Michael Logusz Plasma Club Submission

[Michael Logusz]

Hello everybody. My name is Michael Logusz and I'm a librarian from Metro Detroit.

This is my entry to join the Plasma Club. I was really inspired by the glass process pipe / Pyrex laboratory drain demo fusor by Frank Sanns; Mike Veldman's baby jar fusors; and the Five Minute and Mini Five Minute fusors made by Mark Rowley and Carl Smith.

Frank Sanns' 1968 lab drain fusor finally got me to really get started: I bought a Pyrex lab drain off ebay. I picked up a spectrum tube power supply for $4 and scrounged an entire two valve manifold for free.


Here's my whole setup. I know it will never achieve a great vacuum, it isn't rectified, is the opposite of fancy and almost none of it will physically go into my next actual fusor, but I learned a TON making this ultra simple demo.







I managed to get blue, then purple highlights on my grids. Then the purple darkened and spread along the grid wire nicely and filled the glass pipe with a faint purple fog. My camera had a hard time capturing everything and I was more concerned with operating everything safely but here are some photos of my purple plasma and grids.







The one cool thing about having silicone plugs is that it's easy to change the grids. I tried 5 different grids: stainless steel .051" stainless steel and ultra thin copper wire. During the copper wire grid experiment I had to use two alumina standoffs that were jagged, but they worked. Some thicker stainless wire would only barely glow.



Here is a shot of my ultra thin copper grid collapsing due to the heat



While running the pump and the power supply at the same time I could get the purple glow off the grid wires and floating between grids. I found a note in the first few pages of my fusor notebook that went something like "...just pull a vacuum-that'll be simple". WOW! No, vacuum is a weird art unto itself and I have not mastered it, but at least I got my toes wet. I'm hooked!

Obviously I'll never achieve great vacuum with this setup and I'm already planning a real fusor (I already have a Ludlum Neutron detector) but I'm still humbly submitting my little drain pipe for the Plasma Club.

Thank you for providing this forum.

Respectfully,
Michael Logusz

[Dennis P Brown]

Nice start - using whats on hand has merits but one needs to be very careful with glass chambers under vacuum - using thin glass for plasma's is dangerous and if a flaw leads to failure any implosions create terrible glass grenades! So, a screen is really a good idea and use safety glasses at all times when the chamber is being placed under vacuum!

Besides getting a chamber (if all glass, then proper thickness of glass in a safer geometry (cylinder or dome)) you need to get a cheap vacuum gauge (TC are nice and available for a first start), I would think, are your next priorities ... .

[Michael Logusz]

Thanks.

Yes, while lab glass is strong at the bead the weird "vee" shape had me worried. I've read in Kimex's literature (though mine is Pyrex) that they test at 25psi-although that's pressure, not vacuum and straight pieces, not oddly almost sharply creased fittings like mine.

You're right: that's too many "kinda, sorta, maybes" to gamble my life on. I learned so much and had great fun, but this vessel is going on the shelf. The next time I'll go with the current best practice: a much safer stainless sphere/conflats/etc.

For the record, I did use Lexan lathe guards, kept a distance and had on a full face shield just in case.

-Mike