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Glen LeSiege
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:43 pm
Real name: Glen LeSiege
Location: Chicopee, MA
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Hello

Post by Glen LeSiege »

My name is Glen LeSiege, I am a Mechanical Engineer by training, a Sr. Manufacturing Engineer by day, I am the co-founder of a Maker space in Indian orchard, MA called "The Geek Group of Western Mass". http://www.meetup.com/TheGeekGroupofWesternMass/

I have created a Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor in our shop, while the set up is rudimentary I hope improve it over time.
below is the link to my youtube channel with the two videos of the fusor.

http://youtu.be/qBWBUnHEmOs

http://youtu.be/gfs9H1UIoVU

Set up is a two stage vacuum pump from harbor freight with a 15kV neon sign transformer controller by a variac transformer.
Grids are made from copper wire which I formed and soldered together.
The fusor is only operating of one leg of the 15kV neon sign transformer, delivering about 7.5kV at 100% on the variac.

As you can see from the videos the plasma is a bit unstable and has a lot of ripple in the power. I hope to smooth the power out and change the inner grid material to tungsten filament recovered from old quartz heaters. I've already re-built the inner electrode once as the solder joints did not hold up to the plasma. I hope to fit up the new tungsten grid at our next meeting and give it a try.

Many thanks to Dave Xanatos for telling me about this site.

Best regards,

Glen LeSiege
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Rich Feldman
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Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2009 6:59 pm
Real name: Rich Feldman
Location: Santa Clara County, CA, USA

Re: Hello

Post by Rich Feldman »

Welcome, Glen.

You'll get extra respect from many regulars here
if you made what we call a "demo" Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor
without the purported benefits of reading this forum.
Your creation doesn't look much like the one recently featured in Make magazine.

-Rich
All models are wrong; some models are useful. -- George Box
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Glen LeSiege
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:43 pm
Real name: Glen LeSiege
Location: Chicopee, MA
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Re: Hello

Post by Glen LeSiege »

yes, I read the make magazine article as well, but I had done research about fusors and cold fusion long before it came out.
I ran into Dave this past weekend at the MIT flea and I mentioned I had made a fusor, he then told me about fusor.net. Before that I hadn't know about it, but I'm glad to be part of a great community with lots of knowledge.
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Dave Xanatos
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2014 1:59 pm
Real name: Dave Xanatos
Location: Western Massachusetts, USA
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Re: Hello

Post by Dave Xanatos »

Hi Glen! Glad to see you on here, it's an incredible resource. I'll try to swing by the space next week if you'll be there.

Dave
It would take decades of work, by thousands of scientists, in a particle accelerator powered by dump trucks of flaming grant money! - Professor Farnsworth/FUTURAMA
JakeJHecla
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2011 6:19 pm
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Re: Hello

Post by JakeJHecla »

Hey there Glen- If you're on the hunt for fusoring parts, let me know. I'm located at MIT and I've got lots of large CF hardware and the like. Best of luck!
Benoit Tellier
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jul 24, 2014 10:12 pm
Real name: Benoit Tellier
Location: Amherst, MA

Re: Hello

Post by Benoit Tellier »

Hi Everyone!

I'm Ben, Glen's trusty assistant :)

Third hand, holder-of-things, bouncing board, reminder-of-things-forgotten, etc... I was an Applied Science major, but went for electronics and computers instead. Currently doing Tech support for a finance company. Recently did some sensor work on an unrelated project involving vacuums, heat and heat transfer, that are quite useful for this project.

Enjoyed meeting Dave last Sunday; looking forward to seeing you again next week!

I'm also happy to report that the tungsten inner grid that Glen meticulously put together, is working well.
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Dave Xanatos
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Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2014 1:59 pm
Real name: Dave Xanatos
Location: Western Massachusetts, USA
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Re: Hello

Post by Dave Xanatos »

Hi Benoit... looking forward to seeing you all next Tuesday.

Jake - I'm in the market for some more fusoring goodies, maybe we could all meet at the next Flea in August? Or sooner if others and you are so inclined...

Dave
It would take decades of work, by thousands of scientists, in a particle accelerator powered by dump trucks of flaming grant money! - Professor Farnsworth/FUTURAMA
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