I haven't tried it yet, but.....
I maintain a thing called a rotating anode X-ray generator because the people who actually use the darn thing have trouble telling a fuse from a light bulb. These same folks decided that it would be a good idea to put a second detector on this generator. These generators have two ports for the X-rays. One is on the side where there is no maintenance access to the generator. The other, less often used, is on the same side where the access to the interior of the instrument is located. I told them in the planning stages that the second detector would make maintenance of the generator a real pain, but since they don't do the maintenance that was no real problem....for them. Last week the manufacturer's technician was here for the third time to try to massge the installation of the new detector such that I could at least potentially do routine maintenance on the generator without having to re-align the whole detector optics system, which is a remarkable PITA. Well, I think he did the best he could, and I can at least potentially remove the access port to do maintenance on the anode, but one of the four screws holding it on is waaaaay back in a convoluted passage with no straight clean access for a screwdriver. I can see it, but I can't get a normal driver on it So I went to O'Reilleys and bought a carburetor adjustment tool. That's a long flexible shaft with a bit holder with four different bits used to adjust 70's era carburetors. One of the bits is a 1/4" socket, which will accept a standard Phillips bit, which is what I need for the screw in question. I actually found various flexible shaft screwdrivers on the net, but I didn't see a site where I could order one tax free, which is one of the perks when buying for a state university. If the carburetor tool doesn't do the job, and it might not since the shaft is a simple coiled spring that may not give me enough twisting force, I'll probably end up buying one of those other devices with my own money so I can fix this problem created for me. Doing the pointless for the Ignorant gets to be a way of life.
Chuck
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