Richard Hull's Attic

[Richard Hull]

A special side note on Fred "Freddy" Haak"

One of the great treasures of the ITT buy out of Farnsworth electronics in 1949 was the prized vacuum tube division. Within the tube division at Pontiac street was their phosphors lab! This is where their weird group of tubes were birthed. Phosphors were key to many military designs.

My visit in 1999 included lengthy interview time with Freddy Haak. He was a BS in chemistry specialized in phosphors. He was transferred to the Farnsworth team in late 1961 or early 62... He could not remember precisely.... He was transferred due to his knowledge of vacuum techniques and his phosphor knowledge. Freddy showed me many odd ball tubes that he was responsible for. Early computer phosphor scanned memory tubes, were his specialty. It is not known now, but only to me, that Freddy, Gene, and George, told me that in the many, over 20 bell jar type tubes created before the arrival of Bob Hirsch, and that almost every one and their test versions contained Fred Haak applied phosphors so that electron paths and ion paths might be followed or observed either on electrodes or the glass of the bell jar tubes.

By bell jar tubes, we make the distinction that it was a mix of bell jars, (very few), and special tube lab blown glass fusor tubes designed from Farnsworth's crude drawings supplied to Jim Hiney who produced precise design drawings for the tube lab to make up. According to Gene and Fred, bell jars were often used with phosphors to design the internals and then moved to blown glass tubes by the tube lab. None ever did fusion. All of these early tubes 1959-1963 are lost. They went through many such iterations, unseen and lost forever. According to George Bain, when Farnsworth was effectively fired, he saw a near dumpster full of old Fusor tubes as his office was cleared out. The older all metal versions were returned to stores for parts scrap out.

The all metal fusors were the doing of the arrival of Hirsch coupled with far more serious efforts to do fusion at a professional level with professional materials in ever expanding budgets.

In short Freddy showed me some tubes even he could not remember what they did!!

[Richard Hull]

Added 2024 due to specific questions related to the glass fusors and neutron numbers.

in 1960- late1962 the team had no neutron counter! If what they needed didn't exist at Pontiac street, they did without. Gene cobbled together their first HV supplies from the old stores of the discontinued TV manufacture which ended in 1958! His second supply built in 1961 could just do 34kv.

They had no money until the 1962 budget. It was then that they obtained a really fine 50kv universal voltronics power supply and in September a brand new Eberline PNC-1 neutron counter.

According to Hirsh, when he arrived in summer of 1963, they were still piddling around with all glass bell jar fusors and were getting very low neutron counts using deuterium gas, only.

Meeks, Bain and Haak, (arrived 1961) claimed that Farnsworth relied on two surplus military Geiger counters to claim fusion until they got a neutron counter which barely ticked when first used in early 1963. Bain and Meeks said that they always felt 1960-1963 that the roar of the GM counters were due to x-rays, which we all here know, that near a fusor, a GM counter will go nuts.

Thus, whether they produced any neutrons or not 1960-63 will never be known as they could not count them. The roaring GM counter early on produced grave concerns by the higher ups overseeing the program.

The Farnsworth effort was effectively a clown show 1960-62. No one had any knowledge related to neutron radiation detection! Not one human being on the team or at Pontiac street's high offices had any experience with radiation or its measurement!! I have reported that both Bain and Meeks had to more or less self-educate themselves in the area of radiation as they felt Farnsworth might be deceiving himself in his record keeping and reporting.

Regardless, the glowing reports from Farnsworth to his overloads forced them to cut loose with the first real money for the 1962 budget which saw the first professional HV supply arrive and a much needed neutron counter. Finally, their improved glass bell jars could be proven to be doing fusion.

Again, What did Pem know of radiation and neutron counting? Zip! She relied on her beloved husband to tell her what was going on.

Thank God I went to the worker bees and got the straight dope before they started dying. I was the only one that ever interviewed 100% of all these technical and engineering, fusor pioneers. They respected that I had done D-D fusion, that I had a working and useful knowledge of radiation physics, (neutron detection physics specifically), vacuum system assembly, and that I had a professional level of electronic background and fully understood what they went through. Many have interviewed only a few of them for a quick rinse in the basic history in the past. No one with the technical, electronic and nuclear chops ever interviewed them related to the reality of working, day-to-day technical details related to the fusion effort in their lab. They told me things that they admitted they never bothered to tell others. They all told me that they would not openly besmirch the reputation of Farnsworth. They all respected him as a man. However they all, to the man, felt he was unprepared for the work and 4 admitted that they, too, as it turned out, were also unprepared. They were thrown into the caldron of having to perform in an area for which they had no real background or useful knowledge, for a time.

All on the team, in the end, admitted that the work really took off with the arrival of Hirsch, metal fusors and deuterium-tritium fueling. Oh, in 1964 they purchased a giant rack controlled Universal Voltronics 150kv supply for the pit fusor, later shared with the cave fusor. Money flowed rapidly from 64-67. Farnworth, as a working, functioning team member, ended for the most part in 1961 with his virtual total displacement taking place with the arrival of Hirsch.

1960-1962 no neutron counter (open, yet unrealized self-deception)
1961-1962 Bain and Meeks self-educate themselves in rudimentary radiation physics over doubts about Farnsworth's claims
1961 The arrival of Haak makes for three main working team members plus one technician always there (3 total came and went)
1960-1963 All glass fusors
1962-1967 Money starts to flow, ever more increasing until the end.
1963-1964 Accurate, honest neutron counting and detection showing weak but real fusion in the last glass fusors fueled by deuterium, only.
1964-1967 end of glass fusors, all metal fusors. Real fusor work, D-T fueled fusors takes over and true scientific advancement.

Richard Hull

[Richard Hull]

Follow up to above post related to dates and achievements related to the glass fusor era.

As noted from early 1963 through 1964, part of the last gasp of the glass bell jar work, The team had two things brand new due to funds of 1962......
They had a real working neutron counter. They had a nice new 50kv Universal Voltronics 50,000 volt power supply that let them go beyond the 1962 limit of 34,000 volts into their fusor.

Thus, they did real proven fusion for about a year and a half in glass bell jar fusors! Albeit at a rather low level. (Meeks statement to me) From this the best they ever did in glass fusors 1960-64 was what they measured in those last 18 months where they knew what they were getting....
They worked at low pressures in the 3 micron range when successful at the end with deuterium in glass. Fusors cannot ever do fusion in glass at our level where pressures are 8-20 or more microns due to simple gas plasma dynamics. More D2 means more current, more current means more heat and glass implodes via local beam heating. That is why they, and we, do more fusion in all metal systems. This is why we tell newbies to never attempt any fusion in glass containment vessels! One thing that did come from all the clown circus days. 1960-62... They learned to vacuum out the glass well and just let a tiny bit of deuterium in to avoid implosion at high voltage and resultant currents. 34,000 volts from Gene's best and final homebrew HV supply was not a lot of voltage to do decent fusion in glass. It was enough to implode a glass system at high currents with higher Deuterium gas pressures where fusion can really "step out" to higher levels.

All of the above knowledge comes from self-directed learning, but far more so due to the "hands on imperative"... the "doing" which allows you to be one with the science and physics...to own it, internally..