Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

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Eduardo_Machado
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Real name: Eduardo Machado
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Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Eduardo_Machado »

Hello,

After more than a year, we would like to apply to Neutron Club. This was a joint effort, from me and my father. It started with a simple question, "why the sun shines?". We made a lot of research, a demo fusor, that almost exploded, and finally now we have a complete fusor, doing fusion.

My responsibility was to research and connect the vacuum system, and part of the gas system. My father made the electrical part, the deuterium connections, the leather protection and of course, payed for everything. All the time I was supervised by him and we had a lot of support from this Forum and other people. We really appreciated that.

Fusor parts:
Vacuum System:
Double Stage forepump
Turbomolecular Pump EXT255H 24V
Chamber: 2.75 four way CF cross
Throttle valve
Vacuum Pressure Sensor901P MKS

Deuterium System:
Microvalve SS4BMW-VCR
Control Valve SS1RS4
Pressure Regulator Famabras-Hydrogen
Lecture Bottle Deuterium Gas Cambridge Isotopes

Electrical System:
HVPS – Chinese 30 kV Electrical Precipitator
30kv Feedthrough
Ballast Resistor 68k ohms – 100w
Tension Divisor: 2 x 200 M ohms 1% high tension Resistors and 1 40 k ohms 1% Resistor
Amp Sensor: 10 ohms resistor-20w
Two Multimeters

X-Ray Protection:
1mm and 2mm lead shield

Bubble Dosimeter:
BD-PND-55b/mrem Number: 18130256

This video I present the complete fusor. Sorry, but it is in Portuguese.

https://youtu.be/il5EF62hjsU

We made three stable runs (October 26 and 27):
First test
voltage: 22480 - 23000 V
AMPERAGE: 2.5-3.0 mA
DEUTERIUM PRESSURE: 44 mTorr
Dosimeter +- 6 cm from grid, over lead protection
Five small bubbles after 180 seconds, and we got a big bubble that we believe was some issue with the dosimeter.

Dosimeter before test:
IMG_2252.jpg
Five bubbles after 3 minutes:
bubble1.jpg
Second test
voltage: 21600 V
AMPERAGE: 3.0 mA
DEUTERIUM PRESSURE: 40 mTorr
Dosimeter +- 6 cm from grid, over lead protection
Two small bubbles after 90 seconds, and the big bubble that we didnt cont.
IMG_2277.jpg
Third test:
voltage: 22500 V
AMPERAGE: 0.9 mA
DEUTERIUM PRESSURE: 43 mTorr
Dosimeter +- 6 cm from grid, over lead protection
180 seconds
This time we got just one bubble. We believe the hvps had a problem, because the amperage was smaller than the other tests. We need to check this.
IMG_2287.jpg
Any questions we will be happy to answer.

Eduardo Machado
Cristiano Machado
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Mark Rowley
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Re: Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Mark Rowley »

Congrats on your work and accomplishment!
The voltage, amperage, and deuterium pressure all seem consistent with the first results I experienced with my system which uses very similar components. It's also great to see another precipitator based system come alive.

Couple questions....
Can you make another video showing your system in operation? I'd also like to see your voltage, amperage, and pressure as it's operating during a neutron producing run.

How old is your BTI Bubble Detector?

Again, good work!

Mark Rowley
Cristiano_Machado
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Real name: Cristiano Machado
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Re: Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Cristiano_Machado »

Hello,

As a father I really like to help my daughter and son to develop new knowledge and to learn by doing. My role is this process is to be a mentor, but many times I have to do the "dangerous" stuff, to guarantee their safety. The fusor was our biggest project so far and I am sure it will be an important part of Eduardo's learning journey.

During the fusor project we faced a lot of challenges, the biggest one was to live in a country where it is very difficult to find used parts to do this experiment. We had to import almost everything and here we pay an importation tax of 100% on almost every thing.

But people on this forum helped us on every problem we had. Not only with intelectual help, but we must thank very much Joe Gayo and Bob Higgins for important parts to our fusor.

For me it is not an ending point, I want to improve this system, finish our neutron detector, study activation and much more. For Eduardo, I hope he uses this fusor in the future in his studies and may be in some science fair project. He has plans on it.

Thank you,

Cristiano
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Eduardo_Machado
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Real name: Eduardo Machado
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Re: Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Eduardo_Machado »

Mr. Rowley,

Thank you for your comments, and for your work with the precipitator!

The dosimeter is 9 months old. We got it at beginning February, and since we had a lot of problem to find the hvps, it was stored in our wine house at 13oC during this time. It is recommended to store it between 10 and 30 oC.

Sorry, but we don't have a video of the fusion moment, we were so focused in the process and afraid to make any mistake that we didn't film it. Next week we will register the moment and the sensors in a video.

We were luck to have these pictures that I took to register the sensors.

Before put the dosimeter on second test:
V: 19230 V
P: 39 mTorr
A: 1.2 mA
You can see the gas manometers
IMG_1655.JPG



At the moment, put the dosimeter:
V: 21600 V
P: 40 mTorr
A: 3.0 mA
IMG_1678.JPG
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Richard Hull
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Re: Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Richard Hull »

Congratulations on the father son win in doing fusion. I will log both father and son as a team into the Neutron club.

It is refreshing to get a good explanation of why you did the work and in spite of the difficulties you came through.

Yes, 9 months is an advance aged BTI dosimeter, (A sign of old age is,at first, one big bubble and at death, nothing but big bubbles.). However, it seems to still be detecting just fine.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Brandon_Cruz
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Re: Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Brandon_Cruz »

Congrats! Way to stick with it too!
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Paul_Schatzkin
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Re: Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Paul_Schatzkin »

FYI, the Fusioneers / Neutron Club listings are here:

viewtopic.php?t=13&f=7&sid=c03634687c82 ... 73b2d#p512
Paul Schatzkin, aka "The Perfesser" – Founder and Host of Fusor.net
Author of The Boy Who Invented Television: 2023 Edition – https://amz.run/6ag1
"Fusion is not 20 years in the future; it is 60 years in the past and we missed it."
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Eduardo_Machado
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Real name: Eduardo Machado
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Re: Neutron Club Application - Eduardo Machado & Cristiano Machado

Post by Eduardo_Machado »

Hello,

We are happy to know that people that are more experienced on fusion enjoy our journey and helped us finishing our project. So we thank everybody who helped us and everybody that, only for curiosity, entered on my profile and saw our experience.

For who didn't see, here is a photo of our final project
our project
our project
So, finally, thanks everybody for help!


Eduardo Machado
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