Archived - Frank Sanns Fusor Setup

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Frank Sanns
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Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2002 2:26 pm
Real name: Frank Sanns

Archived - Frank Sanns Fusor Setup

Post by Frank Sanns »

Here is a recent photo of my fusor. It is a 6 way cross with 2 of the 10" conflat flanges being rotatable. This is handy to be able to easily align the heavy vacuum valves with the chamber by rotating until the proper height is found. Also, if I make an error welding or machining one of the flange blanks, it is far easier to replace it rather than the entire chamber.

My backing pump is a Welch 1402 with an air cooled 2" CVC diffusion pump using Dow 705 fluid for high vacuum.

My inner grids have ranged from 0.5 inches up to 6 inches and have included a deuterium loaded palladium electroplated grid. The outer grid is just over 10" in diameter and is made of aluminum lattice grid. It was easy to fabricate and gives me a more surface area and complete outer grid than just wires. During a low pressure run, the outter grid fluoresces bright red while the chamber fluoresces sky blue. It really is spectacular for being such an inhospitable environment.

I have HV capacity to run up to 100 KV but my feed through insulator and safety precautions limit me to around 50 KV. To prevent a runaway electron event, I usually keep a wire high power resistor bank in series with my power supply. I also am experimenting with resonance in the chamber by using high voltage RF frequencies in the 10 MHz to 20 MHz range.

My instrumentation is a Ludlum 2200 scaler/counter with a 22" x 1" He3 high sensitivity neutron detector tube inside a 6" diameter cyclinder of paraffin moderator. X-rays are monitored with 2 Radiation 4 monitors. On the inside of my 3.5” view port opening is a piece of leaded x-ray absorbing glass so I can visually observe what is going on in the fusor up to my self imposed 50 KV limit.

If you have any questions, criticisms or comments, please post them in the appropriate forum and I will respond.

Good luck, be safe, and have fun!

Frank Sanns
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Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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