (-103°F) is sufficient. The Austenite is unstable at this temperature, and the whole structures becomes Martensite. This is the reason to use Cryogenic treatment."
-103F is usually sufficient! Whoa dry ice is -109F. Dry ice is cheap and can be combined with alcohol to make a -109F bath if you want. I have heard of some people getting bad results with the "deep freeze cryo" treatments. I am not surprised as that is reserved for solid metal parts like brake rotors and plastics usually fracture when subjected to the deep cryo when they are in contact with other materials or in an assembly (different coefficient of thermal expansion). I bet they use some warmer temps for components like AC plugs and cables.
Going by the book I should be able to make a DIY cryo treatment with dry ice for under $10.
I am going to try some Rat Shack cables so I can A/B them.
Procedure -
1 wrap them in a towel and place them in my Sub Zero freezer overnight
2 place them at the bottom on a styrofoam ice chest and cover w dry ice place in another
cooler 5lbs of ice should last over 24 hrs
3 after 6 hours pour in anhydrous alcohol
4 cover and let cook for a day or untill it has warmed up.Any one have any input?
Follow Ups:
I used this mixture to sub zero treat the chrome molybenium tool steels I used to make hand made kinves from not to enhance them but it was a required part of their heat treating.yes you will get the temps you are looking for and 5lbs of dry ice mixed with about a half gallon of Methanol (it has to be methanol) will work just fine for what you want. BUT I would sure put the cables into a very sealed plastic bag of some kind as the slury will soak into any opening and leave an alcohol behind once it reaches room temp again.
And don't count on a cool to hold the dry ice which you will want to break up not leave in a block. What you want is the slurry not dry iced cooled alcohol.
I think the whole idea is silly but then that never stopped anyone from fiddling around.
I have used the very home treatment of using your freezer and fridge.
And, yes, I know its a long way from the real thing, but tweaking is as much about getting results for no or very little cost and its not a bad place to start.
I have warmed things by wrapping the cables/CD/whatever in a towel from the freezer while allowing it to warm in the fridge. The extra wrapping slows the warming time which seems to be advantageous.
Since I doubt your ice chest would fit in your fridge... and well, maybe you have a very large fridge!
But letting it warm in the coldest place you have will slow the process down to whatever extent.
The freezing/slowdefrost technique using a domestic deep freezer should have swept the world of audio like a whirlwind 20 years ago !! You are correct Dave c, it is a free and a simple technique for anyone to do and can give remarkable results.
Regards,
May Belt.
Dave
The fridge is just to bring the temp down a bit before the dry Ice treatment.I figure that the Styrofoam chest inside of another Coleman cooler should keep the temp down for a good bit.
The info I found stated that -103 F is usually good enough so -109 F just might do it.
It is plenty cold outside now so that might help keep it down for a but more.
I figure that when the ice is gone it is ready to take out.
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