Well, I was maxing our fusor III and the Eberline counter was clicking away at about 250+ neutron events/minute (~100,000 N/s) and suddenly the power supply decided to draw 3000 watts!
I was sure I had blown my diodes, but The supply was OK. It turns out the insulator internal to the fusor shorted out, via carbon tracking. I spent all Saturday smashing out the out old 44XLS plug, machining a new one, repairing the mount flange, etc.
I also cleaned the viewport window since I had the fusor totally apart. (I used Novus #3 plastic polish which is really an aluminum oxide polish.) It took about 30 minutes of elbow grease on a paper towel lap to remove the depositied Tantalum.
I hope to fire the fusor back up tomorrow during our monthly High Energy group meeting. I am now wondering who will show. They are calling for a heavy snow storm all day tommorrow. We'll see who the die hards are in the group at any rate.
Richard Hull
Created on Sunday, December 3, 2000 1:31 AM EDT by Richard Hull