Max's Finished Chamber

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MaxfieldFrancis
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Real name: Maxfield Francis

Max's Finished Chamber

Post by MaxfieldFrancis »

Hey all! Been doing immense amounts of work on my vacuum chamber, but I believe that I am nearing the final stretch. I had issues with the copper gaskets not mating properly and decided to just use a viton gasket. I laser cut all new gaskets and voila! She holds. Ill be running a test of the full vacuum system tomorrow and likely firing up a demo plasma on Friday.

Max
IMG_20220329_145939439.jpg
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Richard Hull
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Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by Richard Hull »

Nice looking setup. keep us informed on your first real run.

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
MaxfieldFrancis
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Real name: Maxfield Francis

Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by MaxfieldFrancis »

Thank you! Will do. Looking forward to it.

Max
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Nice chamber, turbo! That leak valve will perform extremely well. Your pumping port fore line looks a bit flimsy.
MaxfieldFrancis
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Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by MaxfieldFrancis »

Thank you! The fore line hose was replaced with a much better (albeit very old) silicone tube that holds up extremely well to the low pressure.
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Finn Hammer
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Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by Finn Hammer »

Max,
Is there a valve between the turbo and the chamber?.
Not entirely clear from the picture, but if there is not, it will take a high flow of deuterium to maintain those ~5-30 microns suitable for fusion.
Cheers, Finn Hammer
MaxfieldFrancis
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Real name: Maxfield Francis

Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by MaxfieldFrancis »

Finn,

There is not a valve between the turbo and chamber, however there is a valve between the turbo and the roughing pump. I don't see much difference between having it before or after the turbo. I put the valve where it currently is in order to prevent accidentally venting the turbo to atmosphere.

Thank you for all your help.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by Richard Hull »

By not having a valve between the turbo and the chamber you risk wasting a bit of deuterium.

Let us say the chamber has 100cc of volume and the turbo has 100 cc of volume.
Let us say you want your fusor to have 10 microns of flowing Deuterium gas to do fusion.
With the throttle valve between the turbo and mechanical pump you must fill 200cc of total volume with flowing deuterium. 100cc of this gas is not in the fusor chamber but in the turbo volume.

With a throttle valve at the chamber and turbo connection you are only supplying 100cc of deuterium at 10microns to the fusor itself.

You typically need two valves in the vacuum line one between the turbo and the mechanical pumped part of the system and one connecting the turbo intake to the chamber being pumped.

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
MaxfieldFrancis
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2021 9:22 am
Real name: Maxfield Francis

Re: Max's Finished Chamber

Post by MaxfieldFrancis »

Thank you for explaining that to me Mr. Hull and thank you Mr. Hammer for bringing it up. That is not something I thought about whatsoever. I have quite a sizeable amount of deuterium oxide, so I'm not too concerned about waste. Eventually I will improve the chamber and add a valve between the turbo and chamber.

I have worked on the leaks in the chamber and I am currently at the point where I don't know if the pressure increase is due to outgassing or a leak. It seems the main culprit of the leak was a minute scratch on the viewport gasket. I replaced it with a brand new copper gasket.
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