Cup Stand Connector

Long life high temperature cup stand connector: Made of the highest temperature material and providing an air gap, this cup stand connector is made the way all connectors should be made - for longer life. At $45 each or $40 in quanities of 5 or more, this connector is the best buy on the North American market. Outside of North America, prices will vary due to shipping, customs and other taxes and fees. But for the longest lasting, highest temperature resisting stand, at a price below the competition, think MeltLab! Made in the United States by my college bound son who thanks you.

Ordering information

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History

The piece that connects the cup to the stand is refered to in the trade as the cup stand connector. Electronite makes a good one but others don't. Leeds and Northrup made a bad one out of bakelite (tm). When we were developing the first MeltLab, we found that Bakelite lost it's insulative properties above 250 degrees F. L&N chose not to do anything about it, and you can still purchase those flawed connectors today.

The ElectroNite stand seemed satisfactory but when the red rubber insulator started to peel up, resin from the cup got underneith and you couldn't clean it out. This lead to erratic cup readings because the burn resin became conductive graphite.

Insulation between the two rails on the stand is very important to producing accuracy in MeltLab. Our converter box has an internal impedence of 10,000,000 ohms. That is the limit for most ohm meters. This high resistance characteristic allows MeltLab to see very small events and prevents the measurement from draining off much energy and thereby distoring the signal. For those electricians reading this, at a 0.055 voltage, that means the signal we are drawing away from the thermal couple is 5.5/1,000,000,000 of an amp or about 6 billionths of an amp.

So we wanted a cup connector that would have very high impedence (like dynamic resistance), be easily cleaned, and would last a long time. (We did not have a marketing person to tell us that we would make more money if they didn't last a long time.)

So we started with rytan 7, a thermal setting plastic that could resist 500 degrees F. It chars, but doesn't soften. ElectroNite uses it in their steel applications where high temperature is a problem (but not in their cup stand).

Next, we lengthened the rails and alignment pins so the cup sits above the stand by a centimeter. This air gap helps cool the stand and makes it last longer. Finally we had a problem with the design. The plastic would shrink while setting up unless we cored it. We could have cored it from the bottom as ElectroNite does, but we decided to core it from the top and fill in the hole with a fine concrete to further enhance its resistance to heat damage.