The basic operating principle of this fusor is that there will be two "grids" in a vacuum. The outer grid will be a positive ground reference and the inner grid will be a highly negative voltage. When the grids are energized, the free particles in the chamber will ionize (i.e. the electrons will be ripped from the nucleus). The free electrons will be attracted to the positive ground (the metal chamber in my case) and the positively charged nuclei will be attracted to the negative inner grid. As you can see from the picture on the left, the inner grid should be as transparent as possible to allow the nuclei to fly through and collide in the center. These collisions are what should produce fusion reactions once deuterium is introduced into the chamber.
In order to get the high voltage into the vacuum chamber, it is necessary to have a vacuum sealed inlet for the high voltage. In the picture below, my feedthrough is shown in the vice. For the feedthrough I decided to use a spark plug (credit to Andrew Seltzman of RTF technologies for the idea). I chipped away the insulation on the inside of the plug and used a crimp connector to attach a copper wire to the center post of the spark plug. Then, Anatol and I J-B welded a high-alumina ceramic jacket over the wire to stop it from arcing to the casing of the spark plug. We cut and tapped a piece of aluminum to J-B weld to the side of chamber so that the spark plug could simply be screwed in (we used teflon tape around the threads to ensure a vacuum seal).
The basic operating principle of this fusor is that there will be two "grids" in a vacuum. The outer grid will be a positive ground reference and the inner grid will be a highly negative voltage. When the grids are energized, the free particles in the chamber will ionize (i.e. the electrons will be ripped from the nucleus). The free electrons will be attracted to the positive ground (the metal chamber in my case) and the positively charged nuclei will be attracted to the negative inner grid. As you can see from the picture on the left, the inner grid should be as transparent as possible to allow the nuclei to fly through and collide in the center. These collisions are what should produce fusion reactions once deuterium is introduced into the chamber.
In order to get the high voltage into the vacuum chamber, it is necessary to have a vacuum sealed inlet for the high voltage. In the picture below, my feedthrough is shown in the vice. For the feedthrough I decided to use a spark plug (credit to Andrew Seltzman of RTF technologies for the idea). I chipped away the insulation on the inside of the plug and used a crimp connector to attach a copper wire to the center post of the spark plug. Then, Anatol and I J-B welded a high-alumina ceramic jacket over the wire to stop it from arcing to the casing of the spark plug. We cut and tapped a piece of aluminum to J-B weld to the side of chamber so that the spark plug could simply be screwed in (we used teflon tape around the threads to ensure a vacuum seal).
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