The title of this post is not as flippant as it sounds. Old "vacuum heads" know that obtaining a good clean vacuum is quite a proposition and can involve some significant cash outlay.
Even though a simple fusor doesn't demand the high or ultra high vacuums found in nuclear accelerators, the cost of obtaining even the "technical" or medium vacuum level of a few microns can represent about 80% of the cost of a true first pass fusion effort. For a demo fusor, it is more like 95%!
For those interested in fusion and fusion alone, the vacuum requirements are a distasteful, albeit necessary, evil and the effort and expense of obtaining same must be dealt with.
Most "armchair" fusioneers are stopped dead in any effort to work on their own by this major hoop that must be jumped through. Almost always, it is the expense that stops most efforts by amateurs.
The acquisition of a decent vacuum pump is, frighteningly, the mere tip of a huge, hidden iceberg. No pump which I have ever purchased ever approached the cost of valves and fittings just to control and contain a vacuum.
Ninety percent of not only the expense, but also the hassle associated with a fusion effort will revolve around obtaining and maintaining a decent vacuum and metering in deuterium gas at the 100,000th part of an atmosphere level.
While the effort may seem insuperable, the payoff in knowing you have done fusion, even if at a low level, is worth the expense and troubles.
Richard Hull
Created on Thursday, January 04, 2001 8:35 AM EDT by Richard Hull