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Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 9:09 pm
by Joshua Turbyfill
Hello everyone,

Around six months ago I stopped working on the fusor to pursue other projects, so everything has pretty much just been boxed up and placed out of sight. Yesterday through I decided to get off my lazy ass and do something, so I can get this project moving forward like it should. In the meantime, the only thing I've accomplished is to get more vacuum gauges and turbo pumps, two of which are too big to be of any use (even if I could get my hands on their elusive controllers). Other than that, I managed to catch the x-ray transformer on fire. Funny enough it still works (with some minor burn marks).
60 liter pfeiffer, 100 liter edwards, 512 liter pfeiffer, and two 2200 liter mitsubishi's
60 liter pfeiffer, 100 liter edwards, 512 liter pfeiffer, and two 2200 liter mitsubishi's

At the moment I'm mounting the main chamber to a temporary wood frame with some industrial pipe clamps. After the rest of the parts are installed and the design finalized I'll change that to a square steel frame:
An outdated revision of the design
An outdated revision of the design

Moving forward, it should go something like this:

1. Temp frame, rest of vacuum chamber parts

2. Vacuum testing, making sure everything functions as it should

3. Test grid installed, testing reactor as demo fusor w/ 3kv supply

4. Finish & test the xrt supply, assemble the dueterium electrolysis assembly

5. If electrolysis doesn't work well, I'll try to get a lecture bottle through my college.

6. Fusion testing w/ xrt supply and deuterium

I'll have more updates in the coming days and weeks as I put this thing together.

Joshua Turbyfill

Re: Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 2:11 am
by Jerry Biehler
I didn't even know mitsubishi made turbos. Huh...

Sell em' to pay for other stuff would be my plan.

Re: Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 3:27 pm
by Joshua Turbyfill
That's a good idea, I'll have to put some thought into it.

They used to, but it looks like they only made huge ones (1000 liter/s +)

Re: Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:54 pm
by Jackson Oswalt
We're did you purchase those two big turbos? I've seen ones far smaller go for $20,000+.

Re: Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 12:02 pm
by Joshua Turbyfill
I bought them for $60 each on eBay - A small vacuum pump supplier was moving locations and didn't want to deal with transporting them.

Re: Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:35 pm
by Jackson Oswalt
I’ve sent you a PM.

Re: Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:58 pm
by Joshua Turbyfill
The main chamber section is now ready to mount, and I've just finished my overhaul of the entire vacuum system.

I wasn't satisfied with the 60 l/s TPU-60, and since my vacuum chamber had an extra 8" flange, I had purchased a Pfeiffer TMU-521 along with a TC600 built in controller, DCU001 external controller, TPS301 external power supply, intake splinter-shield, and water-cooling rig. Combined, both turbos now pump at almost 600 liters per second. I've removed the water-cooling attachment and instead will be using a small fan to blow on the pump. (I didn't think this would work, but Pfeiffer sells an air cooling kit which looks like its nothing more than a PC case fan and its $400 ...)

20180410_181706.jpg
20180410_181420.jpg

To connect both turbos to the backing pump, I've built a kf manifold which gives both turbo's a shutoff valve, and also has a compact pirani gauge. The red bellows valve goes to the big turbo, while the 4th connection of the kf16 cross goes to the backing pump.

20180410_180855_cropped.jpg

Speaking of backing pumps, I needed to find a replacement for the 3cfm backing pump. I've acquired this 15cfm Pfeiffer two-stage and got an oil mist filter from Edwards. This should handle both turbo-pumps simultaneously.

20180410_180710.jpg

My PKR-251 combo pirani / cold cathode gauge was giving really wierd readings at atmosphere, I tried recalibrating it but ended up just buying a new one. I'll be using both this and the compact pirani gauge on the pumping manifold to monitor chamber vacuum.

20180410_185121.jpg

Re: Progress... or lack thereof

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 1:34 pm
by Joshua Turbyfill
I recently began assembling the fusor, here are some pics of my progress so far.
G (8) R.jpg
F (47) R.jpg
F (34) R.jpg
F (9) RESIZED.jpg
F (4) R.jpg
F (3) RESIZED.jpg