My Fusor, Van De Graaf, and D2 Supply

[Dennis P Brown]

Here are my Fusor, its power supply, (also, the Van de Graaff) and deuterium gas supply station. In the last pic partly disassembled accelerator is in the background.

Aside: my fusor (Mark X, lol) is built in old milk cases. I really like these because they are cheap, extremely strong, easy to cut/mod as needed and best of all, non-conductive allowing the fusor to be better isolated. They are a bit silly but I like them much better than I high end (read not very cheap) metal enclosure that I use for the fusor high voltage power supply. I seriously considered using old milk case for the fusor power supply. But since the case was now available, and had some nice features, I went with it. Still, I like these old milk cases and used a broken one for the deuterium gas supply case. Has nice handles for carrying, too!.

[Jason C Wells]

Is that some sort of trap on the rough pump?

[Dennis P Brown]

Yes, a room temperature 'anti-oil' back flow device; it is a molecular 'sieve' like material in the SS case. Pretty std but very important for high vacuum oil based mechanical pumps. Prevents pump oil from easily back streaming into the high vacuum section of the system even if the turbo isn't running (or for a diffusion pump, too.)

Since in a fusor the mechanical pump oil can contaminate the system, a good idea even if one does not do high vacuum.

They need not be expensive - one can make a serviceable unit using fine grade steel wool in a plastic housing (most mechanical pumps don't get under a micron anyway.)

[Jason C Wells]

I tore my entire setup apart. I started doodling new schematics. One of the things I wanted to add was a simple "tank" trap on my rough pump inlet to prevent contamination in the event of an improper shutdown. Your device sounds even better since it will keep some vapors from working their way back into the test chamber during normal operation.