Prometheus Fusion Perfection

Today was my first full day in the lab. I’m filthy and exhausted. This project is physically demanding. It feels great.

Spent the day working on the vacuum. 

First off, I realized that the chamber can split in two. So the hexagagonal top can be removed from the cylindrical botton. This has the same 27″ rubber gasket as the lid.  This opens up the possibility of just removing the top and using only the bottom cylinder. I think it would still be enough space for the experiment, and would eliminate many potential leak/outgassing sources. However, both the lid, and the bottom cylinder have gaskets, so the current lid could not be used. But any flat thick piece of stainless would do.

I unpacked the extra flanges, and found blanks for all the large ports but one:

I also realized that the gate valve was not where the pump was connected, but rather used for inserting and removing compact disks from the chamber. Now I’m thinking the pumps connects here:

And speaking of the pumps, the turbomolecular pump I currently have must be used standing up. This means I cannot connect it to the chamber without a huge elbo. I’m going to price that out, but might re-bay the current pumps and get one that can go sideways. Watching these auctions:

Kyky

Lebold

Varian

I was able to remove the remaining machinery from the bottom of the lid:

 The cryopump arrived. It’s bigger than I expected.

Also got the Glassman powersupply:

Here are some closeups of the gate/pump mount:

I wonder what that small portal on the top is for?

This looks like a conflat on the side you can’t see:

You can see a ring where the rubber gasket from the pump would go:

But how do I attach the pump? Where do the screws go?

Just confirmed: All the smaller portals on this vacuum chamber are ConFlats!

Today’s TODO list. 

1. catalog portals
2. purchase missing portal covers (blanks, view portal, HV feedthrough, gas feedthrough)
3. are any of the portals conflats?  YES. all the smaller portals are conflats.
4. Purchase rough pump  rough pump
5. remove guts from lid
6. clean chamber
7. what’s the deal with the vacuum meter (supposedly one came with chamber). Only measures down to 10e-3 torr.
8. get controller for turbomolecular pump 
9. get oil for turbomolecular  pump
10. try to attache turbomolecular  pump to chamber need to get a new pump or a huge elbow!

So now that we know this vacuum chamber is for metalizing CD’s. I did some digging and found this:

The discs pass, one at a time, into the metalize, a small chamber at approximately 10E-3 Torr vacuum.

So there you have it. This chamber is likely designed to operate in the 10E-3 Torr range.

I’m exploring my options.

Reading this page on what it takes to make fusion with a fusor, I noticed this bit:

A vacuum pump capable of reaching pressures of 10^-3 Torr (1 micron Hg) or deeper. A 2-stage mechanical pump is usually good enough. Lower pressures require oil diffusion or turbomolecular pumps in addition to a mechanical pump.

This seems to indicate that fusion is possible even with a 10-3 Torr vacuum. 

With this is mind I’m going to move forward with using the chamber with the current rubber gaskets. I may be able to get as low as 10-6 torr, which should be good enough to begin research, and maybe create fusion.

UPDATE:

Although 10-3 torr IS good enough for the fusor, the polywell requires the full 10-8 torr. See comments.

The Turbomolecular Pump arrived. I wonder if this will have any problems running on it’s side. It looks like it’s designed to be in a upright position.

The underside. You can see an oil reservoir. The unit is covered in oil. I supposed I should refill the reservoir with fluid. The exhaust portal is bent out of shape:

3 pin interface. I wonder if I could program an Arduino + a PWM board to be a controller. 

The input: