Filament Manufacture and Repair

We have added specialist technical equipment for the manufacture, coating, repair and alignment of filaments. This new equipment and expanded facilities has enabled SS Scientific to manufacture and repair a wide variety of filaments for mass spectrometers and other scientific instruments. In addition we have added a coating facility for electrophoretic coating of thoria or yttria.

The high quality of our filament manufacture and repair is ensured by the use of filament alignment and tensioning jigs which have been custom designed.  Our staff has great experience and expertise in all aspects of filament design, manufacture and coating which has contributed to improved mass spectrometer performance with increased filament lifetime, and reduced cost for our customers.

We presently custom manufacture filaments on an exclusive OEM basis for several instrument companies.  If you have a need for a custom design filament, SS Scientific can help you with the design and manufacture the filament.  If you are an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), SS Scientific can aid you in the design of your filaments, produce prototypes and provide you with high quality filaments with timely delivery, all backed by our no-quibble guarantee on performance. 

Filament Manufacture

The knowledge and experience gained from producing thousands of filaments for a wide variety of manufacturers and models of instruments gives SS Scientific the technical edge. We learned from the various types of filaments we’ve manufactured and repaired, which designs worked best and what could be done to increase filament life and performance.  Our goal in producing new filaments is to improve the design, increase filament life, reduce the cost and improve the filament and mass spectrometer performance.

Filament Coating

We can offer thoria or yttria filament coating, either as part of the filament manufacturing process, or as a service for coating filaments that you supply to us.  The coating service has a unique no-quibble guarantee on performance.

Filament Alignment

We operate a quality control procedure to ensure the accurate alignment of the filament wire.  Using a video microscope enables us to accurately align the filament wire over the mass spec source ion entrance hole as well as perform quality control inspections of the filament and the welding process.

Filament Conditioning

All filaments outgas when initially powered, but new filaments require a careful power ramp-up to avoid debris contaminating a UHV system.  After coating, our filaments are fully conditioned on a degassing rig to ensure that arrive with you ready for immediate use.

Filament Cleaning

Facilities and techniques used to clean filaments during manufacture and repair include:-

▪          Sandblasting

▪          Buffing wheels and Micromesh abrasives

▪          Electropolish

▪          UHV cleaning procedures

Precision Spotwelding

Different sized spotwelder systems are used for manufacturing mass spec filaments. Depending on the filament, unique jigs have been custom designed and manufactured for the accurate alignment and tensioning of the filament wire on the filament support bracket during the spotwelding process. 

Filament Research and Development

We are continually looking to improve our understanding of filament manufacture and coating to improve our processes and offer a better product for our customers.  We have recently won an R&D Micro-Project grant that is funding an experimental programme to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our filament coating process.