Keeping busy - fusing again plus other related stuff

Announcements and items of immediate importance.
Post Reply
User avatar
Richard Hull
Moderator
Posts: 14976
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2001 9:44 am
Real name: Richard Hull

Keeping busy - fusing again plus other related stuff

Post by Richard Hull »

Spring time means a warmer lab. This means some fusion work. I have been busy with nuclear instrumentation and designing stuff for the hobby while it has been cold. The cube fusor is still in its box. HEAS #34 is still on tap for the first Saturday in October as always with its flea market and demos, evening talks and presentations.

I just obtained 3 more Hi-Tek negative doubler "pies" to go with the other 3 I have. All were obtained from Steve Hansen of "The Bell Jar". I have the special Hi-Tek giant flyback base on which the pies sit. I must make a suitable PWM, RF driver (~25khz @ 3-5kv@ ~2 RF amps) At least this was what was demanded out of the flyback By Hi-Tek in there original 100kv 70ma supply. I hope to do the 25khz PWM into the flyback at a much reduced level to achieve no more than 0-60kv @ 20ma. I will full wave rectify and filter 0-240 VAC to about 300 VDC. Then push it into a PWM'd half bridge dumped into the flyback. Slow, but hopeful.

I am working on a number of neutron detection systems for just kicking around in the lab of a more portable nature. The Eberline PNC-1 is very portable, but is not very sensitive. I might cluster a bunch of Nancy Woods BF3 tubes or develop my 5" BC-210 to PMT detector.

I sold 3 of my Arduino based "Rad Reporter" GM systems at a local hamfest to some "preppers". These were All I had on hand so, last week, I had to populate 3 more PC boards and match them to the GM tubes. I have yet to mill out the boxes and mount everything into them.

Just an update. The work here proceeds.

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
User avatar
Dennis P Brown
Posts: 3147
Joined: Sun May 20, 2012 10:46 am
Real name: Dennis Brown

Re: Keeping busy - fusing again plus other related stuff

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Interesting; especially your approch to using a 'fly back' x-former. That should be posted at some point with pic's

I've been putting my fusor system under vac and might try running it and test one or more of my various detectors, late next week. Still think I can get the scintillation tube back into operation - I did do a tear down so resurrection could be iffy. About time I try testing the 80 kV x-former (however, only a few kV for now.) Finally - attempt to deal with the elephant in the room - the turbo electrical/line feed back noise - I hope a new line filter will deal with that.

Too many other need-to-do projects besides these just for the fusor. UGH! So, not optimistic. At least retirement paperwork is done and can be submitted early next week - then a three month wait for final processing (really - talk about slow; might need to retire again after waiting to just retire for that long ;) .)
User avatar
Richard Hull
Moderator
Posts: 14976
Joined: Fri Jun 15, 2001 9:44 am
Real name: Richard Hull

Re: Keeping busy - fusing again plus other related stuff

Post by Richard Hull »

I will throw up images of the various Hi-Tek components including their 1 foot square flyback and core. This is their flyback for their 100kv 70ma supply! Their driver box is 19" rack mount about 1 foot high and demands 208VAC 3 phase power and is rated at 8KW as its output is that monster, two lead 25khz peak 320 volt PWM'd DC pulses into the primary of the flyback. The primary of the flyback is 8 gauge Litz wire and the two pie wound coils
on the flyback are 18 gauge Litz. Gotta' make those RF amps into the stack of voltage doubler pies.

I do not have the driver box as it would be rather useless to me. I'll have to roll my own kinder-gentler driver system.

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
Matt_Gibson
Posts: 505
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:36 am
Real name: Matt Gibson

Re: Keeping busy - fusing again plus other related stuff

Post by Matt_Gibson »

Sounds like an awesome transformer. I’d love to find one of those and retire out my oil insulation.

Edit: Depending on your desire to build your driver vs pay, you could check out EasternVoltageResearch. They sell drsstc drivers based off the work of Steve award. I use a similar version to drive a half bridge using a function generator as the input. It’s definitely overkill, but when time is money…

-Matt
Post Reply

Return to “Announcements and Site Administration Topics”