New Home for Doug's Fusor

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Bob Reite
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

I now have all the mechanical and vacuum aspects reassembled and the fusor is now under vacuum. I really like the intermittent backing pump set up. It turns out that Pfeifffer designed this system to operate this way. In any case, the pix please!
fusor_front.jpg
fusor_rear.jpg
fusor_pressure.jpg
For those who are used to Torr, the reading on the display translates to 5.6 E-6. Darn good considering it's only been an hour and no bake out.

Next steps reconnect high voltage supplies, coils and ballast resistors and remote control system.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Richard Hull
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Richard Hull »

Fabulous work on this important restoration to functioning condition. Great pix and keep the reports on your effort coming.

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
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Ameen Aydan »

I just wanted to jump in here,

I was talking to Doug about his feed through design a while back, trying to come up with some inspiration to make my own. After that conversation was over, he was quick to mention this "Gonzo" mode of his. Similar to what Bill had mentioned, Doug said that we was bed ridden for weeks and was incredibly sick after the event. It was a long time ago, but I do remember him mentioning something about a similarity between this event and mass spectrometers? One of you can make the connection LOL.

Anyways, he said that he reached the trillion neutron mark. So, hope that help...

AA
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Bob Reite
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

Update: I got the power supplies and the remote control electronics reinstalled. One of my ham radio buddies came up to visit so that we could do the Murgas hamfest. He also helped me run the fiber optic and 12 pair direct burial phone cable between the fusor shed and the office. I am now where I was when I bench tested the remote control system. I can see the grid cam, admit gas (currently air) into the chamber and read the pressure "after the fact". Haven't found where the code is buried to display pressure, voltage and current in real time. Anyway, pix below:
electronics.jpg
Electronics installed.
gridcam.jpg
Grid Cam, with quartz bulb illumination.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
John Futter
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by John Futter »

Excellent Bob
Is the quartz bulb what Doug had in there for degassing??

Its been a while since I saw it
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Bob Reite
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

Yes, the quartz bulbs are for baking out. The pressure is down to 6.0 x 10-7 millibar. About as low as you can get with the Viton gaskets used in some places and more than enough for fusor work.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

Power supply high voltage side now connected as well as the controls. Because of the limited resolution of the digital control of the ion grid, I went to an old school pot to send 0-10 volts down one of the control cable pairs to the ion supply. Doug originally left the main grid supply preset, there was no provision for remote control of that, so I set it for 50 KV with 10 mA current limit to keep the grid dissipation at 500 watts or less.
hv_connected.jpg
HV connected and ready to go, with at least some of the components for "Gonzo mode".
run_with_air.jpg
A shot from the remote control station. Grid cam shows both the main and ion grids glowing.

Next step is to hook up the audio, so I can hear the REM ball clicking which will be installed next.

After that hook up the D2, put the neutron oven in place with silver foil and a pancake probe.

Then try some runs in Farnsworth mode, but with ion grid which will keep things "lit up" at lower pressures.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Peter Schmelcher »

Bob, I liked Doug’s backing pump solution but always worried about spinning a turbo continuously because ball bearings/lubricants have a lifetime and also his system was ultimately solar powered. My setup uses an ion pump running 24-7. I cobbled together a 3.5kV supply and by using two diodes and 4 AA batteries it is back up for over a day during a rare electrical outage. I occasionally monitor the vacuum by glancing at a 100uA full scale mechanical meter movement wired in the return current path of the pump’s high voltage supply. Full scale is a pressure of 0.9uTorr for the version of ion pump I have and at that pressure it would consume 350mW but lower pressure requires less power. Eventually the pump saturates with hydrogen (the meter slowly climbs slowly over a year or longer from 18uA to 100uA) and a pump bake out is required to rejuvenate and restore the pressure the ion pumped chamber reaches.

My take is that the ultimate pressure of the vacuum chamber are unknown gases (well probably hydrogen) just complicating investigations. Just something to consider when looking for a needle in a haystack.

Very glad Doug’s setup has a good home.
-Peter
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Richard Hull »

Remember the old motto.......Once you get it running..........Tune for minimum smoke.

Great effort Bob. I would not want to undertake such a reassembly effort.

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
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My Visit with Doug

Post by Paul_Schatzkin »

Serves me right for being "in the void" for the past year+, but I have only this moment learned of Doug Coulter's demise. I am reading through the "Re: Life, The Universe, and Everything" thread on his personal 'Coultersmithing' website which started in 2018:

http://www.coultersmithing.com/forums/v ... =42&t=1083

...and gets into his health travails in the last few pages.

I visited with Doug not long after the "Gonzo" event. If you missed that account, I posted the tale here:

http://waterstarproject.com/doug-coulte ... -in-a-jar/

I dare say there are some good photos...

--P
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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Bob Reite
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

I now have neutrons! A lot of them! Some pictures, and a report.
gas_connected.jpg
D2 tank and regulator are now connected. The readout for the REM ball is now in place and connected.
moderator.jpg
What you are seeing from top to bottom of the moderator or "neutron oven"
Very top is a block of HDPE
Below that, the aluminum item is the pancake probe in a rectangular case
If one looks carefully, one can see the silver foil between the pancake probe and the copper box which contains water as a moderator.
I did not fill it full for two reasons. One, there is a slight leak at a top joint and two, if the water does get to boiling I want a bit of head space
rather than rely on the vent stack alone. However, this may spoil the effectiveness of this part of the moderator as there is a 3/4 air gap between the
top of the water and the top of the copper box.

The output from the geiger counter is wired to an ardunio input and to the audio mixer. The output from the audio mixer goes to the audio amp and speakers at the control point.

Now the results of the first run with gas. I started out with the chamber at around 1 x 10-4 bar. Switched on the main grid supply to 50 KV with a 10 mA current limit set. Switched on the ion grid supply, set it to about 15 KV more or less. At this pressure there is no current draw and the image on the grid cam is dark.
This fusor is run in "batch mode", rather than continuously flowing gas as is more common with other fusors. There is a button on the remote interface which pulses the gas inlet solenoid for 20 ms. There is another button which originally was set for 50 ms, but during the test with air, that was too short a time, s I changed it to operate for 100 ms per button press.
In any case I admitted gas a bit at a time until the glow discharge started. At first the glow would go out as the turbo continued to pump, but eventually an equilibrium is reached at which the gas pressure is more steady and I can control the current draw of the main grid supply by adjusting the ion grid voltage. As Bill warned me, it is very touchy, so I'm glad that I had changed the control over to an "old school" analog pot. By looking at the REM ball display and listening to the clicks I could adjust for maximum output. As would be expected by theory, maximum output is obtained at 50 KV and 10 mA. If there is too much gas, the power supply goes into current limit mode, the voltage drops and the neutron output drops along with it. So I would ride the ion grid voltage control to keep the supply at 50 KV. It was better to have a little less pressure or ion grid voltage and let the main grid current drop as low as 7-8 mA rather than have it go into current limit and lose voltage. When the fusor was doing it's best there would be "sparklies" in the grid cam view. I'm guessing probably from X rays.
REM_ball_reading.jpg
Here is the maximum value of 573 mRem per hour obtained during this roughly 10 minute run, at about 4 minutes in. The average never dropped below 60 mRem per hour during most of the operation,
Based on a distance of 32.5 cm between the center of the REM ball and the center of the main grid, this calculates to 5.92 e7 n/s isotropic. That's 59,200,000! Not as high as the "Gonzo Mode" claim but significant

Trying to go beyond 10 minutes was a struggle. As I have witnessed watching Richard operate his fusor, it reached a point where it wanted to go into what must be thermal runaway. The supply current limit avoided damage, but neuron generation ceased once the main grid HV had collapsed below 12 KV. I was able to bring it back for a bit by repeatedly releasing gas. Back up at 50 KV, neutron production started again, but it reached a point where the gas release button could not keep up with the pressure rise.

To make sure that the REM ball electronics was not picking up RFI, I did another run with the BF3 tube removed from the moderator ball. I achieved the same operation including sparklies in the grid cam view, but the REM Ball electronics only reported 0.5 mRem per hour, same as the background count with nothing running except the REM ball.

Silver activation proof proved to be elusive. The Rasperry Pi computer crashed so I could not record the pulses. I was able to hear the geiger counter after shutdown, and it did seem to register notably above background for a few minutes, but I'm not going to claim activation at this time. I will probably set up a computer back at the control point to count the clicks coming over the audio feed, so I don't have to rely on the Pi in the high RF environment. As mentioned above, I probably need to improve the "neutron oven" geometry.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Jim Kovalchick »

Wow! Great report Bob. Super numbers, but I wonder if the batch design is holding it back.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Mark Rowley »

Exciting results! I'm sure you'll push the boundaries as far as the system allows. Looking forward to activation numbers!

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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Richard Hull »

At that supposed neutron level, 59 mega neuts/s, if you listened to the GM right at shutdown, even with a rotten moderator, the the GM would have been screaming like a bat out of hell. Even a minute or two afterward The GM wound be roaring. Is it just me or did none of the other activators here with even a modicum of experience not see the fallacy here??? Huge exposure and the GM seemed to be just audibly above background!?

Bob, run the thing again and hit just the 2 million n/s mark for only four minutes, immediately shut down the fusor and turn on the GM looking at the naked silver within under one minute or preferably, far less. If real a 2million run is honest, the silver should be really clicking away. no guess work or counting needed. Extreme rapidity of access of the silver to a working mica windowed GM is critical after shut down.

Precise timing following turn off and rapid reading tells the tale. Hit a peak and hold it for two to four minutes, shutdown and immediately read the silver.

No need hitting a peak at 5 minutes and 250mr/hr only to watch it whimp out at 12 minutes to near zero and then read the silver....It would be fully decayed by then. No need to wait for 500mr/hr. Just shut the pig down at 100mr/hr and read the silver. It should sound like a continuous tone with no distinct audible silence between counts at all. If you just hear obviously fast clicks, you have done activation, but then you never hit the 2 million n/s mark, either.

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
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

Indeed, yesterday's run seem to be in the "too good to be true" category. I have found that this fusor has a high peak to average ratio as measured by the REM ball. This mornings run peaked at 100,000,000 n/s! If this were true, it would break the all time record for Q, with only 600 watts input power. However the average reading was only 1,000,000 n/s, dropping to 800,000 n/s as the fusor got "tired" toward the end of the run, about what can be expected for a standard Farnsworth fusor operated at 50 KV and 10 mA. Needless to say, more tests need to be done to determine the cause of the high peak to average ratio, and to get the silver to activate to an obvious degree.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Joe Gayo »

It's been my experience (and makes mathematical sense) that at elevated neutron levels (>1+E8), everything activates to high levels and everywhere. The aluminum framing/plates near/against moderators, aluminum clamps on flanges, aluminum flanges, a piece of indium on a rack 1m away laying on a single block of HDPE (each 100mm sq), copper tubing for gas lines, copper wire in thick jacketing (HV cable), copper gaskets, etc. If you run for seconds these materials scream at a constant tone ... if you run for 10s of seconds, Mn chips, Eu dendritic pieces, etc. scream ... if you run for minutes, you get the idea.
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Bob Reite
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

First thing to check was that the REM Ball electronics was not lying to me about the roughly 100:1 peak to average ratio.

First test. Operate just the REM Ball with nothing else on. Result peak to average no more than 1.5:1

Second test. Operate the fusor normally, with the exception that the BF3 tube is taken out of the ball and the ball moved across the room. No other changes.
The fusor was doing fusion according to the Hornyak button.
Result: Peak to average 1:1 Count 0.6 mRem/hr, same as background.

OK the skeptics say "Do the second test again, just to make sure it was not a fluke".
Test 2B. Count 1.5 peak 4.5 average for a ratio of 3.3:1

Test 2C Count 1.27 peak 0.5 average for a ratio of 2.54:1

So I believe that the observed peaks are real, but useless unless a way can be found to make them happen more often or continuously.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Mark Rowley »

Bob, I think in this case activation work should take priority before fiddling any further with electronic detection methods. After all, this is THE “gonzo mode” fusor. There’s just too much valid skepticism regarding the originally claimed numbers from years back. It’s going to require some irrefutable methodology which can only be activation.

Just my 2 cents.

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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Joe Gayo »

For your personal safety, I would also get a bubble dosimeter as well.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Richard Hull »

Great re-work and reporting Bob on the redux! I am positive Doug's fusor can do fusion! At what level it remains to be seen as both Mark and I note....... This is not a job for superman, just good old fashion activation with a GM hooked to a digital counter/timer. As good ole Carl said "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof". In this case with claims of the past, not withstanding, just what the hell can this superlative looking and instrumented fusor do!

Likewise, and I hate to boost on the expensive solution that Joe recommends, but a bubble detector as a recording dosimeter, would alert you to pulsed intense fusion instances.....If they are there, as your remball seems to suggest (personal safety issues.)

Your remball did record minor dips and minor peaks in fusor V operation last year at HEAS 2020. I found these minor but real fluctuations totally followed the one minute collected and displayed neutron counts as I jockeyed the controls. I have many years of "feel" for operational characteristics, and your remball was true and straight by my judgement during all reported data collections over time. If you remember our extended sessions of data collection and written reports over time of the mr/hr rates reported by your rem ball, when I goosed the supply to a new peak, the remball and electronics reported "peaks"'. However as the current which increased at voltage to create those peaks settled to a more stable run value, the rem ball reported more stable mr/hr rate which dropped a bit. It turned out, again if you remember, based on our four person observer agreement that during peak operation vs. stable operation we arrived at a multiplier of my cpm on the 3He counter that I needed to multiply by 5.4 to report peaks over a minute on average, but only 4.1 for stable operational counts over a minute count off the 3He count total to report my real TIER values. 90,000 CPM recorded during a "peaking adjustment during the period = 90,000 X5.4 or 468k n/s, peak TIER.
The same count over a relatively stable period of counting during operation was 90,000 X4 = 360K n/s TIER.

So I had a peak to stable ratio multiplier of my cpm count of 5.4:4.1, respectively.

By the way, I still get a normal background count of 6-8 neutron counts per minute on my 3He in moderator and that is no where near the .6mr/hr that you seem to get as a background up where you live. That does concern me a bit. My moderator is about 6 times the volume of your rem ball and my long 22" long 3He tube at 4 atm is probably much more sensitive to neutrons than the little BF3 Nancy Woods tube in your and my remballs. My remball connected to my PNC-1 Eberline electronics will give 2 counts every 5 minutes, on average. The PNC-1, of course, has its own small paraffin moderator and Nancy Woods tube and struggles to generate 1-2 CPM in 10 minutes.

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
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by John Futter »

Bob go back to those vids I posted recently
the first vid shows a run and at the end the silver is taken out of the oven (guesstimate of 15" or more from the neutron producing plasma) and put on the counter starts at 2000 counts per sec and falls away
there is a break near the end (red trace) [gammas] the trace green is zero (neuts) then the red trace pops up again as the silver decays away
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Bob Reite
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

First of all, Doug's fusor is not currently fully configured for "Gonzo Mode". The only piece of it is the inductor in series with the main gird HV feed. I'm just operating it as a standard Farnswroth fusor at this time, albeit with an ion grid, which does help with starting the plasma and being able to use lower gas pressure.

All operation is done by remote control from 100 feet away, yes this takes more time but much safer.

However I am considering the purchase of a fresh bubble detector to recalibrate the REM ball if nothing else.

Background count at my site is on the high side. The Victoreen 493 reports 100-150 CPM both in the office (the control point) and the fusor shed.
The CDV-700 shows a more believable 10 counts per minute. No idea why the Victoreen reads so high. Don't think that I have alpha particles floating around. Disconnecting the probe gives a zero reading, so it's not something arcing in the electronics.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Mark Rowley »

Bob, I know you have not switched on the Gonzo Mode electronics, but even in standard fusor mode the cited numbers aren't in alignment with the hints of activation that was spoken of in the last paragraph in the July 13th post.

My reference to Gonzo Mode in the last post was only to highlight the fact you're in possession of a very famous and controversial device. A device which will require undisputable proof (activation) every step of the way as you build up to switching on the Gonzo Mode portion of the electronics.

TBH, I'm not much of a rem-ball fan when it comes to fusors. I had a calibrated Ludlum 12-4 which still seemed susceptible to high voltage related electronic noise and intense xrays.

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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Jon Rosenstiel »

Mark and Bob,

I too initially had EMI issues with my Ludlum rem-ball, found that adding another shield over the rem-ball to rate-meter cable eliminated the interference. Also, grounding the rate-meter with a short, heavy-gauge wire seemed to help a little.

Jon Rosenstiel
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Bob Reite
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Re: New Home for Doug's Fusor

Post by Bob Reite »

While I will use the REM Ball and the Hornyak button detectors to aid in tuning the fusor, I will not claim success until confirmed by activation of an element, or even better, a bubble dosimeter reading. Because of the six to nine mouth shelf life of the bubble detectors, I probably won't order one until I have activated silver to a substantial degree.
The more reactive the materials, the more spectacular the failures.
The testing isn't over until the prototype is destroyed.
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