Fusor Forums

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 ...

I have a 2.75" butterfly valve between the turbo and chamber and I always throttle the pump before introducing deuterium. It does wonders for gas usage. Dennis, what is the Cv for the needle valve you're using? I use one with a 0.05Cv (I think the rating is for water, but I'm not too sure), which wo...

I have the Spellman supply, chamber, and cart all grounded to a central port and then a grounding rod stuck eight feet in the dirt outside. Based on some more testing I did today, I believe that the counts I received yesterday were electrical noise. I will have to do a lot more testing and improve t...

I did not have a ballast resistor in the first runs, but I will use a 60k resistor in my next attempt. Kinda sorta forgot it.... I am almost done with a mains frequency 50kV x-ray supply which will allow me to push the fusor to the limits without having an electronic unit shut off on me, so I'll pro...

Today, December 25, 2016, I ran my fusor with deuterium for the first time and I believe that I have achieved fusion. I have documented my progress semi-regularly on the forums for the past few years, mostly in the images du jour section, but I'll give an overview of my system before I discuss the r...