Re: My Visit w Doug Coulter
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2015 12:03 pm
Thanks, Frank - we indeed had a problem with power supply energy X ray shine through - one we nearly eliminated via the lead coating of everything - perhaps surprisingly, we even had to do some of the vacuum plumbing. At least at those energies (50kv nominal here, probably more with some inductive kickback peaks we have seen when things aren't stable) lead works fairly well, but any hole means a lot of backscatter all over the place. I admit to some surprise over just how much. Bill was very helpful in chasing all that down. He worries more than I used to. BTW, one thing we did that helped (accidentally) was wind up coating most of the tank innards with a low Z material, in this case Al, in another experiment. We have also tried Richard's suggestion of something that holds D well, in our case Pd - and that made things a LOT worse re both X rays and the ability to control gas pressure as the temperatures changed. Low Z is the way to go here.
Ditto neutrons, which get scattered and moderated in the building materials and air itself (it's an old saw in the fast-neutron research papers - "first, remove the air from the lab"). Worst case for them - and our next test to explain the still-high geiger counts was going to be using a gamma spectrometer to see about capture gammas from neutron capture or decay - we were just about to do that test when this happened, but it would be significant in my estimation - and another reason to get to distance, since lead does little in that energy range (or for that matter, at the capture gamma range from boron - see the plot above). I asked Richard to do this test years ago but he never did, fearing for his NaI head (the I and Tl can be activated). Well, we now have spares, so it's going to get done even if we lose one. I could say "shame on you for refusing to advance our knowledge" but since it took us so long to get decent gamma ray spec heads ourselves - and they were pretty dear, financially, I understand. I suspect we'll see both those ~~ 2MeV gammas as well as the odd few from fast protons/He3/T hitting tank walls and happening to pass close to a heavy nucleus in the stainless steel. Of course, till that measurement is actually done, that's a guess.
I agree with Richard about the wait and see - and further replication(s) - one way or the other, we'll know in a few months, and yes, anyone who is willing to go the NDA route and try this - let me know, it will take some bucks on top of a decent normal fusor to do, as well. And I formally thank him for inspiring me to hook detectors to multiple indicators - including an audio amp (you might not be looking at a meter or plot, but you can't turn away from sound - if it's there, you'll hear it - or maybe notice that dog didn't bark), or I might not be making this post. Further, some replication is almost certainly going to show I wasn't even on the "sweet spot" for this new technique, there's probably more "in there" to be had, and I'm chomping at the bit to do just that - it would be nice to get to a practical net gain level, after all, that's my quest. This announcement was premature. Sadly, it's taking awhile to add the stuff to do that with some version of the definition of the word "safely". There was indeed quite a bit of moderator around, Richard (hundreds of pounds), and my counters saw what they saw re things sitting on the fusor table/next table being above background after. Not thousands counts/minute, but not the same as "nothing" either. I have no reason to make that up, just the observation that modern tooling uses some odd (and sometimes proprietary - trade secret) elements in the alloys and binders that might be easier to activate than the usual vanadium/tungsten/molybdenum/cobalt of old. Things move fast in that biz these days and I try to obtain the best. I know some of the cermets contain oxides of "things you wouldn't expect" in a tool bit. By the time I recovered enough to get serious back in the lab - and got some GR-130 gamma specs (thanks to Bill), the normal background made it difficult to see tiny additional bumps on the usual background spectrum and be sure. Just a longer tail at higher energies than usual. As well, a statistically valid higher count than normal on a good geiger counter (the nice pancake we got from GEO - wired in to good data analysis software).
I'm guessing I got a dose in the 100-200mS range FWIW - and it's a guess. I'm not a young guy and things like this probably affect the older and weaker of us more per dose (I have emphysema, for example). Yes, a vastly messed up white count could have also exacerbated things by making me susceptible to whatever other pathogens were floating around. For the reason stated above, I didn't get a blood count done. Really, we kind of already know what the effects of a big fast dose are - it would only have served to prove (and reveal to perhaps the wrong people) what I already knew from being intimately connected to my own body and symptoms. I know my old "be a cowboy, don't sweat it" days are over now.
I'll be reporting back in when I have the real rigor we all know is required for real science - and the transformation of that into engineering. It will take me awhile to do the code, the hardware, the EMI shielding, initial testing in "stable/safe" mode, and get back on this horse - lots to do, but I'll be doing it. I'll report either way - if it works, or doesn't. Revealing what didn't work is as much a part of open source as what does, after all - it can save time for other workers.
Ditto neutrons, which get scattered and moderated in the building materials and air itself (it's an old saw in the fast-neutron research papers - "first, remove the air from the lab"). Worst case for them - and our next test to explain the still-high geiger counts was going to be using a gamma spectrometer to see about capture gammas from neutron capture or decay - we were just about to do that test when this happened, but it would be significant in my estimation - and another reason to get to distance, since lead does little in that energy range (or for that matter, at the capture gamma range from boron - see the plot above). I asked Richard to do this test years ago but he never did, fearing for his NaI head (the I and Tl can be activated). Well, we now have spares, so it's going to get done even if we lose one. I could say "shame on you for refusing to advance our knowledge" but since it took us so long to get decent gamma ray spec heads ourselves - and they were pretty dear, financially, I understand. I suspect we'll see both those ~~ 2MeV gammas as well as the odd few from fast protons/He3/T hitting tank walls and happening to pass close to a heavy nucleus in the stainless steel. Of course, till that measurement is actually done, that's a guess.
I agree with Richard about the wait and see - and further replication(s) - one way or the other, we'll know in a few months, and yes, anyone who is willing to go the NDA route and try this - let me know, it will take some bucks on top of a decent normal fusor to do, as well. And I formally thank him for inspiring me to hook detectors to multiple indicators - including an audio amp (you might not be looking at a meter or plot, but you can't turn away from sound - if it's there, you'll hear it - or maybe notice that dog didn't bark), or I might not be making this post. Further, some replication is almost certainly going to show I wasn't even on the "sweet spot" for this new technique, there's probably more "in there" to be had, and I'm chomping at the bit to do just that - it would be nice to get to a practical net gain level, after all, that's my quest. This announcement was premature. Sadly, it's taking awhile to add the stuff to do that with some version of the definition of the word "safely". There was indeed quite a bit of moderator around, Richard (hundreds of pounds), and my counters saw what they saw re things sitting on the fusor table/next table being above background after. Not thousands counts/minute, but not the same as "nothing" either. I have no reason to make that up, just the observation that modern tooling uses some odd (and sometimes proprietary - trade secret) elements in the alloys and binders that might be easier to activate than the usual vanadium/tungsten/molybdenum/cobalt of old. Things move fast in that biz these days and I try to obtain the best. I know some of the cermets contain oxides of "things you wouldn't expect" in a tool bit. By the time I recovered enough to get serious back in the lab - and got some GR-130 gamma specs (thanks to Bill), the normal background made it difficult to see tiny additional bumps on the usual background spectrum and be sure. Just a longer tail at higher energies than usual. As well, a statistically valid higher count than normal on a good geiger counter (the nice pancake we got from GEO - wired in to good data analysis software).
I'm guessing I got a dose in the 100-200mS range FWIW - and it's a guess. I'm not a young guy and things like this probably affect the older and weaker of us more per dose (I have emphysema, for example). Yes, a vastly messed up white count could have also exacerbated things by making me susceptible to whatever other pathogens were floating around. For the reason stated above, I didn't get a blood count done. Really, we kind of already know what the effects of a big fast dose are - it would only have served to prove (and reveal to perhaps the wrong people) what I already knew from being intimately connected to my own body and symptoms. I know my old "be a cowboy, don't sweat it" days are over now.
I'll be reporting back in when I have the real rigor we all know is required for real science - and the transformation of that into engineering. It will take me awhile to do the code, the hardware, the EMI shielding, initial testing in "stable/safe" mode, and get back on this horse - lots to do, but I'll be doing it. I'll report either way - if it works, or doesn't. Revealing what didn't work is as much a part of open source as what does, after all - it can save time for other workers.