Anomalous fusion reactions in your Fusor?

[Sven Andersson]

To anyone who operates or have previously operated a Fusor, I would like to ask the following question; have you ever noticed any "anomalous" nuclear fusion reactions that have occured when the Fusor was not running? Events that occured when there may or may not have been, an electric potential across the anode and cathode or (if the Fusor has metal walls) the walls of the Fusor? Perhaps you have filmed the event and put it on YouTube? Please share your experiences, if you have any!

I'm after events that may look like this: you run the Fusor; detect neutrons and gamma rays, turn the thing off and 10 minutes later there is an outburst of gamma radiation and neutrons detected. You may or may not have disconnected the high voltage equipment from the Fusor.

SA

[Richard Hull]

I, too, would be curious if any of these things were noticed or recorded.

Normally, at least in most all cases I am aware of, you run your fusor, do your fusing and related experiments, taking readings,etc. When you are ready to shut off the fusor, you shut it off, along with 100% of your radiation detection instruments. Why keep them on? There is no real reason as there is no more expected radiation to detect.

I would be stunned to learn of any real successful fusioneer hanging around with functional radiation instruments turned on after his fusor was turned off for the day. It just doesn't happen that way. Most of us, when we first do fusion, will probe the area around or fusors immediately after shutting down with a geiger counter in hopes of finding something casually neutron activated after operation. The effort is always negative, so we give it up after a couple of probings as a lost cause and realize we just don't have the amount of fusion needed and there were little or no thermal neutrons around to do the job, anyway.

Note:**** For those first doing fusion at lower level voltages or who have terrible neutron detection systems, their neutron count is usually abysmally low when doing fusion. These folks are exhorted to take neutron background counts for 10 minutes prior to running, record the counts per minute and then run their machines, record their operational neutron counts per minute and, finally after shutdown, perform another 10 minute background count. They average the before and after counts to arrive at a general background level. If the operational count minus the background count is a significant figure then they might assume they have done fusion. I have never heard of a large finishing background count that was way out of line with the pre-run count. The two backgrounds should be nearly identical, within decent limits.

Our knowledge grows with the doing, the reading and simple empirical observation.

In my case and probably in other cases, folks probing about after shutdown with a GM counter might have noticed a good deal of radiation detectable at the HV insulator every time following shut down. This radiation may continue along the HV cabling to their insulation, however, it is almost always detectable at the insulator itself with a mica windowed GM probe. This radiation always falls off to near zero within a few minutes to an hour. To the un-informed it seems amazing until they read and study a bit.

Some of us live in greater or lesser amounts of radon in our sheds, basements, attics or homes where our fusor's reside and operate. Radon is a radioactive gas, of course. As radon decays, it produces decay solids; solids that are ionized. Any radon gas decaying at or near the insulator will have these soild matter ions attracted to the extreme electrical field in and around the insulator. These "daughter" products are all radioactive themselves. They attach to the inusulator constantly during operation. You might look at the insulator as a "radon daughter accumulator". Thus, the insulator is now radioactive until the fast decaying daughters filter through their respective half lives. This is a well known process and fully comprehensible and repeatable.

Of course, there is no "bursting", but instead, a steady and continuous radiation until it dies away. No neutron detector can detect this radiation, only a mica windowed GM probe.

For all fusioneers or experimentalists.... you can determine if you have a moderate to large radon load in your area by a simple experiment which I will post as a FAQ in the radiation forum.

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Richard Hull