The Hornet

15 04 2009

Just purchased an Instrutech Hornet Ion Vacuum Gauge. ~$900.

I chose to buy this to have a simple gross pressure gauge so we can begin pulling a vacuum. Sort of a sanity check. We expect the gauge to work. Without a proper gauge we are lost.

The hornet is the most simple/user friendly of the gauges I’ve explored. All in one unit, just plug it in and go. I think that’s the first major hardware I’ve purchased new!

Just waiting for nuts and bolts (literally) and some conflat gaskets to arrive, then we can pull first vacuum.





Budget

15 04 2009

Got a rough draft of my expenses so far, see the Google Spreadsheet. Definitely not complete, this is only the stuff I’ve purchased on ebay. 3 cheers for pedestrian data manipulation.





Liquid Nitrogen

15 04 2009

I’m getting quotes for liquid nitrogen (available at welding supply shops). These guys can fill my 30 L dewar on site for:

$70 nitrogen, $30 delivery fee, plus tax. I hope to place an order today.

UPDATE

These guys can do it for $78 including shipping. I have 30 L of liquid nitrogen coming tomorrow afternoon.





Glassman Power Supply

15 04 2009

Just spoke Glassman High Voltage about my powersupply:

glassman

This unit was made in 1988 (serviced 1991) for Eastman Kodak for testing CRT monitors. Original list price $2500 ($4,495 in 2009 dollars). I guess this makes sense that it’s useful to me considering Philo Farnsworth invented both the Fusor and Television. Both use high voltage. Due to a softening of demand in the semiconductor industry, Glassman’s plant is unfortunately closed until April 20 2009. My contact there can’t access the full documentation for the unit until he returns to the plant next week.

This unit on it’s own can produce only +10KV @ 1mA using the focus output (ie the focus would normally be attached to the part of the CRT that focuses the electron beam). This would still be useful for charging the mega capacitor, up to 10KV at least. We don’t know if this unit can be run alone. It may require the anode power supply. We’ll find out next week.

The manual appears to be hand typed with actual blueprints for the schematics:

blue_print

He mentioned that the EH Series might be ideal for our purposes.





Pump On

15 04 2009

Here is a short video of the vacuum pump turning on. The rough pump is pretty noisy. You can hear the turbo pump purring after I turn the unit off.





Second Donation

15 04 2009

Received a second donation of $15 today! Thank you Tom Schuring.

I have switched to a standard paypal donate button only, seems to be the preferred method.

Soon I will publish a budget which breaks down what I’ve spent so far, and what must be spent to reach first fusion.








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