Full scale prototype of the KLOE drift chamber

A full size prototype, 3.2 m long, of the drift chamber for the KLOE detector has been constructed and is now operating, under cosmic rays, at the INFN section of Lecce. Five hundred single sense wire square cells, 3 cm by 3 cm and 1.5 cm by 1.5 cm, arranged in thirty layers, are strung at stereo angles in the range 50–120 mrad between two conical sharped carbon fiber end-plates. The electron drift occurs in a mixture of helium and isobutane (9010). Details of the techniques used for the construction of the prototype will be presented and discussed.