Fusor Forums

Hello everyone,

I am 16 years old and have an interest in chemistry and physics, especially building things related to these fields.
Next year I have to make my "profielwerkstuk" for my graduation, it's basically a thesis, but for high school.
For this I had some options, tesla coils, electric bycicles, but nothing drew me more in than a Farnsworth Fusor.
I'm still relatively new to this field but am eager to learn and spend some money to achieve my goals.
I will be reading this forum through entirely to become more knowledgable, and that will teach me if my goals are attainable.
If all goes well I'll join the fusion club at age 17, although I realize this is quite a bold statement to make.
Hopefully I can at least make a demo reactor, but I will try hard to make it work and get some actual D-D fusion going.
My high voltage experience has been flybacks and MOT's, but almost zero vacuum knowledge.

I won't be very active the following days, I'm going to gather as much knowledge as I can before asking questions.
Anyway, I'm very happy to have found this website, the amount of information here is ridiculous!

Wish me luck!

Smart fellow.....Read first, take notes, form an initial path to the goal based on the reported past experiences of those who have gone before. Finally, ask questions as needed. Good luck.

Richard Hull

Welcome. Gotta do a lot of reading if you're starting from scratch, and more importantly acquire a lot of practical experience in several key domains, notably high vacuum techniques, high voltage generation and safety, radiation detection and safety. And the parts/devices you will need don't come cheap, and sometimes are hard to find.

If your school will help , so much the better. Perhaps they already have stuff that you can use (though doubtful). Maybe you can find another student who is interested and has the skills needed and you can make it a collaborative project...

Anyway I salute your enthusiasm. My high school graduation project was, back in the early 1980s, an analog capacimeter with 4 decade ranges. Basically an impedance meter for a RC circuit in AC, with known R and unknown C. A fusor is many orders of magnitude more complex.