Reactor completion

Today I finished the reactor. I finished of bits of the high voltage system of and put the feedthroughs on the chamber. I am waiting now for me to go on a radiation saftey training course before I can operate the reactor fully.
Below is a photo of me with my completed reactor

Vacuum success

After many hours finding leaks in my chamber I have finally achieved a vacuum of 0.1*10^-5 torr. This a very good pressure for the vacuum chamber to reach and is almost perfect for doing fusion. I would like to thank R&B Switchgear for supplying a three phase inverter for the mechanical pump.

The above picture shows the guage right at the bottom of its scale showing the chamber is in vacuum.

Control panel

I have stayed late over the last few nights at school making my control panel, as seen below.

This panel is where I will control the reactor from. On the panel so far is the metering for the high voltage and current. And switches for all the vacuum pumps. Still to be attached is the vacuum guage controller, viewing for the reactor and nuetron detection.

Progress

Finaly I am picking up pace on my project and have made some progress. The following pictures show my progress:

New inner grid

Hello,
I have designed a new inner grid for my Fusor. For those who don't know the inner grid is a wire grid that is charged to a very high negative voltage. I have made the new grid from 1.5mm mild steel instead of 0.1mm tungsten. The tungsten was very hard to shape to the right shape for the grid as it had a tendency to snap and was very brittle.

Diff Pump Dissaster

Hi,
My diffusion pump arrived yesterday which at first I thought would be great but then disaster struck. I noticed a large dent in the side of the cooling fan casing therefore the fan blades could not spin. I wasn't surprised with the box in the state it was.(see pictures) The wasn't any packaging around the pump except for the original box witch customs had torn up. As you can guess I was quite annoyed.
the following pictures show the setup with the diffusion pump. The pump isn't wired up yet as I may have to send it back.

Visit the blog often to check for updates

Jamie

What Am I Doing

Hi,
As some people have recommended, the following link is to the presentation that I gave to my head teacher when he granted me my £2000 budget.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8qb9aHNgHVOVUJvb0k0eExqcWc/edit?usp=sharing

you may have to copy and paste the link into your address bar

Jamie