David-
We have successfully cleaned Santovac from vacuum system components with
pesticide-grade petroleum ether.  It is an excellent solvent, evaporating
quickly, having relatively low toxicity, and leaving little residue.  Care
must be taken because of the high flammability.

Definitely, inspect the two o-ring fittings on the Edwards pump fill/drain
ports.  When we've had power interruptions to our Prism, the residual heat
from the oil reservoirs migrated to the ports and charred the o-rings to a
hard, blackened mass.  We had to bead blast the fittings to get the stuff
off.  New port parts are available from Edwards.  By the way, the o-rings
are a true metric size with no good equivalent.  They can be bought in
small quantity from SIS or from Edwards.

To prevent disasters such as yours, we installed a water flow switch in the
return cooling water line from the pumps.  This switch controls a relay
that we installed in the diff pump power circuit.

.................................................................
Howard Berg
Development Engineer
Geological Sciences
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9630

(805) 893-3487 (voice)
(805) 893-2314 (fax)

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