I put together an emergency stop button for the reactor:
This will be positioned a safe distance from the reactor, so you can kill the high voltage from a distance. I’ll wire it up and test it today.
Coil Power Supply
Posted in Power Supply, Sydney Experiment, coils, polywell on February 13, 2010 by FAMULUSJoe Khachan just sent me details on the power supply for the coils. They are designed to produce a brief high current pulse.
Joe says:
The part that took the most time to build was the power supply. I’ve attached a diagram that looks something like our circuit without dump resistor to dump charge of the capacitors when we need to service them. We used a hockey puck type of SCR (a type of thyristor) that can take 1000 A continuous or 10 kA pulsed. This may have been an overkill because we found that a maximum of 300 A was needed. However, we may need higher current as we increase the size of the polywell. The capacitor bank was make of 5 X 1500 microFarads electrolytic capacitors that can take a maximum of 450V all connected in parallel. You need some kind of transformer that can step up the voltage from the mains and be able to charge the capacitors within a couple of seconds. That means it shoud be a reasonably hefty transformer. We control the voltage output of the transformer with a Variac on the input side. You need to protect the SCR from back EMF with a diode across it. The diode should be able to take a few amps. The wire diameter about one millimeter and there were 10 turns per former.
Joe’s coil power supply looks like this:
Here is the preliminary bill of material (click for Mouser produce page):
1500 microFarads electrolytic capacitors max 450V
Silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR)
Diode Diode to protect the SCR from back EMF
Step-up Transformer Step-up Transformer
100 watt 2KΩ resistor for bleeding capacitor bank
Rack mountable chassis.
Please comment if you notice wrong parts.
Coil Formers
Posted in Fabrication, Sydney Experiment, coils on February 12, 2010 by FAMULUSMy shop-mate Stuart machined these coil formers from a teflon rod:
Here is a time lapse video of Stuart machining the formers on the lathe:
Next we have to drill four holes in each former and connected them with angle brackets.
Coil Former Dimentions
Posted in Sydney Experiment, coils, polywell on February 9, 2010 by FAMULUSHere are the final dimensions of the coil former:
Sydney Plan
Posted in Sydney Experiment, polywell on February 8, 2010 by FAMULUSCoil formers: First I must machine a teflon rod on a metal lathe. I have a machinist lined up for this. Teflon rod is at the lab.
Coil electronics: waiting for schematics from Sydney team.
Electron Gun: fabricated. Awaiting second test.
Langmuir Probe: Looking for a suitable HV feedthrough. I need to purchase ceramic tubes. I already have the high voltage divider.
Here is what it would look like:
This setup would use the existing vacuum chamber.
Fundraiser
Posted in Fundraising, polywell on February 6, 2010 by FAMULUSI’m broke.
But not to worry. I’ve just launched a kickass kickstarter project to fund the building of an open source Bussard fusion reactor:
We are hoping to raise $3,000. The money will be used to replicate the results of the Sydney Experiment.
Be sure to check out the amazing rewards, especially the fusor grid necklaces.
Help me get the word out and make this a big success!
Fusion Run Video
Posted in Fusor on February 5, 2010 by FAMULUSI’m excited to release a video summary of the most recent fusion run. Produced by science journalist student Olivia Koski:
Open Joint Design
Posted in polywell on January 17, 2010 by FAMULUSDoing some work on the design of the open joint superconducting magrid, which looks like this:
The lids would need to have integrated covers to cover the open face joints. This is turning out to be a challenging design problem. I’ve gotten this far:
Nerd Nite
Posted in Community on January 13, 2010 by FAMULUSI’m giving a presentation on my fusion research at nerd nite this Friday the 15th around 8pm.
Nerd Nite NYC
Galapagos Art Space DUMBO 16 Main Street in DUMBO Brooklyn (F train to York St. or A/C train to High St.)Friday January 15, 2009 at 7pm (Quizo) and 8:15pm (regular Nerd Nite)-Fusing the Atom and Living to Tell-Description: We have built an open source nuclear fusion reactor and fused the atom. This is the story of a remarkable fusion device called the Farnsworth Fusor and its successor, the Bussard Reactor (aka. Polywell). The Bussard Reactor holds the promise of clean cheap abundant energy from fusion. This is a story of research on the edge.-Bio: Famulus is an entrepreneur, hacker, and rails developer. In 2008 he learned of the Bussard fusion reactor and left the software world to try and build a working Bussard Reactor.
Painting
Posted in Uncategorized on January 12, 2010 by FAMULUSI recently came across todayandtomorrow, a mind blowing contemporary art blog. It made me want to paint. I painted:
Oil on masonite.
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