LMU Fusor Experiment

Another school year is starting, and I find myself on the East Coast, waiting to start taking grad classes in a week. Unfortunately, we did...

We have been up and running for about a week now, but unfortunately all manner of voltage, pressure, and time combinations have yet to show ...

In order to check out the gas handling system, Anatol and I ran the system using just atmosphere. We made sure that it was possible to atta...

In the previous post, I mentioned a deuterium handling system, and figured that it was worthy of its own post. The system consists of: 1.) ...

Wow, the end of the school year definitely caught up with me, but now finals are over, and I can devote more time to fusion. Here is what h...

Here is a picture from a very low vacuum run (just under 2000 microns). We found that the atmospheric plasma would only ignite up to 2000 ...

This video is a clip from a very low vacuum run (around 200 microns). Notice how the plasma is not diffused throughout the chamber but form...

Today, February 26, 2010 I turned the completed reactor on for the first time and it performed wonderfully! At a vacuum pressure of 20 micr...

This Friday, I hope to run the fusor for the first time. Today, Anatol and I put the system together and mounted the chamber on some vertic...

In order to create the high voltages required to energize the inner grid, a special power supply was needed. As commercial kV power supplie...

The basic operating principle of this fusor is that there will be two "grids" in a vacuum. The outer grid will be a positive grou...

For the third vacuum test, I tested the system with the addition of the high-voltage port. For the high voltage feedthrough, I will be usin...

Here is a picture of the vacuum setup that was described in the post for the first vacuum test (although this picture is of the second test)...

After the viewport had been attached, we needed to make sure that the seal was vacuum tight, so we assembled the system and hooked it up to ...

Here is a view through the viewport with the vacuum container assembled. The hole in the other side is the 3/4'' fitting which is a...

Here is the assembled container with the viewport attached.

Here is the lathe that I have been using to machine the metal parts. In this picture, the aluminum round used for the viewport base is bein...

In order to be able to see into the chamber, Anatol and I designed a viewport to be attached to the side opposite the vacuum fitting. We cu...

The units of pressure were a bit confusing to me before I started this project, so to clarify things for the reader in advance, here is a qu...

After letting the J-B Weld set over the weekend, the system was ready to be tested for the first time. Dr. Bulman had a chamber set up with...

After the custom flange was machined on the lathe, Anatol and I used J-B Weld to epoxy the flange to one of the stainless steel bowls. We u...

The upper, larger disk was epoxied to one of the bowls (after the bowl had been drilled) and the flange on the bottom was custom cut to matc...

The first part of the fusor construction has dealt with creating a vacuum chamber. In order for the fusion reactions to work, a reasonably ...

The most common question that I get when I tell people I am trying to build a nuclear reactor is, "Gee isn't that dangerous?!? Wha...

The purpose of this blog is to document the construction and research on my first Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor. In the coming weeks I will be pu...