Fusor Forums

Having my enthusiasm for detecting tritium crushed in the post (http://www.fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=12900) Robert mentioned, I think I can safely say that strange light-atom combinations are producing the false positives. About a week ago I measured the partial pressure of m/z = 6 to be ...

My RGA, which is the Spectra Vacscan Plus (late 90's to early 2000's) with a 100amu range, does have a multiplier, though the maximum operating pressure for it is 2e-6. For all purposes but measuring the base pressure of my system (9e-8torr) I use the Faraday cup. I managed to score the RGA and all ...

Ah, as per usual the explanation is more nuanced. I am still surprised that 50% of the deuterium pressure (only in the RGA, of course) was D3+. According to one paper (http://www.forensic-isotopes.org/assets/IRMS%20Guide%20Finalv3.1_Web.pdf), "The H3+ factor should not exceed 10ppm/nA [...]" which i...

This morning, while I was evacuating my fusor chamber and differentially pumping the RGA for high-pressure measurement, I cracked the needle valve on the still-pressurized deuterium gas line and immediately noticed a large peak at m/z = 6. The pressure in the main chamber was around 10mtorr and that...

FBM printing leaves too many irregularities and any hope of preventing breakdown would require 100% fill. That would really take some time to print. I suspect that SLA would work better, but I don't know about the dielectric strength of the resin. ABS is pretty bad at ~500V/mil, but that's likely mu...

Funny you should ask that. I 3D printed a connector out of ABS a couple years ago but once I pushed ~35kV there were arcing issues. It finally bit the dust just a couple days ago and left a carbonized trace. The socket cannot be run to any appreciable voltage unless there's a proper connector instal...

This is not to shoot down your idea to use exotic (and likely expensive) materials, but regarding ion beam viewport damage there are simpler solutions. First, just don't orient the grid such that gaps are inline with glass or ceramic. It's localized heating and large spacial and temporal thermal gra...

The turbo's fine as it was at 66% speed and the inrush was only to ~10 torr. I isolated it immediately after noticing the problem and didn't know whether the viewport would still implode. The viewport has since been replaced with a blank and I have again done fusion, but I added some magnets on the ...

This is yet another demonstration of why fusor chambers should not be made of glass or other brittle materials. It may also serve as a warning for those building small chambers based on 2.75" conflat systems. I have a 2.75" conflat 6-way chamber with two viewports, one on axis with a graphite and tu...

It's been a few years since I posted in these forums, though recent progress on my fusor and a free summer have demanded I return. I have likely been grouped with the scores of youngsters who arrive here excited but fade away having failed to achieve fusion or lost interest. I want to remove myself ...