One of the components of the electron gun is an armature which will hold the hot cathode, accelerator anode, and phosphor screen all in the same line with the center of the reactor.
This is a challenge because the armature must be an excellent electrical insulator and have a high heat tolerance. The ideal material is ceramic.
The problem with ceramic is that it we cannot machine it into the unique shapes required, but we can 3D print it! I’ve modeled the armature shape in OpenSCAD:
Here’s a link to the source code
The three curved “feet” have the same curvature as the inside of the reactor chamber, so it will fit nicely and sit still in the bottom of it.
the first column on the left holds the cathode, the middle column, the accelerator anode, and the last, the phosphor screen. the black line will be the path of the electrons to the center of the reactor. Everything here is pretty much how it’s going to be on the final armature, except the phosphor screen will have a different shape, and the distances between the columns will be different as well.
The MakerBot wouldn’t be able to print this all in one shot, so I printed it in sections, and glued them together to get a feel for the final one.
The accelerator cradle
Column for hot cathode
Base of the armature
Earlier version of the base
Assembled armature with cathode and accelerator
Hopefully when I send this file out to be printed in ceramic, they will be able to do it all in one piece. If not, I’l have to find some way of gluing pieces together
Domenick Bauer
Prometheus Fusion Perfection 