Fusor Forums

Hi David

Manufacturer claims it can be mounted in any position.
I will leave a manual at Files forum.
Good luck!

Thanks!

That's a nice looking setup Liam. As someone looking to move from a demo fusor into neutron production your fusor has just become my goal. It looks so clean/simple and well organised. Great work to date and I look forward to seeing your progress.

There are some less professional parts of the setup that I'm not too proud of and that you can't see in the pictures, but thanks for the compliments. Smaller 2.75 conflat fusors don't produce as many neutrons as a 6" sphere or other larger chambers, but I went with this chamber because of costs.
-Liam David

Cost is a big concern for me as well. I'd love to be able to nail a large fusor but something in the 3" sort of realm is far more walletable. I can do a lot of the work myself although finding materials here can be difficult. Namely high voltage gear. It's seemingly not very common in Australia. I will figure something out. As we always do in this field.

As a very wise man once said, Physics is like sex. Sure, it has some practical applications... But thats not why we do it.

When I ran the turbo pump again today, I noticed that it made a loud "gurgling" sound for about the first ten seconds of acceleration and last 30 seconds of deceleration- otherwise it runs fine. I looked into the outlet with the pump spinning slowly and noticed that the rotor was vibrating slightly. I took the oil cap and rotor nut off, but the rotor does not come out. Can I force the rotor out with something like a bearing puller, or will this damage the pump? When the base is unscrewed, it does not come off, but does cause the rotor to seize. Does anyone have any experience disassembling a Pfeiffer TPU-040?

Another problem. I discovered that the top magnet ring in the turbo pump is cracked in two places. Could this be the cause of the rotor vibration?

Unless you are experienced with working with very tight machining tolerances and rotation speeds up to 90,000 RPM, I would not try to disassemble the pump. As long as it is quiet when it is up to speed and it's pulling the vacuum you need, I'd leave it alone. If not, I'd bite the bullet and send it off to a reputable rebuilder.

It makes some sort of a "gurgling" noise as it spins up- no liquids- but vibration. The "gurgling" noise fades out as it accelerates. I can also wiggle the rotor side to side if I push gently on it.

I have contacted a repair company and they say that when the magnet rings are cracked, the pump is irreparable. Is this true? The pump rotor can be disassembled with a spanner wrench, and ultimately everything had to be assembled, including the magnet rings, so...?

Cost to repair is most likely what they are referring to. Is it cost effective.

No, they're willing to inspect it for free to see if it's repairable, but one of the (technicians?) emailed me and said it's not.

The new TCP-040 controller arrived today, and I bolted the chamber together to do a vacuum test. The roughing pump only reached about 350mtorr due to outgassing, but the turbo pump pulled the chamber to 1E-5 torr in just a few minutes. The turbo accelerated fine and has a high, almost piercing pitch as it does so. At one point during deceleration it did sound like rotating metal contacted something in the pump, but no other noises were made afterwards.
In the manual for the turbo pump, it says that if the pump is mounted off of the vertical axis, then the outlet port should not exceed 20 degrees side-to-side from pointing downwards. What is the reasoning behind this?

-Liam

Admin, please grant me edit privileges so I can restore photos for some of my old threads.