On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 8:56:02 PM UTC-5, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"David Billington" wrote in message
news
On 14/02/18 22:55, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"rangerssuck" wrote in message
...
On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 10:52:20 AM UTC-5, Larry Jaques
wrote:
On Tue, 13 Feb 2018 20:50:03 -0600, Ignoramus14057
wrote:

I bought a very large geat cutting machine for scrap. This
machine
is
sitting in a pit full of oil. I spoke to the person who
maintained
it
and he says that the oil is only lube oil and NOT cutting oil.

I have a oil fired furnace Clean Burn CB2800. I burn all my oil,
mostly used hydraulic oil, in it to save on natural gas costs.
The
instruction to the furnace says "DO NOT USE CUTTING OIL". I am
not
sure why exactly, either the furnace will be damaged or due to
environmental regulations.
Regulations or not, some oil additives or contaminants may end up
making nasty fumes that you may end up breathing. Lab tests for
oils
are cheap - $28 from this place
https://www.blackstone-labs.com/standard-analysis.php I'm sure you
could find a place in the Chicago area to do it, and then you'll
know
for sure what you have.

============================

According to this
https://www.blackstone-labs.com/spec...of-the-lab.php
they can test only for elements that correspond to fixed slit
positions (wavelengths) in the spectrum.


Sounds like optical emission spectroscopy where in the old days the
machines would be tailored to the type of samples being analysed by
placing the photomultiplier tubes on the spectrum lines to detect
the elements signature lines spread out by the prism. I worked in
that field for a number of years but not at the detailed end ,
mainly the user interface end but you still pick up how it works and
I was shown some of the old gear where you had to take the readings
off meters. These days as I understand it they use CCDs and the
instrument is more versatile in its analysis range. I'm out of that
field now so things may have moved on further but the background
science is the same but the means of accessing it improves.


"Each beam of light is then directed to a tiny slit on what is called
an aperture plate. The aperture plate is a thick metal device, about
10 inches wide by 18 inches long, and the slits engraved in it are
finer than a human hair. The aperture plate allows us to measure the
intensity of each beam, using a device known as a photomultiplier
tube."

Photomultipliers are light-amplifying vacuum tubes, the ancestors of
the microchannel plate.
-jsw

Further to all of this, I mentioned oil testing services because they are relatively plentiful and cheap, but easily as plentiful but maybe not as cheap (I don't know, never having used one) are analytical laboratories that have the capability of showing you whatever detail you are willing to pay for.