PSU

[Ryan Catalano]

Hello all,

Recently, I have been able to successfully produce a deuterium plasma after pumping my vacuum chamber down to 10^-5 torr and backfilling with deuterium from a PEM setup (photos below). I also have a functional CHMO-5 BF3 neutron detector system that I tested with a 5 mCi PoBe neutron source. Unfortunately, the power supply I'm testing with is only capable of 5 milliamps at 20kv, so I don't have the power to do detectable fusion. Being a 16 year old high school student, my parents have funded all of my expenses. So far, I have been working on this machine for about 5 years now and am very close to producing fusion. My funds are starting to run low after I purchased a dental x-ray transformer off of eBay that turned out to be broken and nonreturnable. I was just wondering would anyone be able to potentially lend me a power supply or sell me one? Thanks!

[Rich Feldman]

Hi Ryan. It's been refreshing to review your posting history and watch the steady progress. Wish I could say the same for my own amateur science efforts.

1. Where are you, in the geographic sense?
Among people who have or are developing suitable power supplies,
the ones willing to drive over and run the system with you and your dad
might outnumber those who would ship their potentially (no pun intended) lethal PSU.

2. How much time have you spent exploring the voltage and current boundaries of your present power supply?
You had some posts about false counting from electrical noise -- has that been solved?
Are you set up to measure plasma voltage and current?
How hard is it to maintain 20 kV or more with measurable current?
Sounds like you have a decent neutron detector, and everything else in order except a marginal power supply (did you really connect it using an alligator clip?).
Have you logged some runs and tried to see evidence (even faint) of the count rate changing when it's expected to?
[edit] Didn't mean to disparage your decision to seek assistance to get above 20 kV. I have placed a sealed bid on a Spellman +30 kV supply with a single-digit mA rating. If I'm lucky, it will be a learning project for about the cost of dinner out with my wife. Stay tuned. [/edit]

[Richard Hull]

I am with Rich and his sage questions that need some answers. Your work looks excellent, thus far. You really do need some metering on the voltage and current. One question of my own. Can you post an image of your neutron counter? What is the size of the tube, do you know? 20kv at a working 5ma, if solid and steady, should, in a medium sized BF3 tube detector, be able to be statisitcally dragged out of the background with some relative ease.

Richard Hull

[Ryan Catalano]

Thanks for the replies! I live in central NJ. I'll create a post about my detector setup. Also, I have been able to stabilize the pressure pretty well and maintain 18kv and (with the variac on the power supply turned all the way up) 1.5 ma.