Bubble Calculator

A place to keep track of reference material - any particularly useful books, articles, etc. should be listed here.
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Steven Sesselmann
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Re: Bubble Calculator

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

Guys,

Firstly to Chris, I am happy to remove the term efficiency, as I agree it is a bit misplaced. My ignorant understanding of the letter Q, was that it was a substitute for Quotient, and therefore used as a term simply to state that one number is a Quotient.

Wilfried, creating a bit of competition is healthy, there have been plenty of scientific achievements that have been fast tracked, when different research groups competed on the same project. I agree that each post reported must be backed up with all the data from that run, and I think that should be in the reply post under my list. I could create a link on the list, to the data post.

Of course every fusor run will vary, but the guys who have built quality reactors get very consistent and repeatable results.

If you have data from several runs, you could run it through the calculator and find out which one has the highest quotient, it may not be the one that produced the most neutrons.

What we are interested in on this list, is the best design, that yields the most energy out for the lowest input.


Steven
http://www.gammaspectacular.com - Gamma Spectrometry Systems
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
Jon Rosenstiel
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Re: Bubble Calculator

Post by Jon Rosenstiel »

Wilfried,

You’re correct, more detail would help, but I have to wonder just how much it would help? I think it’s still like comparing apples to oranges…each and every one of us has totally different setups.

Just a few “gotchas” that pop into mind:

1. Some of us use multiplier power supplies that output fairly smooth DC and some of us use unfiltered line frequency power supplies (x-ray type) that output a large amount of ripple…ripple whose amplitude changes with the amount of power drawn.

2. And we’re trying to measure that ripple with home-made divider networks we’ve constructed out of components we find wherever we can. If my meter tells me I’m running at 50 kV when in actuality I’m running at 52 kV my neutron numbers have lost their shine.

3. Measuring neutron output is, at the very best, a ± 20 % proposition. (And it’s much worse than that when all one has are a few bubbles).

4. Fusor “conditioning” has a huge affect on neutron output. For example, just after my most recent rebuild my fusor’s neutron output at 50 kV, 10 mA was 6.0E+05 n/s TIER. Today, three months and ~5 hours of run-time later its neutron output is 1.6E+06 n/s at the same 50 kV, 10 mA input. An increase of 2.7 times!

Steven, your little Excel calculator is fun to play with, but I think there are just too many input variables to expect much out of it.

Jon R
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Steven Sesselmann
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Re: Bubble Calculator

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

Jon,

I agree, if the competition is close, the inaccuracies may get the ranking out of order.

Small number of bubbles I agree does not give an exact result, we could say that all acceptable entries must have a bubble count of at least 25.

The "gotchas" are what we are looking for, and if someones contraption makes it to the top of the list, we will want to know everything about that setup and what makes it work so well, that would surely create a new thread in another forum.

Likewise learning from what doesn't work, by studying the bottom of the list.

I predict that the various setups will range over 3-4 orders of magnitude, and that careful study of the good ones will show us how to push our devices further maybe by several orders more.

By the way, the results from my run with S.T.A.R. 3 were just put on the list to make it look more like a list, I realize that 5 bubbles is not statistically enough.

I can either remove it now, or mark it with ** indicating that it is a statistically unreliable measurement.

Steven
http://www.gammaspectacular.com - Gamma Spectrometry Systems
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
Jon Rosenstiel
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Re: Bubble Calculator

Post by Jon Rosenstiel »

Steven,

FYI... Data from a "normal" run. (5/24/2008)

Input voltage: 50 kV
Input current: 10 mA
TIER: 1.6E+06 n/s
Q: 3.92E-09
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Steven Sesselmann
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Re: Bubble Calculator

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

Jon,

A little bit lower than your best run, so I won't update the list unless you want me to.

Steven
http://www.gammaspectacular.com - Gamma Spectrometry Systems
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
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Richard Hull
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Re: Bubble Calculator

Post by Richard Hull »

This entire thread should have been posted in the files forum. As this is a file record of fusor runs. It might also have been placed to good advantage in the fusor operation forum. It will have to stay here, nonetheless. I am sure that this string of replies will expand nearly forever here. Please start no new posted threads related to this subject here in this forum. Replies to this immediate thread seem enevitable and are OK.

Ricahrd 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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