Re: RF 'echoes'
Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:44 pm
You will be happy to know that the uWave source does indeed handle crazy-fast gas flows fine. It's just loafing at normal flow rates and pressures. I started with mid range rates, and have been going down from there ever since, and getting better results as I do. Some of the byproducts are best kept in the tank, it seems. I don't think gas flow in general is a big limit with any of the ion sources I've yet seen, anyway. Some I've tried wouldn't go low enough for me, this one will, and also too fast, just turn the knob for instant response, very nice indeed.
And it's not like D is real cheap to just blow through the system fast or that the approach is "efficient" by any definition at all. I'd concentrate on keeping them from recombining instead, if possible, and keep purity high via good vacuum technique, which is only a one time cost, not a flow rate. if you look at some ion traps, or even a quadrapole mass spectrometer, they can keep ions happy for long periods without losing them. So it's possible in practice at least under some conditions.
I would very much deny that most fusors don't need or couldn't be improved by an ion source -- just give both ways an honest try and you'll know that too. Here that's not what I see experimentally at all, even running the "conventional" modes. At the point a fusor is its own best ion source, the gas pressure is often too high, the current rises without apparent limit (some of this perhaps due to a lot of wasted tank volume in my setup that provides a lot of surface for recombinations and a lot of spare gas to reionize over and over), and the Q is terrible compared to other parameters I run much more successfully with here, all the time. I can reproduce all the results reported here by others on this system though, and have already as my baseline for improvements. It's just a scramble to reduce the gas after the thing lights off to a point where even a 2kw supply can get the volts up high enough for fusion again, without letting it go out and having to start over.
My point was simply, why go after better efficiency in the *lowest* power draw part of the system before you even get anything working? Doesn't make sense to me as an engineer or as a scientist.
It's too soon in the scientific process to deliberately limit your ability to search the multidimensional parameter space by limiting this and that too much in a misguided search for 50% better efficiency when many more orders of magnitude are what's needed to get to gain. All that stuff is simple (re)engineering once you have nailed down what you really need. For now, you can't say you know that. No one can. Got net gain, anybody? I don't see any raised hands, yet. No one is within a factor of magnitudes you can count on a hand even.
Believe it or not, btw, the hot rod is actually far more controllable, due to vastly better traction and an anti-everything-bad computer it contains (among other things like very nice tires and suspension), which neither my truck or Buick do -- I got some pleasant surprises in the recent ice storms here when I went out and deliberately tested that. I just keep it in first.
I do walk or take the Buick or kart when it's nasty as there is also a cliff to fall over and replacement cost for the old Buick is a lot less if the worst happens. Where I live, btw, no one walks to church, or nearly so (in my one case, it's practically in my front yard). Too far, all our land holdings dictate that one - we're all way too far apart for walking there in farm country, particularly the old and frail.
This ion source is also very controllable. Due to magnetic field line curvature outside it from the ECR magnets, you can have ion rates of very near zero if the extraction field isn't strong enough to pull the particles past that. It is extremely controllable even though it's also powerful. True, it's not efficient if you only want 100ua of ions (eg camaro at idle). I don't yet care about that, and neither should you.
And BTW, I'm off the grid and on solar or gas generator power, so in general, I DO care about what power things need to run. Compared to all the other things, this just isn't on the radar as yet.
I too think while in my armchair that pure monatomic ions would be best, it makes sense. Get rid of all electrons, and many (but not all) of the loss mechanisms go with them. for example, and those who think they don't have to deal with space charge regardless are very provably in utter error with the results I now have here. And the old math that also backs that statement up.
However, this new mode I'm running in with super high Q compared to all else here, about ~300x, there's only enough ions at the start to get a pulse triggered, rest are neutrals (most of them, in other words) and at gas pressures so low a fusor won't quite trigger itself without an ion source. So much for even trained intuition with a ton of real experience behind it (eg mine) -- the armchair fails again as a source of progress -- hindsight and standard model backed up by real experiment wins again.
Hopefully, it feeds the armchair part of me and now I make better predictions, and we wash, rinse, repeat. In some active drive mode with pure ions, yes, that may be better-- hope so, there's a lotta orders of magnitude left to go, so more better is needed. But I found the mode without that. In fact, with nearly pure ions, I can't get this pulse mode that has the high Q so far at all, but I'm getting up to active pulse drives rather than ballasted DC to continue to try that, as my armchair does think that will be best in the end.
I do now have a theory of all this that's passed the Feynman test a few times, so I will share that on the appropriate thread soon - I am in running fusion and gathering data to back it up further mode just now.
Easier to resist the firestorm of flames I know I'll get from the skeptics when I am utterly sure I'm right (already, 20 runs replicated with changes matching predicted results thereof) and can by golly prove it in any way I'm asked to, which is almost "right now". Just a little more data collection to go at this point.
And it's not like D is real cheap to just blow through the system fast or that the approach is "efficient" by any definition at all. I'd concentrate on keeping them from recombining instead, if possible, and keep purity high via good vacuum technique, which is only a one time cost, not a flow rate. if you look at some ion traps, or even a quadrapole mass spectrometer, they can keep ions happy for long periods without losing them. So it's possible in practice at least under some conditions.
I would very much deny that most fusors don't need or couldn't be improved by an ion source -- just give both ways an honest try and you'll know that too. Here that's not what I see experimentally at all, even running the "conventional" modes. At the point a fusor is its own best ion source, the gas pressure is often too high, the current rises without apparent limit (some of this perhaps due to a lot of wasted tank volume in my setup that provides a lot of surface for recombinations and a lot of spare gas to reionize over and over), and the Q is terrible compared to other parameters I run much more successfully with here, all the time. I can reproduce all the results reported here by others on this system though, and have already as my baseline for improvements. It's just a scramble to reduce the gas after the thing lights off to a point where even a 2kw supply can get the volts up high enough for fusion again, without letting it go out and having to start over.
My point was simply, why go after better efficiency in the *lowest* power draw part of the system before you even get anything working? Doesn't make sense to me as an engineer or as a scientist.
It's too soon in the scientific process to deliberately limit your ability to search the multidimensional parameter space by limiting this and that too much in a misguided search for 50% better efficiency when many more orders of magnitude are what's needed to get to gain. All that stuff is simple (re)engineering once you have nailed down what you really need. For now, you can't say you know that. No one can. Got net gain, anybody? I don't see any raised hands, yet. No one is within a factor of magnitudes you can count on a hand even.
Believe it or not, btw, the hot rod is actually far more controllable, due to vastly better traction and an anti-everything-bad computer it contains (among other things like very nice tires and suspension), which neither my truck or Buick do -- I got some pleasant surprises in the recent ice storms here when I went out and deliberately tested that. I just keep it in first.
I do walk or take the Buick or kart when it's nasty as there is also a cliff to fall over and replacement cost for the old Buick is a lot less if the worst happens. Where I live, btw, no one walks to church, or nearly so (in my one case, it's practically in my front yard). Too far, all our land holdings dictate that one - we're all way too far apart for walking there in farm country, particularly the old and frail.
This ion source is also very controllable. Due to magnetic field line curvature outside it from the ECR magnets, you can have ion rates of very near zero if the extraction field isn't strong enough to pull the particles past that. It is extremely controllable even though it's also powerful. True, it's not efficient if you only want 100ua of ions (eg camaro at idle). I don't yet care about that, and neither should you.
And BTW, I'm off the grid and on solar or gas generator power, so in general, I DO care about what power things need to run. Compared to all the other things, this just isn't on the radar as yet.
I too think while in my armchair that pure monatomic ions would be best, it makes sense. Get rid of all electrons, and many (but not all) of the loss mechanisms go with them. for example, and those who think they don't have to deal with space charge regardless are very provably in utter error with the results I now have here. And the old math that also backs that statement up.
However, this new mode I'm running in with super high Q compared to all else here, about ~300x, there's only enough ions at the start to get a pulse triggered, rest are neutrals (most of them, in other words) and at gas pressures so low a fusor won't quite trigger itself without an ion source. So much for even trained intuition with a ton of real experience behind it (eg mine) -- the armchair fails again as a source of progress -- hindsight and standard model backed up by real experiment wins again.
Hopefully, it feeds the armchair part of me and now I make better predictions, and we wash, rinse, repeat. In some active drive mode with pure ions, yes, that may be better-- hope so, there's a lotta orders of magnitude left to go, so more better is needed. But I found the mode without that. In fact, with nearly pure ions, I can't get this pulse mode that has the high Q so far at all, but I'm getting up to active pulse drives rather than ballasted DC to continue to try that, as my armchair does think that will be best in the end.
I do now have a theory of all this that's passed the Feynman test a few times, so I will share that on the appropriate thread soon - I am in running fusion and gathering data to back it up further mode just now.
Easier to resist the firestorm of flames I know I'll get from the skeptics when I am utterly sure I'm right (already, 20 runs replicated with changes matching predicted results thereof) and can by golly prove it in any way I'm asked to, which is almost "right now". Just a little more data collection to go at this point.