Progress Update - First Light
Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 9:24 pm
My feedthrough finally arrived. Only 63 days short of it's scheduled time. Because of the delay, I had pretty much everything else in place. I had already created my grid using the updated method Jon Rosenstiel designed with tungsten and it is a simple pressure fit to the feedthrough.
Once assembled I got to pumping. I got far below one micron fast and held the pumps there to out-gas any contaminants I might have introduced with the grid installation.
Switching on my power supply, I slowly brought the pressure up inside the chamber. At about 10 microns I started to get light. The picture below is at 15 microns, 15kv @ 5mA.
To those who have not yet ventured into the plasma creation, as all who have said before, it is an art form. Dancing between temperatures, pressures, voltages and amperages can become a dizzying task to keep track of.
While waiting for my feedthrough, I also started putting out plugs to try and obtain some deuterium. Unfortunately, I believe the climate for obtaining deuterium is still changing quite rapidly. And not in a positive direction.
I worked with a friend of mine who owns a manufacturing facility where they fabricate protective metal housings among other things. After talking to him about the deuterium, he talked with his Airgas rep who was unaware of such gas. So the rep sent some internal e-mails to his group to gen an idea. As it turns out, the rep was berated from the top down at Airgas. He received many e-mails about red-flags and dangers of deuterium among other hoopla.
Sad times indeed.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures and thanks for all the help/FAQs!!
More to come...
Once assembled I got to pumping. I got far below one micron fast and held the pumps there to out-gas any contaminants I might have introduced with the grid installation.
Switching on my power supply, I slowly brought the pressure up inside the chamber. At about 10 microns I started to get light. The picture below is at 15 microns, 15kv @ 5mA.
To those who have not yet ventured into the plasma creation, as all who have said before, it is an art form. Dancing between temperatures, pressures, voltages and amperages can become a dizzying task to keep track of.
While waiting for my feedthrough, I also started putting out plugs to try and obtain some deuterium. Unfortunately, I believe the climate for obtaining deuterium is still changing quite rapidly. And not in a positive direction.
I worked with a friend of mine who owns a manufacturing facility where they fabricate protective metal housings among other things. After talking to him about the deuterium, he talked with his Airgas rep who was unaware of such gas. So the rep sent some internal e-mails to his group to gen an idea. As it turns out, the rep was berated from the top down at Airgas. He received many e-mails about red-flags and dangers of deuterium among other hoopla.
Sad times indeed.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures and thanks for all the help/FAQs!!
More to come...