here is the current status of my Fusor project, on which I've been working on since summer 2014.
- Fusor setup (this is an older picture, without the viewport and the feedthrough)
The pressure gauge you can see on the above photo is a used Edwards APG-100 Pirani gauge. Although I did cross-calibrate it with Werner's full range gauge (it was way out of calibration when I received it), it forms the bottleneck of the current setup. As per its datasheet, you can count on somewhat accurate measurements down to about 10E-3 mbar. With the diffusion pump, I'm able to go much lower of course - but how much lower I can't say for sure.
- very crude feedthrough I'm currently using
These are the first plasma discharges I could generate today, using a small OBIT. I didn't bother making a nice grid for these first tests, but opted for the easiest to make geometry: a 'rectangular' grid.
- line focus clearly visible (in the 10E-3 mbar regime)
- high pressure discharge (some 10E-2 mbar)
- GUI of the DAQ application I'm using for remote controlling the MCA (written in Java)
But that's still far away -- I'm by all means trying not to rush towards fusion, but rather try to avoid off-the-shelf solutions and make most things myself (e.g. the electronics).
So it may be some more time before I can report on 'first neutrons', but I'll have lots of fun in the process of getting there
Philipp
