Magnatron in fusor?

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Joshua Hess
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Magnatron in fusor?

Post by Joshua Hess »

Hello guys,
A while back, before I built my fusor, I remember trying an experiment called microwave plasma. It basically involved super heating a gas in a common microwave oven until it formed into plasma. Since then I have taken apart countless microwaves mostly for the transformers but I kept a few magnatrons (the part that generates microwaves). I was thinking about what would happen if you combined the magnatron with the fusor. Wouldn't the microwaves add more energy to the plasma. Would this be beneficial? Now I am well aware of the dangers of leaking microwave radiation and I have developed measures to contain it with microwave rated mesh (what they use in the door of the microwave) so I don't need a safety lecture lol. Anyway, let me know what you think. Could this be beneficial or is it just a stupid idea?
Thanks,
Josh
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Magnatron in fusor?

Post by Chris Bradley »

Search hard and you will find examples of that being done here.

However, there is little actual plasma in a fusor to add energy too. It is a gas discharge plasma, which is a low %age ionised plasma that has little energy. In a fusor, you want the energy going into accelerating a few ions pulled out of that gas discharge, so your aim is to get the energy into the accelerated ions rather than into the discharge.

Using an RF field to excite a discharge gives you a number of advantages in controlling the characteristics of that discharge, such as degree of ionisation and achieving higher densities so increasing the population of ions from which some may be accelerated.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Magnatron in fusor?

Post by Richard Hull »

Tom Ligon did this in the late 80's on one of Doc Bussards 1 meter diameter fusors when EMC squared was in Manassas, Northern VA. It was OK, but didn't do much in the end. Good idea though.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
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Andrew Robinson
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Re: Magnatron in fusor?

Post by Andrew Robinson »

I want to say Doug Couter has done some similar experiments in the past with this as well. I could be wrong though. Someone/Doug want to chime in here?
I can wire anything directly into anything! I'm the professor!
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