Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

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Mark Rowley
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Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

Hello all,
It’s been a few years since my last post but retirement finally arrived last summer so now it’s time to resume mothballed projects. Immediate plans are to begin working on a new Fusor and continuing with the Columbus I pinch device (thanks to Robert Tubbs for the suggestion). Being that I had most of the parts on hand, I decided to move forward with the pinch tube first. The tube is based off of an early Project Sherwood device from around 1952 (shown below). It’s nothing more than a simple gas discharge tube with a copper return conductor. Capacitance used during the original project varied but luckily centered along the value of my pulse capacitor (14uf at 30-40kV). Deuterium backfill pressures during the pinch are generally in the 200-300 mTorr range.

The deuterium will be supplied by a PEM cell system similar to the arrangements built by others here on the forum. All the parts have been bought so it’s just a matter of assembly now.

As discussed before, neutron detection will be a tough nut to crack. I’m going to start off with silver/indium activation and a pancake version of the 1B85/indium detector. I have a large compliment of scintillation detectors so I may try using a Ludlum 44-3 with indium or silver foil over the face. But ultimately it all boils down to the cyclic rate of the “putt putt” engine.

Shown are a couple pics of what I’ve assembled so far. Nothing is permanent as I’m still shifting things around and re-designing. As of now it’s incorporating a Pyrex tube while I get everything fine tuned. I have several fused quartz tubes (2”x17”) I’ll be swapping in a bit later.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

Excellent post and device. I am glad you are looking at activation as proof of fusion since no electronic detector tube would be suitable proof in what is sure to be EMP pulses from hell. Only a decent cyclic blast of neutrons activating material that is radioactive well after shutdown would be acceptable proof of D-D fusion in this type of putt-putt system.

Best of luck with this interesting poke at doing fusion.

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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Robert Dwyer »

This looks like a really interesting project. I noticed there isn't a current diagnostic mentioned or in the drawing. One way to look at and better diagnose the dynamics of the pinch is to use a rogowski coil to measure your current waveforms. The changes in current may help you better speculate what instabilities are dominating the pinch, and help you better see how to optimize your pinch.

The BTI bubble dosimeters work great for pulsed environments, and may be easier to use than foil activation (at first). At fluxes greater than 1e5 n/shot, I doubt you would even need to rep-rate the device if you get the really sensitive dosimeters. They may even work at lower pulses, but I can't back that up. Just my two-cents.

Good luck with his project! It will be interesting to see an amatuer pulsed-power effort!
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

Thanks Richard. If a group purchase of bubble detectors happens anytime soon, count me in.

Robert, a Rogowski coil is in the works. A spacing issue between the bottom electrode and the bottom of the return conductor makes coil placement tricky. I may have to wait till I can install the longer quartz tube. The thought of a arc-over hitting the coil seems catastrophic.

Shown are a couple photos of the system loosely pieced together for fit testing. The spark-gap, inductor, crowbar, damping resistor, etc have yet to be installed.
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Patrick Lindecker
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Patrick Lindecker »

Hello Mark,

Have you a WEB link about a description of this pinch tube device, at least to understand the posts.

Thanks
Patrick
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

Hi Patrick,
I have the PDF and would be willing to directly email it to you. I cant locate a non-pay link to the document and the pdf file size exceeds the limits of the forum.
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Patrick Lindecker »

Mark,

>I cant locate a non-pay link to the document and the pdf file size exceeds the limits of the forum.
Anyway thanks. It is not that important. If, possibly, you have some abstract (of limited size), here is my email: f6cte at free.fr

Patrick
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Rex Allers »

Mark,

Using your reference to Project Sherwood in the first post of this thread, I searched for that and quickly found this page:
https://archive.org/details/bishop_projectsherwood

Title: Project Sherwood: The U.S. Program in Controlled Fusion
by Bishop, Amasa S.
1958

In a right-hand column there is a list of links to various forms of the document.
I clicked PDF and was surprized to see it start to download.

It was very big -- about 70 MB -- as the pdf document is all images of the original pages.

Not sure if this is the same document you described, but it is interesting stuff and allowed me to basically understand what you've been describing. (and the history from the early 50's)
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

I have two first edition copies of Project Sherwood and bought most online for reference over the years for under $10.00 each. It is a must read for all who would see where fusion was in its early years long before the first hundred million was spent nation-wide. That small sum supported many early research fusion projects far beyond the operational period of Project Sherwood.

Sherwood was a good early start towards today's multi-billion dollar, continuously failing, "boondoggles".

Of note, the author, Amasa Bishop, was the main opponent of the Farnsworth fusor, following its demonstration before the AEC in 1967 by Robert Hirsch and Gene Meeks. Bishop kept the AEC from picking up the meager funding for the fusor project as AT&T wanted the AEC to take it over and develop it.

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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

This particular publication is from the Journal of Applied Physics. Written in 1958, its specific to Columbus 1 and was written by R. E. Dunway and J. A. Phillips from Los Alamos.

Here's the link to the abstract:

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.1723390
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

The Project Sherwood book by Bishop is definitely an educational read. Richard, I believe it was you who mentioned it sometime in the mid to earlier 2000's which piqued my interest to the point of getting a copy.
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Patrick Lindecker »

Thanks Rex and Mark for both links (abstract and 70 Mbytes PDF). It seems interesting and a lot to read.

Patrick
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

A very wise man, Mark.... A large number of folks, especially newbies just seem to refuse to read up extensively on the history of fusion. The bulk of ideas that tend to bubble up here are just hair-brained the rest have pretty much already been tried and failed. What is the old saying..."if you don't know history, you may be doomed to repeat it".

Certainly, making a fusor is just repeating what has already been done over and over again, but it is a conscious decision to do so, a learning moment and an opening to a much broader, hands-on, experience with fusion. Only a fool would think they are going to push it or use it as anything more than a stepping stone, if they really are interested in moving on beyond its capabilities.

So far, zero-point-zero folks here who have made and operated a Farnsworth fusor have pushed out way beyond the fusor. Some of the younger set may have gone on to college and are "in th' biz" for cash and glory, but still zip in the "fusion for real" biz. Not one watt of electrical generation for real use has taken place. What was once ancient history in the fusion biz is now pretty again, (Stellarator), while the latest wonderments, (NIF), is just another shot in the dark that missed. So far, in the world of useful fusion, we have monster projects spread over many acres of land, all have monster budgets and spending and not one of the folks in the biz who claim they reached over unity has bothered to heat a little bit of water and turn a "tom thumb" generator to light a light bulb. I realize this would be stupid, but then that very act would make me unable to claim 0.0 electrical generation.

The now much storied fission "water boiler" in the 40's generated real electricity, fission electrically powered submarines, a Russian 40 megawatt power station supplied fission electricity to an entire city and a United States fission reactor powered the town of Argo all before 1956 just 11 years after the atomic bomb. Where is fusion? Still lying on its face in the dirt....still trying to get up.

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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Dennis P Brown »

I built a small magnetic "mirror" machine as my senor project in college. It was very instructive but my diagnostics were far too primitive and few to get meaningful results - I simply had a scintillation detector to 'see' back-scattering ions. The key to any such machine are diagnostics so I'd follow the advice of some here on that issue. Neutrons, however, are of little use since the point of any such ion 'trap' is measuring the ability to hold the ions, and neutrons flux will provide little meaningful feed-back on that aspect of your machine.

That all said, the building of your device is, of itself, a worthy goal and I hope you both continue and post your progress.

As for successful fusion (not even talking break-even, here) in any near time-frame, zero chance of that even as billions are wasted on many projects. While the German stellarator is certainly the best current device and very successful for what it is trying to do, it uses no tritium and isn't meant to do any real fusion. If it continues on its excellent path, and achieves its goals, certainly that shows some interesting promise - but as Richard very correctly points out, that is still zero energy.

The Germans would, if they get their final goal and finish successfully, want to build a true proto-type power reactor that would likely (again, if they manage to build it) achieve well above true net power (a 'if' but not a stretch like most all other ideas/approaches.)

However, regardless of that I am deeply concerned about the cost to build, not the physics of their Stellarator. While their current machine cost around a billion dollars, then by the cube law, and considering shielding for the magnet's (meaning far larger still) a real proto-type would likely cost well over over nine billion in today's dollars - so, ten years from now, likely much more.

Then if that worked (that is really getting very questionable speculation now) that would indicate that a real power plant would far exceed that cost. In other words, even if real fusion was achieved, its cost based on currently 'best' physics approach - i.e. the stellarator design - would cost, at a minimum, three to five times the currently hideously expensive fission plants. How does that in any way make economic sense for a giga-watt plant?

Sadly, even if fusion is possible via the only realistic mode anyone has really studied (no, tokamak's are not really useful devices - besides making stellatators look moderately priced, their basic physics is terrible for any power production), fusion energy on earth simply can't be useful in the time frames that it really would be most critical - the next fifty years. So, basically, Richard is spot on even if current progress does (again, if) continue successfully.

For those interested, here is a site for the latest news relative to the German Stellarator:

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-peak-stel ... sults.html

It is very promising but as I said, cost is the only issue that really matters in the real world once one does get past the physics problems. There is no engineering approach that can help so I simply see no viable approach to fusion energy in any realistic time frame that matters to humanity.

With the terrible damage of AGW even now becoming fully apparent (and ignoring its far greater disastrous effects within the next fifty years as the Earth's equatorial regions become impossible for human life without AC) it is tragic that the Candu fission reactor is being completely ignored as a very safe, and extremely low carbon power source.
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

Candu is a nice system but demands huge amount of heavy water. However this would not be an obstacle if the world got serious about heavy water production.

The reality for any nuclear generational source that proves itself real and viable is cost as Dennis notes. I have harped on the bean counter being the final arbiter in any final scenario.

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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

Dennis,
It would be best to flat-out abandon all hope for any power producing fusion machines in our (or anyone else's) life time on this forum. There's no "sadly" in my book. There's a "it would be nice to have" and I feel most of the old guard here are quite content knowing our efforts here are fun and highly educational pastimes. For me, I love history and the technical / scientific era between the late 1800's and 1960. I can read and study the vintage concepts for hours and be quite content...content knowing their fusion efforts were in earnest, but of limited use and in no way will achieve the ultimate goal.

Just enjoy the hobby.
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

Yes, the early work was in deadly seriousness. The researchers were earnest and serious and made great use of often relatively limited funds of the period. Sherwoood was bathed in secrecy, (cold war). Finally, realizing that fusion was no big deal and not going to happen due to the major early efforts, they just opened the books to the world in an effort to share, (open source), and get others looking into fusion and reverse sharing.

The Russians really made some strides with their tokamak and we did a monkey- see-monkey-do trying to improve it.........seemingly forever and without end.

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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Rex Allers »

Richard, thanks for the mention of obtaining the actual Project Sherwood book. I decided to look. My first search results pointed to places like Amazon that had recent, paper-back printings for ~$60 or more. Next day I tried a shorter search and found some with better prices.

Some listings that looked good were on alibris.com. I never used them before but decided to go for an original 1958 hard-cover for < $9 including shipping. It came in less than a week. Very clean ex college-library book.

Book is small, 6-1/4 x 9-1/4 x 3/4", 216 pages. Chapter 1 is 14 pages, looks like a nice straight-forward intro to basic fusion principles. Some Appendix with good reference info. Rest of book looks like interesting accessible descriptions of what was going on at the time.

Here's a link to their current listings at various but affordable prices.
https://www.alibris.com/Project-Sherwoo ... ?matches=9#
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

As always, in specific titled, used books, prices range from a pittance to grossly and embarrassingly over priced. I tend to use ABE American Book Exchange and it has similar ranges of low prices to exorbitant in their listings. A number of the books are sent postage free.

I have amassed a rather fabulous scientific, but mostly nuclear library. I have even indulged myself with a few special first editions.

As with all such books there are a few that I just constantly go to for reference as they are the best of the best and always tend to contain just what I have questions about. I typically have a pristine copy bought and retained for my formal library. (10-40 dollar range). I also deliberately buy a rather ratty copy to keep in my two shelf lab library. ($5-$15 max) These poor copies have my yellow highlighting, oil soaked, smudged finger prints and glued-on tabs for quick access marring them forever, but ready for use in the highly active lab area.

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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

Just a quick update on the pinch tube progress.
Working out some minor vacuum leaks, awaiting delivery on some supplies (metering valve, fittings, etc), building the spark gap, and determining the best course on the 30kv capacitor charging supply. The Fusor power supply is out of the question as I don't want to risk killing my xray transformers; especially since I have another fusor project starting up. I have a 60ma 20kv transformer (35 lbs of core) and a 14.4kv 5kva pole pig as possible starter resources. No hurry but a ways yet to go.

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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

Charging monster discharge caps is a snap. Tiny worthless HV supplies work great! Just put a suitable high ohm charging resistor in series with the supply and a good voltmeter across the cap. A small neon transformer with a trippler or quadrupler can easily supply 60kv, no problem and will pretty much self limit as the capacitor charges.
All my knowledge here goes way back to can crushers, coin shrinkers, repulsion coils and water arc guns. Charging a big, instantly lethal, high voltage capacitor is very easy.

Spark gaps and hydrogen thyratrons make the best high current switches if you can't afford or obtain a Maxwell pressurized, triggered switch.

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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

Thanks Richard. I'll go the route of the tripler. Parts on the way.

Btw, back in the early 2000's I purchased your Fusor VHS tapes and have wondered if you converted any of it to DVD?
Did you make any cassettes on the water arc experiments as well?

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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Richard Hull »

Everything is converted to DVD and I haven't produced a new video since 2001. I used the Amiga and its Video Toaster add-on in the early 90's to produce all the videos.

My 24 page, original catalog listing and directory of what is on each tape is still valid. I have placed the old paper catalog within a bunch of word files which can be sent via e-mail.

I ended all VHS tape sales in 2005 and have sent out only DVD's since that time.

I have thought about doing a new fusor educational video, but have been slow to move. The first two videos were produced in 1999 and 2000 and upon reviewing them I find them "charming" and issued when I was but a "babe in the fusion woods". They are just embarrassing enough to set me to consider a more modern exposition.

I am only given pause due to the very nature of the fusor.net completeness on the subject and the vast store of data here that would be nearly impossible to fold into a 2 hour video.

Thanks for the kick in the butt on this, however. Such an effort just slipped one notch up on the to-do-maybe list.

Richard Hull

P.S. Note: This is far off topic and I apologize to the originator of this thread. I might throw more light on this in my trading post store in future.

P.P.S. OOOPs! Mark originated this thread!!!.....As it is his thread, I am far less apologetic. He asked....I answered.
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: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Dennis P Brown »

A follow up on your post about the 20 kV supply transformer you do have. I used a 32 kV transformer with similar current out put and while fusion was ok (between 100 k to 200 k neutrons) it didn't exactly overwhelm my counter. While a 20 kV high current supply will create neutrons, the rate might be very low for a standard chamber. I've seen that a 2.75 inch cross was used and got neutron levls similar to better than mine using just 19 - 20 kV. So, do consider a fusor chamber using a small cross for that 20 kV supply. I think that is your best method for that x-former type.

Off your topic but does relate to the fusion viability issue. Heavy ion fusion via inertial drive might very well achieve very high level net power fusion. This type of fusion drive was never allowed to progress (far too close to weapons.) That type of system (vastly superior to the long wavelength laser of NIF) has real possibilities using straight forward physics and might be a possible path to economical fusion - just that no one has every really tried it (past a minor system built at Los Alamos) since only government labs can afford the accelerators and due to concerns about weapon physics, can't do that type of work.
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Re: Columbus-I Pinch Tube Build

Post by Mark Rowley »

Based on Richards suggestion I’ll be charging the pulse cap with a 3 stage voltage multiplier. All the parts are in and that component should be completed this afternoon.

Other than working on the new Fusor, my big delay with Columbus has been the spark gap or trigger. I’ll most likely start with a basic 1cm gap for 30kV and then upgrade later to a trigatron design.

After a test shot with air plasma, I’ll assemble the PEM Cell so it can adapt to both the Columbus and cross Fusor platforms.

Mark Rowley
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