Fusion Message Board

In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.

Subject: Microwave experimentation
Date: Jul 30, 1:13 pm
Poster: Richard Hull

On Jul 30, 1:13 pm, Richard Hull wrote:

What follows is a warning:

Experimenting with microwaves from any, normally operated, oven type of magnetron is playing with fire.

We have high voltage in the fusor that can kill. We insulate and isolate these hazards well. Most electrical shocks cause such a violent reaction of the muscles that the experimenter is often saved from death by his body reacting violently to the hazard. Most shock injuries are impact injuries due to the "knee jerk" reaction as a hand or arm is slammed into something hard and immovable. electricity will warn you when in contact.

Radiation is another matter.

The worst radiation I have seen thus far in my fusor work has ben x radiation. It is very minor inspite of driving a windowed geiger counter nuts. 20kv x-rays are considered "soft-rays". For the period of operatioon of the normal fusor, the dose is vanishingly small, even if you don't shield at all! A single millimeter of lead stops 100% of the x-rays.

If you use a microwave oven maggie, you are playing with dynamite. The time ordered power density of the output is many orders of magnitude above the most lethal x-radiation from even a 40kv fusor! The beam reflects in odd and bizzarre ways not readily apparent to the un-instrumented novice enthusiast. Mere seconds of main beam impact can destroy deep tissue. You could effectively cook you guts in just a few moments, and you wouldn't know it for a minute or two.

I would gladly sit down beside a sealed, massive 10 curie radium source before I would suffer a 3 second exposure from an errant 1KW 2.5ghz microwave beam. The body heals rapidily from the sealed radium exposure because inspite of the trillions of particles slamming into you every second, the power density is still near zero. The microwave radiation from an oven maggie is designed specifically to cook eat rapidly!

YOU ARE MEAT!

Just be careful here guys if you wish to experiment with microwaves produced by oven maggies.

Just remember, Richard Hull never put anything on this discussion list about microwave maggie usage other than warnings against using them.

Richard Hull