This is a nice effort by Richard Hester at cataloging costs for a basic fusor vessel. The gas handling gear, connectors, vacuum accessories, nuclear measurement instrumentation, and other unforeseens can chase a cold, hard, no skills, non-scounger effort undertaken from scratch estimate into the $5,000-10,000 range (easily).
I am rather skilled over many areas from machining, welding, nuclear instrumentation, electronics design and construction, have some vacuum experience, dabble in materials science and some physics, I have a full, rather well equipped shop and lab. (54 years on this planet has given me some skills via osmosis and th' doing)
I have built and operated three devices. (two demo units and one neutron maker) I am currently building number four and have two other full fusor designs and all parts for them on hand. I have spent over the last four years about $5,000 on parts and materials associated with this effort alone. This does not include multiuse items like welders, milling machine, new lathe, etc which can be used on non-fusor projects. (maybe $8,000 here) Thus, since my first discussions with Tom Ligon which "lit my fusion fires" in late 1996 and early 1997 to date, I am out of pocket about $13,000 in preparing for and working in the fusor effort.
A bit more than Richard Hester's estimate, but I am much richer than just a $500 finished fusion chamber in knowldge and backgrounding in this arena. I am also the most active, no doubt, on the list and have been so over a longer period, thus the rather outrageous sum spent compared to the simple estimate given. Oddly enough, in my "Bell Jar" and "Electric Sparcecraft Journal" published articles on the fusor, I also touted the 300-600 dollar figure for the introductory fusor. The bucks counter can tool on up into the staratosphere if the fusion bug bites a 'doer" real hard!
That 13 kilobuck figure was a drain, not an income and I was paid nearly zero for the time and sweat spent. I did advise some pros for a few bucks for a short period, the fusor video tapes have done tolerably well and have covered some small portion of the vacuum accessories bill, but the project is a vast money dump for what would have been new shoes and clothing if I had kids.
Richard Hull
Created on Tuesday, March 20, 2001 3:26 PM EDT by Richard Hull