I forgot to mention in the video, that my take on a fusor was partly inspired by Will From London's fusor! th-cam.com/video/EVOBk-InL00/w-d-xo.html. Thanks for your assistance, Will. Also, dont attempt a fusor unless you have some shred of what you're doing, they can be dangerous.
@@marz.6102 As far I know, it's not small ones that are the problem. It's scaling it up to a size that it can complete with other powerplant types and still function as intended.
@@TinusBruins then would it be possible to make smaller models of the reactors, kinda like how engineers used to make small models of their plane designs so that it can be testing in a small smoke tunnel it see if the aerodynamics are in check? (I forgot what the tunnel was called but it had some sort of smoke poured into a wind tunnel to see if the plane would create more drag or something)
@@josephgauthier5018 I'm looking forward to more comedy gold from you, as well. That comment was priceless and i'll be sharing it with all my subs soon.
Hey heads up, that reactor is probably not safe for fusion. The big acrylic windows could melt in the electron beams that form and the plasma heating them up. Also the aluminum frame and acrylic windows are transparent to xrays so it needs to be fully encased with shielding or it'll spew xrays like crazy. And you need neutron shielding as well. And even the backscatter can be very very dangerous. It's a grogeous demo build for sure though. One of the nicest I've seen honestly. But please don't try running that at fusion temps. Also there are a host of different laws around building these and many places require a license of some flavor or another. It's easier in the US, but varies state to state and can still have issues if you're not careful and you'll be posting the video as evidence of you doing it... so better safe than sorry. I know this because I almost built a working fusor on my channel recently but stopped when I learned about the license and 100K fine for not having it. So I paused the project until I could sort that out and get the license in advance. If you wanna chat about this I've been at it for years and might have some tips. Hit me up. There's a ton of amazing things that can be done with this if you get reasonable neutron outputs.
This needs to be pinned so everyone can see it. Not to put plasma channel down but he really dove into this project without researching thoroughly. Fusion can certainly be done at home, but it's not something you just throw together out of craft supplies.
For small amounts of fusion, it would be OK. But plasma constantly generates braking radiation. So those big plastic windows are a problem. D - D fusion is possible by slamming deuterium into a deuterium target. This was shown in the 1930s. You can't get more energy than you put in, but they made He-3 in the process. I'd love to see someone make a plasma and then slam it into something.
Hii I am from India. I know you forget who I am. but I am your oldest subscriber and small brother approx 4 years ago.i replying you after 1 year because of I am in hostel and I have no mobile. but now I want to talk with you. are you agree with me to talk
I've built a working Fusor: 1. A PVC hose is not practical for a low vacuum system as it will outgas preventing you from getting down to a very low pressure. 2. If your vacuum pressure is low enough you still generate x-rays which should be detectable by a gieger. I suspect your pressure is no where low enough. 3. You really need a better vacuum gauge, one that is designed for sub micron pressures. 4. you really need a much larger diameter vacuum connection. At least a half inch, and keep the connection between the pump and the fusor as short as possible. ie put the fusor on top of the pump so its just a few inches away. At low pressure the pump will struggle to get air out of the fusor's vaccuum chamber. bigger diameter piping will help. Ideally make it all metal piping to avoid outgassing from plastic. Copper tubing with compression fittings is a better option than plastic tubing. 5. I think you likely to suffer a voltage drop with the large electrode. the more current flows it will drop the voltage well below the 40KV. You probably running less than 10KV, which is also why you don't measure any x-ray radiation. Very low vacuum pressure + smaller electrode will reduce your voltage drop. 6. Your plexiglass\lexsan windows will outgas a lot, likely preventing you from getting very low pressures. Ideally I would replace them with glass and mount the electrode through the stainless metal frame. You need some sort of HV vacuum fitting. You might be able to get by with a spark plug, but thats iffy at +40KV as it likely to arc over since there isn't much distance between the electrode and the metal frame on the inside side. You might be able to weld on some wire to the spark and pass it through some glass tubing with some vacuum grease and some teflon tape. Teflon is a great insulator & does not outgass. Alternatively you can buy a HV electrical vacuum pass through from or Kurt J Lesker (company). "LDS vacuum shopper" also sells vacuum components at a lower cost than Lesker. FWIW: You best way to get an operational fusor is to go with commerical vacuum components, specifically conflat vacuum components and metal (copper gaskets). You could buy a Conflat Tee with one port for the vacuum pump, one for the HV feedthrough and the other for the window. The big cost is going to be a HV feed through as a 60KV feedthrough will cost about $2k. Maybe you can get lucky with a 60kV feedthrough on ebay (ie used) to save some money. The biggest issue making a working a working fusor is the cost of components or the time collecting used components on eBay at a reasonable cost. I probably spent over $10K in components to make a working fusor & also did a lot of self fabrication (ie machining & welding Stainless Steel parts for the vacuum chamber and welding on conflat flanges), $3K+ on a turbo molecular pump and a high volume low submicron mechanical pump $1K. I think I spent about $1500 on the 60Kv high voltage feedthrough (purchase about 20 years ago), vacuum bellow hoses, oil backstreaming trap. As well as assortment of radiation measurement tools: BF3 & He3 tube to detect neutrons, NaI Scintillation detectors. Building a working fusor isn't easy nor cheap.
Awesome work Jay, that's one heck of a sight! Have you considered tritium breeding to get your tritium? If you throw a small amount of lithium into your reactor while it is running off of deuterium, any neutrons that are produced from fusion will be absorbed by one of lithium's isotopes, resulting in transmutation into tritium, which will exponentially boost fusion rates!
@@vylbird8014 True, although if he wants tritium, that's one of the only good ways to get it. Other than the trace amounts used in glowing watches and some exit signs, there's no other legal way to obtain tritium!
I love reading Plasma Channel comments. One of the few channels with comments that are not garbage. Which is a feat in and of itself. But not only that, they are insightful and you learn things. I love this community
@@PlasmaChannel is there any way to simplify this so that i can make this? as an lazy unemployed 13 YO that actively makes explosives in his room i have absolutely zero funds, but i do have access to high voltage (alieexpress taser modules), so is there any way to cheap out? i want to prove my science teacher wrong, he said i wont be able to create as much energy, and that fission is more relevant WHILE THATS CLEARLY SSOOOO 1980! *ahem, but, is it possible? pls let me know.
The vinyl tuning between the pump and your chamber was probably a big factor in why you couldn't reach a higher vacuum. Vinyl tubing tends to off gas way too much under vacuum to get down to the levels you're looking for.
@@PlasmaChannel I came to the comments to see if this had been posted / acknowledged. A recent project of mine determined the tubing to be a major weakness as well. Glad it's noted :)
I do refrigeration, not fusion, but I do know there are refrigerant hoses that are rated for vacuum and ones that aren't. Both are way more robust than that silicone.
Tubing is only one of many issues, those HVAC pumps wont get anywhere near low enough. You would need to switch over to a diffusion or turbo pump. And any part that could potentially off-gas under super low vacuum would have to go, including the acrylic. Also should note that a Typical Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor is fed with d2 gas.
Amazing work! A few tips: Helium from a balloon filling tank is usually 5% N2, which is probably why the plasma color was a bit off. At these pressures and temperatures you'll have to start worrying about outgassing, so you may want to ditch the vinyl tubing and acrylic plates (heresy, I know) for thick glass. Putting JB weld on the outside of leaky fittings and using barbed connectors can trap small amounts of air and slowly release them into the chamber. You won't notice the pressure changing much because the pump is balancing the very small leaks, but it can ruin the purity of the deuterium gas needed for fusion. I prefer fittings with an o-ring like KF fittings, but they can be pricey.
@@PlasmaChannel The bigger pump is probably compensating for the tubing and other sources of leaks/outgassing, but I'd definitely switch to a better tubing. HVAC people use special large diameter multi-layer hoses ( th-cam.com/video/b8j85R9xvMM/w-d-xo.html) to get down to 500-100 microns. Also, the needle on your gauge can go down to the stop and you can still have 20,000 microns. You really need a thermocouple micron gauge to determine that. Keeping fresh oil in the pump is essential for good vacuum. HVAC people change the oil in their pump every 2-3 uses to get a deep vacuum. I'd also switch to loctite and dielectric/vacuum grease, and even dismantle the ball valve and smear grease on all the seals and surfaces (I did just this thing a few days ago). But again, that giant pump running continuously is going to compensate for a lot of that, especially with such a small evacuated volume. Awesome video, can't wait for the next one!
@@WaffleStaffel to add to this, unfortunately the pump he has likely isn't going to cut it. You might get fusion to occur under 30 microns, but you really should be looking to keep it under 10 microns if you want to have good results. The vacuum reading on your pump should be ignored. The pump is reading the vacuum level at its inlet, but there can easily be over a 1000 micron difference between the inlet of a pump and the actual reaction chamber. The only way to know for sure is to install a thermocouple gauge directly to the reaction chamber. I would recommend using one of fieldpiece's products like the svg3. I don't want this to come off as negative, I would love to see you succeed in your project.
That's amazing! I've wanted to make a star in a jar since I first saw one. However the type I saw first was a bubble suspended in the middle of some liquid, using sonoluminescence to generate the heat/light/plasma by rapidly compressing the bubble.
I thought id just mention this here real quick for anyone attempting a simmilar experiment. A fusor emits strong gamma radiation due to bremstrahlung caused by the decelerating electrons & gas ions. Standing next to an operating fusor for extended periods of time is significantly more dangerous than any x-ray scan or anything the like. I recommend using lead plates to protect youself as well as keeping one geiger counter, preferably scintillation based, on your person as well as one with the fusor.
@@PlasmaChannel I've built my own fusor a while back (also inspired by Will from London) and I was shocked to see the ammount of radiation generated by the device. Granted, I did run it at a higher voltage (200kV). But as with all radiation sources, exposure time is key here. Running this for a few minutes will not harm you significantly, however I dont recommended using it as a night light 😉
@@beelzebub3920 That isn't what the OP of this thread said though. They and the first response claim just running this device generates significant amounts of harmful radiation yet his meter showed nothing.
Hello sir iam following your channel from 3 years, u know u guys inspired me to start my own utube channel. U know sir the work u do is inspiring and simple. So I started my own channel and thanks to u, I had a breakthrough today itself. Iam a fan sir Nicola Tesla.
New sub here. Good build. Outgassing is a big problem in high vacuum systems. In your case you might want to pump down overnight and then infuse hydrogen for several hours before infusing the deuterium. I hope those are glass windows and not acrylic they will outgas like crazy. I had an implosion guard around my bell jar vacuum chamber at university, would never turn on the pump without it.
Wow this is ridiculously awesome! I've marveled at quite a few fusors like this that other people have built but your version looks the most ready to be a showpiece. 95% of this stuff is over my head, but the one very minor thing I thought you might be interested in knowing is that when applying PTFE tape generally you want to wrap the tape clockwise (to match the direction that you will rotate the pipe/fitting). Also, for gas/vacuum applications I believe the standard is 4 wraps of the yellow gas PTFE tape so I think you would need 8 wraps of the white tape. I'm quite surprised you were able to get away without using hose clamps on the barbed fittings too!
It’s been fantastic watching you go from 700 subscribers when I first found you, to heading towards 500,000 subscribers a few years down the track! Awesome work Jay. Don’t change the format that has made you a huge success. Kudos brother 🤙
long time ago, I built a cesium cube. It was a clear sealed and vacuumed tank with cesium heated with an internal element. When two lasers were intersected inside the tank it gave off a glow from the photons being released (an easy form of fusion)
that helium lit up really beautifully, i might have to build me one lol, i might make it sealed off after pulling a vacuum on helium that way it acts as a discharge lamp, helium is one of my favorite gas discharge elements for its huge color range from pale-pink to my favorite pale-yellow color
@@Reptex_cs no at higher atmospheric pressure the helium wouldn't illuminate, i don't want a lamp like a streetlight i want just a glowing desk decoration, although i couldn't have it on for long due to the heat being made by the plasma, it could melt things, although i could use quartz glass tubing because that can stand a good bit of heat
@@Kepler_2258 True. I'n not sure how hot a fusor gets, I never had the luck to build one yet. The exception is the high pressure sodium lamp, which uses aluminum oxide instead of quartz glass.The reaction with sodium is slower. Low pressure sodium lamps also use borosilicate glass.
Wonderful job! It's beautiful ! Also: when you tape, don't use soo much, and avoid the tip-ends.. Tape near the ends can get worked off over time and then sucked into your pump :(
I'm really amazed that this was your first forray into vacuums. That was a surprise to me. Thank you for mentioning those tips and your learning process on the leaky bits.
Awesome! Love it! I was a big Tesla Coil fan growing up in the 70's. I donated mine to my high school electronics teacher. I miss having fun with it but it was too big for my duplex. Really enjoying your projects and builds.
Always remember daniel - science does not happen in the classroom. It does not happen in a book. It happens in the mind. And the human mind is an invincible act of power. You have within you the ability to think up idea which can change, everything. Best of luck getting back into your scientific process!
@@PlasmaChannel I don’t mean to be a bother to you but from what I gathered from your video (great btw) is that this would not emit any radiation from it and would be “Safe” if another hobbyist were to attempt to build a similar one.
@@bogosbinted5432 Right at the end he did mention that it's likely because he's not using any deuterium/tritium in these tests, just regular atmosphere and then helium. 13:27
This is beautiful. I've been obsessed with fusors and your looks just like how I dreamed of building one. I want to build one that looks like an arc reactor some day May need a beefier lead vest though....
Very well done. You could have compensated for the weaker vacuum with higher voltage(100kV). But a bigger pump works too. You're gonna need a bubble neutron detector for fusion & actually showcase fusion not just dense ionization. Tritium is regulated (radioactive) so I'm curious how you're getting it lol. It's not as easy as deuterium to extract.
Can tritium be obtained via stuff like smoke detectors or other rare-ish places around semi-household items? I could totally also see him taking this setup to his buddy’s lab or some other lab in the US to do the shoot and they will add the tritium/deuterium 🤷♂️
@@poloska9471 yes you can, but the volume he'd need in gas form would be substantial so he'll be at it awhile. Deuterium can be obtained from the electrolysis of heavy water, while tritium is a byproduct of lithium deuteride decay. Which is a powder not a metal; but he could make it into a paste & coat the interior to maybe have some returns off the neutrons. But I think large quantities of tritium specifically is a lot harder.
I wish I could post pictures here. I work in ion nitriding within vacuum chambers using the same concept your building here. We run at about 750 volts and use N2 and H2 gas primarily. The purple glow from the ionized gasses is something to see. Great work.
I'll be really impressed if you can get a hold of tritium, as it's incredibly rare and expensive (it has a really short half-life), but deuterium should be enough, if you want to make fusion. But it's a really good-looking build! 😁 As you've undoubtedly found out by now, to achieve a high vacuum, how much materials outgas, is really important, which apparently is one of many reasons that JB-weld is such a good seal (I have no access to the stuff). Acrylics outgas a fair bit, which is why it's not ideal. Glass is the way to go. HDPE (high density polyethylene) is surprisingly easy to get, and doesn't outgas very much (as in - I get so far down in my primarily HDPE and glass vacuum-chamber, that my electron gun stops working. HDPE hoses are also readily available everywhere. I *am* using a few silicone seals, which I can tell when I switch off my pumps, and leave my chamber at a vacuum. When you have something that outgasses, interestingly, you can see the pressure rise, over a few days, to a specific point, where it then stabilizes, and from that, it's pretty obvious that silicone outgas quite a lot (if it continues to drop, there's a leak, but that's usually obvious within minutes).
Are you even allowed to trade Tritium without an enormous amount of paperwork and a high security clearance? It's an radioactive isotope and used for H bombs?
@@erikkarsies4851 I have no idea about that, but even if it's a component in h-bombs, it's not the primary one. In fusion reactors, they're working on tritium "breeders", which, if memory serves, is lithium. I can't recall the process, but they're supposed to create tritium, when struck by a neutron. But each deuterium-tritium fusion reactor, might need tritium to get started, and I've heard/read rumours, that there might not be enough for that (I have no idea of the reliability of that, though). If memory serves, tritium is also a byproduct of fission-reactors, which is likely our main source of it, but because of the half-life of it, we never have more than around 20kg of it on the planet, at any point in time - as far as I know (sorry for all of the uncertainty in this message - it's not the part of fusion I've studied the most - so for anyone who spots mistakes here, please don't hesitate to correct them).
@@martinfyhn1976 Tritium is a very important component of Hydrogen bombs. It is used with Deuterium to turn the fission reaction in to a fusion reaction which makes the bombs much more powerfull. But I see on wikipedia (and I quote from there : "Tritium is an important component in nuclear weapons. " ) that is used for some other applications also. The clips I've seen of real working fusors until now were mainly inside scienctiric nuclear research locations. And I suspect there is at least an amount of bureaucracy involved using the stuff for experiments. The breeding of Tritium out of Lithium is a very tricky one because you need a neutron source (for instance a nuclear reactor) and those neutrons need to hit the lithium at certain speeds and even than it's a very difficult to extract the tiny amounts of (pure!) Tritium out of it. If you want to know more about it then the wikipedia of Tritium is a good way to start.
@@erikkarsies4851 Thank you for the explanations and clarifications. I still don't know about the requirements of getting tritium, and initially I was thinking that I don't really see any reason to regulate it, as it's likely nigh impossible to get a hold of, due to rarity, and price, and because tritium itself isn't really dangerous, though radioactive. What I meant with it not being the main component of an h-bomb, is that you also need to get enriched fissile material, which *definitely* is difficult to get your hands on, and very regulated. I was also comparing it to deuterium, which as you mentioned, is another component of such a bomb, but is easy to get your hands on - but then I remembered another fusor video I saw, with someone who had a pretty difficult time of getting deuterium gas. He managed to get some, through working at a lab, if memory serves. Another youtuber in stead got a hold of heavy water, which seemed to be easier to get a hold of, and got deuterium through electrolysis. And then there's the fact that 10% of the ocean is deuterium. What I'm trying to say, is that if deuterium is regulated, then tritium is likely regulated in the same way, in addition to being really rare and expensive. I don't think that it's as heavily regulated as e.g. enriched uranium, but it is just naturally difficult to get a hold of. Also, many things can be components of deadly things, but it would be silly to regulate things that themselves are not dangerous. To exaggerate, it's sort of the same as saying that we need to regulate oxygen because it's a critical component of most explosive reactions.
@@martinfyhn1976 One in every 6420 Hydrogen atoms in sea water containa an extra neutron (which means it's a Deuterium atom) so 10% is a bit optimistic, but indeed Heavy water is widely availabe and way cheaper than the 30.000 dollar a gram which Tritium was going for in 2000 according to wikipedia. I don't think the posession of Tritium is the issue but I would expect that goverments wants to keep track of the trade in the stuff. It isn't really usefull to regulate Deuterium because it is so easy produceable compared to Tritium and so Deuterium isnt an issue in the balance of power between super powers The problems you describe with Deuiterium probably have to do with purity and nature had a long time to produce Deuterium while Tritiium has a half life of about 12 years. So you won't find much of it naturally. What I do know is that the superpowers are not open about the amount of Triitium they have as a strategic stock which does signal some nervousness poltically about it. Deuterium isn't radioactive and Oxygen is neither. And in many places you can pick Uranium which you could theoretically turn in to fissile material. Still they are quite worried of countries like North Korea and Iran doing exactly that. I sure don't think they would like that those countries would buy considerable ammounts of Tritium. If they would find a easy way to produce Tririum a lot faster they probably first even would try to keep it a secret if they can.
I had the same problem trying to re-evacuate a dewar. It turns out the smaller pump is probably fine, it's your hose which is probably your primary problem. Rubber of any kind is leaky especially the clear rubber like that. If you want to be able to get to high vacuum all hoses and connections MUST be made of metal, preferably with compression fittings or even better braised together. HVAC air conditioning equipment is designed to be vacuum tight but the rubber hoses still leak somewhat.
I've heard that next to metal, teflon hoses are the next best. One of the few plastic type materials that doesn't off gas much nor have much gas permeation through it.
@@PlasmaChannel Yeah... The first thing I thought was, as you were connecting the clear rubber (silicon? PVC?) hose was, "Uhmmm... nope... that will collapse long before it can reach the vacuum you are looking for". Think... McDonalds triple thick shakes and the flimsy plastic straw they used to provide for us to herniate ourselves with.
Hey Jay, I just finished building a 100 kv voltage multiplyer and I'm so freaking happy with it! I owe you a big thank you for opening the door for me and giving me the confidence to take a leap into high voltage physics. (I uploaded it to my channel if you are curious to see it)
Brilliant is a sponsor I’m definitely going to check out! I love Computer Science and Physics, and this seems like a platform I’d be willing to pay for.
Should of did 2 side by side, more energy. Going off of the pyramids, take in consideration the point as it goes up from 4/8 sides depending what angle you look. Of the top was a reactor, there was plenty of sea water for fuel. Like china's artificial sun uses. Don't give up Congrats and awesome luck in the future 👍 the world needs people like you
Absolutely awesome build! I've a half-finished, really ugly one somewhere in storage from a couple of years ago, never got the whole system working. May have to revisit that sometime... VERY excited to see what happens when you put some deuterium or tritium in!
Awesome build! I love how you showed your troubleshooting process and how you fixed the issues. Now that everything is set up, I’m excited to see you do fusion in the next video. Although I imagine that deuterium and tritium are not cheap or easy to come by. 😅
Great video! Suggestion - connect your vacuum gauge directly to the pump with as few connections as possible to see how much vacuum pressure the pump is capable of. If it is stronger then you have a leak somewhere else in your plumbing.
I consider myself a honorary science geek, having no formal schooling to draw from. But I've always loved everything about science/space, so think this is a cool concept. Once bought one of those plasma orbs, that I believe you showed at the beginning of the video, and played with it for hours.🤓👍🏼👍🏼🔭✨
Beautiful build! Excited to see this one. I like that you added a bit about the challenges you faced with the vacuum, it's good to see how the build is an iterative process. I'm looking forward to the next part when you add the deuterium. Also, side note, I like the addition of the aerial B-roll between scenes. Did you film it with your own drone?
Your stuff as components are awesome. What happens when you have these self sustained plasma experiments all come together in say an aircraft? Ion thrusters powered by fusion generator. One step closer to TIE fighter.
Yeah I think source of the issue was the Teflon tape and lack of hose clamps on that tygon tubing. If it was straight brass on brass it would have been much tighter and easy to undo. Also a digital gage could help you see much lower pressures. I've done some work that needed some ultra low vacuum for some cryogenically cooled radiation detectors that fail with the slightest atmospheric impurity.
Hey! Awesome video! I am planning on making my own nuclear fusor (non-demonstrative, it'll fuse deuterium), but I'm having trouble finding a good HV power supply. Can you share the schematic for your multiplier, or provide a more in-depth look at it (I will give you credit)? If so I'd greatly appreciate it! Thank you, again great video.
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Why is this just an acceptable example? First thing this guys mind goes to is secretly dosing a population to make them more productive! That’s some na*i sh*t.
Nice work! Watch out for virtual leaks from oils on the chamber walls. They'll sometimes persist for a long time, slowly off gassing and preventing a strong vacuum.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but from some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations it seems like you either need to greatly improve your vacuum or up the voltages to get decent reaction rates. With around 15torr (20mbar) pressure your mean free path for a proton in H2 would be around 20um (hard sphere model). With a potential difference of 50kV and a distance between the electrodes of around 50mm, your ions will get to only 7eV energy. You need somewhere around 5keV to get any sort of reaction probability with D-T and 10keV for D-D. The idea of the fusor is that the ions get generated close to the outer electrodes, then accelerate all the way towards the inner electrode, pass by it and hit ions coming the other way in the center. So your mean free path should be at least as large as the radius of the chamber. With a 150mm chamber that would mean you need at least around 4e-3torr (5e-3mbar), more than 1000 times better than what you have now... Alternatively you can up the voltage and make the chamber smaller. That way you get higher field strengths and need less good of a vacuum. For a 30mm chamber it would be around 2e-2 torr, which is just about in the range of mechanical pumps. Otherwise you need some sort of turbomolecular pump or diffusion pump, which is probably too expensive. They then easily get you down to 1e-7torr and lower. You could make a crude getter pump by just heating a titanium wire in the chamber, but no idea if that is realistic at such high pressures you are at. Also personally I would scrap the screw connectors. Proper high vacuum KF components aren't all that expensive and much MUCH better. Maybe you could even make a chamber directly from a KF extension tube. Anyway, good luck!
Years ago we built a large stainless steel vacuum bottle for Corning Ware. We had to pull a vacuum in the milliTorr region, so we used a diffusion vacuum pump.
Now to wait for the Integza follow up. it'll happen, probably, knowing him. Gotta love it. ... I want one. Excited for the next vid on it! fusion time!
I would definitely recommend looking up The SAFIRE Project. The design you've chosen is actually remarkably close to what they have build and I am pretty sure you'll like what they have been able to do create in terms of plasma structures. 'Star in a Jar' is truly what they have achieved and I am surprised the scientific community is still ignoring such a successful experiment. I guess alot of people have stakes in the standard model of The Sun, considering this basically provides conclusive evidence for the Electric Star model proposed by proponents of The Electric Universe, a modernized version of The Plasma Universe model.
You already know many of these but: aluminum accordion vaccuum tubing or high quality vaccuum rated teflon tubing, glass over acrylic, DEFINITELY not a barb fitting, kf standard vacc stuff minimum cf if you're splurging. You can use teflon tape (blue monster is my favorite) + high vaccuum grease (shin etsu is same as dow corning but cheaper) to get pipe threads to seal high vacuums and be easy to undo. If you don't mind going permanent loctite green is known high vacuum safe as well.
If the mean free path isn't long enough for a particle to oscillate about 100,000x across the middle of that little grid, you will not be doing fusion in the middle. 100k is just a best case, assuming a collision with every transit, and typically only 1 in 100,000 collisions, at exactly the best energy, will lead to fusion. Hence the need for a crazy long MFP. It's probably higher. You won't be getting anywhere near there with that *kind* of pump. It isn't good enough. As far as the physics are concerned, you've still got a container full of gas, not a vacuum - it's just at less than atomospheric pressure. That means a very short mean free path - much smaller than the size of the chamber, so it'll have 'fluid dynamics' physics, not 'particle flow' physics. You'll just be doing fusion as particles hammer into the wire from very close range, in which case the shape of that wire doesn't really matter at all. (mean free path on the order of a few mm). @11:52 you can see multiple 'shells' around the inner grid: These are shocks caused by electrons obtaining enough energy to cause just the very first level, not of ionisation, but just enough to excite electrons in the outermost shell of atoms in the gas. Thus losing energy, before they warm up and do so again. The MFP here is likely vastly smaller than the width of those structures. You can see three layers. This isn't a plasma, it's just a hot, excited gas. If it were a fully-ionized plasma, it would be invisible (except perhaps to xrays or so) because there would be no orbital electrons to be transmitting a light glow like that. Fairly recent experimental results with fusors has shown that the neutrons that are generated actually come from the surface of the inner electrode, not the centre of it as it is supposed to: Hence, operated like this, these machines are just an awkward variation on single-stage linear electric particle accelerator into a target. Which *is* known to cause some fusion. It's just that you can never reach breakeven that way. Key to the whole idea of the fusor, is to make it into a spherical particle accelerator. The particles are supposed to only collide in the middle of the inner cage/grid. So you have to run it like a particle accelerator, and that mostly means a sufficiently extreme vacuum so that you can really have a long enough MFP (everywhere but the core, where the particles focus) and thus at least have a chance of recycling every fast, scattered particle, no matter what solid angle it happens to scatter into, until it eventually undergoes fusion. This is not that, it's just the ordinary particle accelerator driven into target kind. You'll probably get better results just putting a sharp needle in the middle there, in place of the cage; at least the electric field will be really strong very close to the needle point, because of the shape. You could perhaps find a nice piece of, oh, say palladium. Check under a SEM, and get the one with a nice array of very fine microscope sharp high points across the surface, and try that. For greater simplicity, you could just fill the 'vacuum' chamber up with heavy water too. Oh wait... Sounds like 'LENR' (previously known as 'cold fusion') was just the same old 'very small range, awkward particle accelerator type' fusion ALSO! (Else, why would some pieces of Palladium generator neutrons, and others not? It's probably just this nanosurface electric field concentration thing going on, at least up until it finishes electropolishing itself flat again). (BTW, yes, sharp points do cause very strong local electric field strength, and it's the electric field strength that actually matters, not the voltage. This is why air ionizers use very thin wires or an array of needles). Anyway, needs basically a **huge** diffusion oil pump, preferably multiple stages thereof, and a cryo trap to stop oil getting back into the chamber. (Or you could use a very big turbomolecular pump... how big is your budget?) The 'vacuum connection' also needs to be as much of the surface of the vacuum chamber, too - can't use a crappy little hose like that, it will have too little vacuum conductance. Ideally you shape the chamber sortof like an old school headlight reflector - so that the surface tends to bounce loose particles right into the high vacuum pump inlet. This will help keep background neutrals down. To actually get 'fuel' gas in, you need a gas injection system. This needs to trickle in almost no gas at all: otherwise you'll flood the thing with too much gas, and it'll no longer be a particle accelerator again.
I used argon for my plasma lamp that I made in 8th grade. I also used automotive Schrader valve fittings so I can use refrigerant vac pump. I wanted to use xenon gas but it was too expensive. The argon was pretty try it out.
Fun fact for the fans: flyback power supplies are reputedly named thusly because if they get hold of you, you, well, fly back. Oh - a pro tip from a guy who's plumbed *lots* of lab-scale gasses, Swagelok compression fittings aren't (outlandishly) expensive, and can, in practice, perform decently in vacuum setups (well into the millibarr range)
You shouldn't be so sure about not having any x-rays. Most domestic Geiger-Muller tubes will only start picking up x-rays over 50keV and with your CW feeding only 40kV, you could very well be missing a large quantity of "soft" x-rays that make it through your windows but not over the threshold of detection.
![[TH] 2024 PMGC League | Survival Stage วันที่ 1 | PUBG MOBILE Global Championship](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FVFT-PFwU80/mqdefault.jpg)
I forgot to mention in the video, that my take on a fusor was partly inspired by Will From London's fusor! th-cam.com/video/EVOBk-InL00/w-d-xo.html. Thanks for your assistance, Will. Also, dont attempt a fusor unless you have some shred of what you're doing, they can be dangerous.
Why aren't fusion reactors tested in smaller models?
I mean what if the mega project don't work to make lots of energy to the grid?
@@marz.6102 As far I know, it's not small ones that are the problem. It's scaling it up to a size that it can complete with other powerplant types and still function as intended.
That hose is probably outgasing a lot....
@@TinusBruins then would it be possible to make smaller models of the reactors, kinda like how engineers used to make small models of their plane designs so that it can be testing in a small smoke tunnel it see if the aerodynamics are in check? (I forgot what the tunnel was called but it had some sort of smoke poured into a wind tunnel to see if the plane would create more drag or something)
As always, great video!
Check also "Toroidal plasma" on TH-cam not a fussion but also interesting.
nothing shines brighter than being passionate about what you do. youre paving the way
That and stars dying in a supernova
@@josephgauthier5018 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@PlasmaChannel glad to see I got a chuckle out of someone! 😀
Also, I'm really looking forward to see the next video in this series!
Thanks. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen… cool channel
@@josephgauthier5018 I'm looking forward to more comedy gold from you, as well. That comment was priceless and i'll be sharing it with all my subs soon.
Hey heads up, that reactor is probably not safe for fusion. The big acrylic windows could melt in the electron beams that form and the plasma heating them up. Also the aluminum frame and acrylic windows are transparent to xrays so it needs to be fully encased with shielding or it'll spew xrays like crazy. And you need neutron shielding as well. And even the backscatter can be very very dangerous. It's a grogeous demo build for sure though. One of the nicest I've seen honestly. But please don't try running that at fusion temps. Also there are a host of different laws around building these and many places require a license of some flavor or another. It's easier in the US, but varies state to state and can still have issues if you're not careful and you'll be posting the video as evidence of you doing it... so better safe than sorry. I know this because I almost built a working fusor on my channel recently but stopped when I learned about the license and 100K fine for not having it. So I paused the project until I could sort that out and get the license in advance. If you wanna chat about this I've been at it for years and might have some tips. Hit me up. There's a ton of amazing things that can be done with this if you get reasonable neutron outputs.
Man I used to watch you all the time , are you coming back anytime soon?
This needs to be pinned so everyone can see it. Not to put plasma channel down but he really dove into this project without researching thoroughly. Fusion can certainly be done at home, but it's not something you just throw together out of craft supplies.
For small amounts of fusion, it would be OK. But plasma constantly generates braking radiation. So those big plastic windows are a problem. D - D fusion is possible by slamming deuterium into a deuterium target. This was shown in the 1930s. You can't get more energy than you put in, but they made He-3 in the process. I'd love to see someone make a plasma and then slam it into something.
Hope it is not too late!
@@RMX7777….did you guys actually watch the whole video?
this is probably one of the most optimistic and inspiring ones you've done yet. loved your work man, thank you.
Thank you. I’m no hippie, but fusion is our Hail Mary.
Hii I am from India. I know you forget who I am. but I am your oldest subscriber and small brother approx 4 years ago.i replying you after 1 year because of I am in hostel and I have no mobile. but now I want to talk with you. are you agree with me to talk
sorry but I am not interested to talk with you
i want to talk with jai and he see my comment he never say no ok brother
Yes, inspiring :)
I've built a working Fusor:
1. A PVC hose is not practical for a low vacuum system as it will outgas preventing you from getting down to a very low pressure.
2. If your vacuum pressure is low enough you still generate x-rays which should be detectable by a gieger. I suspect your pressure is no where low enough.
3. You really need a better vacuum gauge, one that is designed for sub micron pressures.
4. you really need a much larger diameter vacuum connection. At least a half inch, and keep the connection between the pump and the fusor as short as possible. ie put the fusor on top of the pump so its just a few inches away. At low pressure the pump will struggle to get air out of the fusor's vaccuum chamber. bigger diameter piping will help. Ideally make it all metal piping to avoid outgassing from plastic. Copper tubing with compression fittings is a better option than plastic tubing.
5. I think you likely to suffer a voltage drop with the large electrode. the more current flows it will drop the voltage well below the 40KV. You probably running less than 10KV, which is also why you don't measure any x-ray radiation. Very low vacuum pressure + smaller electrode will reduce your voltage drop.
6. Your plexiglass\lexsan windows will outgas a lot, likely preventing you from getting very low pressures. Ideally I would replace them with glass and mount the electrode through the stainless metal frame. You need some sort of HV vacuum fitting. You might be able to get by with a spark plug, but thats iffy at +40KV as it likely to arc over since there isn't much distance between the electrode and the metal frame on the inside side. You might be able to weld on some wire to the spark and pass it through some glass tubing with some vacuum grease and some teflon tape. Teflon is a great insulator & does not outgass. Alternatively you can buy a HV electrical vacuum pass through from or Kurt J Lesker (company). "LDS vacuum shopper" also sells vacuum components at a lower cost than Lesker.
FWIW: You best way to get an operational fusor is to go with commerical vacuum components, specifically conflat vacuum components and metal (copper gaskets). You could buy a Conflat Tee with one port for the vacuum pump, one for the HV feedthrough and the other for the window. The big cost is going to be a HV feed through as a 60KV feedthrough will cost about $2k. Maybe you can get lucky with a 60kV feedthrough on ebay (ie used) to save some money. The biggest issue making a working a working fusor is the cost of components or the time collecting used components on eBay at a reasonable cost. I probably spent over $10K in components to make a working fusor & also did a lot of self fabrication (ie machining & welding Stainless Steel parts for the vacuum chamber and welding on conflat flanges), $3K+ on a turbo molecular pump and a high volume low submicron mechanical pump $1K. I think I spent about $1500 on the 60Kv high voltage feedthrough (purchase about 20 years ago), vacuum bellow hoses, oil backstreaming trap. As well as assortment of radiation measurement tools: BF3 & He3 tube to detect neutrons, NaI Scintillation detectors. Building a working fusor isn't easy nor cheap.
Fusors have been an obsession of mine ever since I learned about them, thank you for building one, and now I am tempted to try my hand at one myself.
Awesome work Jay, that's one heck of a sight! Have you considered tritium breeding to get your tritium? If you throw a small amount of lithium into your reactor while it is running off of deuterium, any neutrons that are produced from fusion will be absorbed by one of lithium's isotopes, resulting in transmutation into tritium, which will exponentially boost fusion rates!
Yes, that could work - but on a fuser like this, the rate of tritium production would be so tiny it would be a serious challenge to even detect any.
@@vylbird8014 True, although if he wants tritium, that's one of the only good ways to get it. Other than the trace amounts used in glowing watches and some exit signs, there's no other legal way to obtain tritium!
Great idea! So, Chris actually talked to me about it, I cut that out of the interview. I may make a video doing so.
@@LabCoatz_Science Who would have guessed that the isotope used to manufacture thermonuclear weapons would be hard to legally obtain?
@@vylbird8014 🤭
Me: “awe c’mon, but…”
The Govt: “No.”
I love reading Plasma Channel comments. One of the few channels with comments that are not garbage. Which is a feat in and of itself. But not only that, they are insightful and you learn things.
I love this community
This^ ❤️
It's always been my goal to have Plasma Channel be a one stop shop for all experimenters around the world. To bring all of us together into one group.
@@PlasmaChannel well, you're #WINNING 😆
@@PlasmaChannel is there any way to simplify this so that i can make this? as an lazy unemployed 13 YO that actively makes explosives in his room i have absolutely zero funds, but i do have access to high voltage (alieexpress taser modules), so is there any way to cheap out? i want to prove my science teacher wrong, he said i wont be able to create as much energy, and that fission is more relevant WHILE THATS CLEARLY SSOOOO 1980! *ahem, but, is it possible? pls let me know.
I think you made a Plasma force
The vinyl tuning between the pump and your chamber was probably a big factor in why you couldn't reach a higher vacuum. Vinyl tubing tends to off gas way too much under vacuum to get down to the levels you're looking for.
Thanks for the input - I'm definitely seeing that the tubing now was the biggest issue!
@@PlasmaChannel I came to the comments to see if this had been posted / acknowledged. A recent project of mine determined the tubing to be a major weakness as well. Glad it's noted :)
@@PlasmaChannel use two hose clamps on the tubing for a tighter seal. Or better yet hard pipe the vacuum hose using 1/4” copper tubing
I do refrigeration, not fusion, but I do know there are refrigerant hoses that are rated for vacuum and ones that aren't. Both are way more robust than that silicone.
Tubing is only one of many issues, those HVAC pumps wont get anywhere near low enough. You would need to switch over to a diffusion or turbo pump. And any part that could potentially off-gas under super low vacuum would have to go, including the acrylic. Also should note that a Typical Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor is fed with d2 gas.
I love when a creator actively interacts with his community and gets community members to help out
I’m going to be a college student next year and your builds get me excited for it every second !
Amazing work! A few tips: Helium from a balloon filling tank is usually 5% N2, which is probably why the plasma color was a bit off. At these pressures and temperatures you'll have to start worrying about outgassing, so you may want to ditch the vinyl tubing and acrylic plates (heresy, I know) for thick glass. Putting JB weld on the outside of leaky fittings and using barbed connectors can trap small amounts of air and slowly release them into the chamber. You won't notice the pressure changing much because the pump is balancing the very small leaks, but it can ruin the purity of the deuterium gas needed for fusion. I prefer fittings with an o-ring like KF fittings, but they can be pricey.
Thanks Nicholas - yeah my helium tank was actually 10% oxygen, so that also complicates the matter further! Good notes on the use of tubing too.
@@PlasmaChannel The bigger pump is probably compensating for the tubing and other sources of leaks/outgassing, but I'd definitely switch to a better tubing. HVAC people use special large diameter multi-layer hoses ( th-cam.com/video/b8j85R9xvMM/w-d-xo.html) to get down to 500-100 microns. Also, the needle on your gauge can go down to the stop and you can still have 20,000 microns. You really need a thermocouple micron gauge to determine that. Keeping fresh oil in the pump is essential for good vacuum. HVAC people change the oil in their pump every 2-3 uses to get a deep vacuum. I'd also switch to loctite and dielectric/vacuum grease, and even dismantle the ball valve and smear grease on all the seals and surfaces (I did just this thing a few days ago). But again, that giant pump running continuously is going to compensate for a lot of that, especially with such a small evacuated volume. Awesome video, can't wait for the next one!
I like your funny words, magic man!
@@JohnWhite-hx8fj he should really just get a proper hvac gauge and manifold set, they can be had cheaply and the hvac flare connections are cheap too
@@WaffleStaffel to add to this, unfortunately the pump he has likely isn't going to cut it. You might get fusion to occur under 30 microns, but you really should be looking to keep it under 10 microns if you want to have good results. The vacuum reading on your pump should be ignored. The pump is reading the vacuum level at its inlet, but there can easily be over a 1000 micron difference between the inlet of a pump and the actual reaction chamber.
The only way to know for sure is to install a thermocouple gauge directly to the reaction chamber. I would recommend using one of fieldpiece's products like the svg3.
I don't want this to come off as negative, I would love to see you succeed in your project.
That's amazing! I've wanted to make a star in a jar since I first saw one. However the type I saw first was a bubble suspended in the middle of some liquid, using sonoluminescence to generate the heat/light/plasma by rapidly compressing the bubble.
I thought id just mention this here real quick for anyone attempting a simmilar experiment. A fusor emits strong gamma radiation due to bremstrahlung caused by the decelerating electrons & gas ions.
Standing next to an operating fusor for extended periods of time is significantly more dangerous than any x-ray scan or anything the like.
I recommend using lead plates to protect youself as well as keeping one geiger counter, preferably scintillation based, on your person as well as one with the fusor.
This is good info
@@PlasmaChannel
I've built my own fusor a while back (also inspired by Will from London) and I was shocked to see the ammount of radiation generated by the device.
Granted, I did run it at a higher voltage (200kV). But as with all radiation sources, exposure time is key here. Running this for a few minutes will not harm you significantly, however I dont recommended using it as a night light 😉
then why didnt his detector indicate any radiation production?
@@rydude998 because its not fusing anything as of right now (theres no deuterium or tritium to fuse)
@@beelzebub3920 That isn't what the OP of this thread said though. They and the first response claim just running this device generates significant amounts of harmful radiation yet his meter showed nothing.
High vacuums can be super annoying to achieve, I'm glad to see that you got yours sorted. Awesome project!
Hello sir iam following your channel from 3 years, u know u guys inspired me to start my own utube channel. U know sir the work u do is inspiring and simple. So I started my own channel and thanks to u, I had a breakthrough today itself. Iam a fan sir Nicola Tesla.
Thanks for the new rabbithole of research to blow my entire weekend going through 👍
New sub here. Good build. Outgassing is a big problem in high vacuum systems. In your case you might want to pump down overnight and then infuse hydrogen for several hours before infusing the deuterium. I hope those are glass windows and not acrylic they will outgas like crazy. I had an implosion guard around my bell jar vacuum chamber at university, would never turn on the pump without it.
Wow this is ridiculously awesome! I've marveled at quite a few fusors like this that other people have built but your version looks the most ready to be a showpiece. 95% of this stuff is over my head, but the one very minor thing I thought you might be interested in knowing is that when applying PTFE tape generally you want to wrap the tape clockwise (to match the direction that you will rotate the pipe/fitting). Also, for gas/vacuum applications I believe the standard is 4 wraps of the yellow gas PTFE tape so I think you would need 8 wraps of the white tape. I'm quite surprised you were able to get away without using hose clamps on the barbed fittings too!
It’s been fantastic watching you go from 700 subscribers when I first found you, to heading towards 500,000 subscribers a few years down the track! Awesome work Jay. Don’t change the format that has made you a huge success. Kudos brother 🤙
Thanks so much for being with me this long. I have lots of cool videos coming down the pipeline, and am really excited to be doing this full time now!
@@PlasmaChannel Awesome Jay,
You are definitely kicking goals. Well done mate. Mike AU
long time ago, I built a cesium cube. It was a clear sealed and vacuumed tank with cesium heated with an internal element. When two lasers were intersected inside the tank it gave off a glow from the photons being released (an easy form of fusion)
that helium lit up really beautifully, i might have to build me one lol, i might make it sealed off after pulling a vacuum on helium that way it acts as a discharge lamp, helium is one of my favorite gas discharge elements for its huge color range from pale-pink to my favorite pale-yellow color
Couldn't he have turned it on with atmospheric pressure of helium to make it glow even brighter? I thought that would create a lamp.
@@Reptex_cs no at higher atmospheric pressure the helium wouldn't illuminate, i don't want a lamp like a streetlight i want just a glowing desk decoration, although i couldn't have it on for long due to the heat being made by the plasma, it could melt things, although i could use quartz glass tubing because that can stand a good bit of heat
@@Kepler_2258 Qouartz glass doesnt block UV-C, look it through glasses.
@@mernokimuvek yes but normal glass might get damaged from the heat, usually gas discharge lamps use quartz glass tubes
@@Kepler_2258 True. I'n not sure how hot a fusor gets, I never had the luck to build one yet. The exception is the high pressure sodium lamp, which uses aluminum oxide instead of quartz glass.The reaction with sodium is slower. Low pressure sodium lamps also use borosilicate glass.
Wonderful job! It's beautiful !
Also: when you tape, don't use soo much, and avoid the tip-ends.. Tape near the ends can get worked off over time and then sucked into your pump :(
I'm really amazed that this was your first forray into vacuums. That was a surprise to me. Thank you for mentioning those tips and your learning process on the leaky bits.
Awesome! Love it! I was a big Tesla Coil fan growing up in the 70's. I donated mine to my high school electronics teacher. I miss having fun with it but it was too big for my duplex. Really enjoying your projects and builds.
Well now we know who stole Cleo Abram's fusion reactor parts
You've inspired me to pick up my science textbooks again and get back to my wild inventions. Thanks and keep on innovating ☯️
Always remember daniel - science does not happen in the classroom. It does not happen in a book. It happens in the mind. And the human mind is an invincible act of power. You have within you the ability to think up idea which can change, everything. Best of luck getting back into your scientific process!
@@PlasmaChannel I'll meet you in the stars
@@PlasmaChannel I don’t mean to be a bother to you but from what I gathered from your video (great btw) is that this would not emit any radiation from it and would be “Safe” if another hobbyist were to attempt to build a similar one.
@@bogosbinted5432 Right at the end he did mention that it's likely because he's not using any deuterium/tritium in these tests, just regular atmosphere and then helium. 13:27
@@vahannema alright, that’s what I assumed, just wanted to be sure not to irradiate myself
This is beautiful. I've been obsessed with fusors and your looks just like how I dreamed of building one. I want to build one that looks like an arc reactor some day May need a beefier lead vest though....
Very well done. You could have compensated for the weaker vacuum with higher voltage(100kV). But a bigger pump works too. You're gonna need a bubble neutron detector for fusion & actually showcase fusion not just dense ionization. Tritium is regulated (radioactive) so I'm curious how you're getting it lol. It's not as easy as deuterium to extract.
Can tritium be obtained via stuff like smoke detectors or other rare-ish places around semi-household items? I could totally also see him taking this setup to his buddy’s lab or some other lab in the US to do the shoot and they will add the tritium/deuterium 🤷♂️
@@poloska9471 yes you can, but the volume he'd need in gas form would be substantial so he'll be at it awhile. Deuterium can be obtained from the electrolysis of heavy water, while tritium is a byproduct of lithium deuteride decay. Which is a powder not a metal; but he could make it into a paste & coat the interior to maybe have some returns off the neutrons. But I think large quantities of tritium specifically is a lot harder.
Higher voltage usually fails in weaker vacuums, as the increase in ion density allows the electrodes to arc over.
I wish I could post pictures here. I work in ion nitriding within vacuum chambers using the same concept your building here. We run at about 750 volts and use N2 and H2 gas primarily. The purple glow from the ionized gasses is something to see. Great work.
12:47 that glow sequence start looks like pure sci-fi
I'll be really impressed if you can get a hold of tritium, as it's incredibly rare and expensive (it has a really short half-life), but deuterium should be enough, if you want to make fusion.
But it's a really good-looking build! 😁
As you've undoubtedly found out by now, to achieve a high vacuum, how much materials outgas, is really important, which apparently is one of many reasons that JB-weld is such a good seal (I have no access to the stuff). Acrylics outgas a fair bit, which is why it's not ideal. Glass is the way to go. HDPE (high density polyethylene) is surprisingly easy to get, and doesn't outgas very much (as in - I get so far down in my primarily HDPE and glass vacuum-chamber, that my electron gun stops working. HDPE hoses are also readily available everywhere. I *am* using a few silicone seals, which I can tell when I switch off my pumps, and leave my chamber at a vacuum. When you have something that outgasses, interestingly, you can see the pressure rise, over a few days, to a specific point, where it then stabilizes, and from that, it's pretty obvious that silicone outgas quite a lot (if it continues to drop, there's a leak, but that's usually obvious within minutes).
Are you even allowed to trade Tritium without an enormous amount of paperwork and a high security clearance? It's an radioactive isotope and used for H bombs?
@@erikkarsies4851 I have no idea about that, but even if it's a component in h-bombs, it's not the primary one. In fusion reactors, they're working on tritium "breeders", which, if memory serves, is lithium. I can't recall the process, but they're supposed to create tritium, when struck by a neutron. But each deuterium-tritium fusion reactor, might need tritium to get started, and I've heard/read rumours, that there might not be enough for that (I have no idea of the reliability of that, though).
If memory serves, tritium is also a byproduct of fission-reactors, which is likely our main source of it, but because of the half-life of it, we never have more than around 20kg of it on the planet, at any point in time - as far as I know (sorry for all of the uncertainty in this message - it's not the part of fusion I've studied the most - so for anyone who spots mistakes here, please don't hesitate to correct them).
@@martinfyhn1976 Tritium is a very important component of Hydrogen bombs. It is used with Deuterium to turn the fission reaction in to a fusion reaction which makes the bombs much more powerfull. But I see on wikipedia (and I quote from there : "Tritium is an important component in nuclear weapons. " ) that is used for some other applications also. The clips I've seen of real working fusors until now were mainly inside scienctiric nuclear research locations. And I suspect there is at least an amount of bureaucracy involved using the stuff for experiments.
The breeding of Tritium out of Lithium is a very tricky one because you need a neutron source (for instance a nuclear reactor) and those neutrons need to hit the lithium at certain speeds and even than it's a very difficult to extract the tiny amounts of (pure!) Tritium out of it. If you want to know more about it then the wikipedia of Tritium is a good way to start.
@@erikkarsies4851 Thank you for the explanations and clarifications. I still don't know about the requirements of getting tritium, and initially I was thinking that I don't really see any reason to regulate it, as it's likely nigh impossible to get a hold of, due to rarity, and price, and because tritium itself isn't really dangerous, though radioactive. What I meant with it not being the main component of an h-bomb, is that you also need to get enriched fissile material, which *definitely* is difficult to get your hands on, and very regulated. I was also comparing it to deuterium, which as you mentioned, is another component of such a bomb, but is easy to get your hands on - but then I remembered another fusor video I saw, with someone who had a pretty difficult time of getting deuterium gas. He managed to get some, through working at a lab, if memory serves. Another youtuber in stead got a hold of heavy water, which seemed to be easier to get a hold of, and got deuterium through electrolysis. And then there's the fact that 10% of the ocean is deuterium. What I'm trying to say, is that if deuterium is regulated, then tritium is likely regulated in the same way, in addition to being really rare and expensive. I don't think that it's as heavily regulated as e.g. enriched uranium, but it is just naturally difficult to get a hold of.
Also, many things can be components of deadly things, but it would be silly to regulate things that themselves are not dangerous. To exaggerate, it's sort of the same as saying that we need to regulate oxygen because it's a critical component of most explosive reactions.
@@martinfyhn1976 One in every 6420 Hydrogen atoms in sea water containa an extra neutron (which means it's a Deuterium atom) so 10% is a bit optimistic, but indeed Heavy water is widely availabe and way cheaper than the 30.000 dollar a gram which Tritium was going for in 2000 according to wikipedia. I don't think the posession of Tritium is the issue but I would expect that goverments wants to keep track of the trade in the stuff. It isn't really usefull to regulate Deuterium because it is so easy produceable compared to Tritium and so Deuterium isnt an issue in the balance of power between super powers The problems you describe with Deuiterium probably have to do with purity and nature had a long time to produce Deuterium while Tritiium has a half life of about 12 years. So you won't find much of it naturally. What I do know is that the superpowers are not open about the amount of Triitium they have as a strategic stock which does signal some nervousness poltically about it.
Deuterium isn't radioactive and Oxygen is neither. And in many places you can pick Uranium which you could theoretically turn in to fissile material. Still they are quite worried of countries like North Korea and Iran doing exactly that. I sure don't think they would like that those countries would buy considerable ammounts of Tritium. If they would find a easy way to produce Tririum a lot faster they probably first even would try to keep it a secret if they can.
I had the same problem trying to re-evacuate a dewar. It turns out the smaller pump is probably fine, it's your hose which is probably your primary problem. Rubber of any kind is leaky especially the clear rubber like that. If you want to be able to get to high vacuum all hoses and connections MUST be made of metal, preferably with compression fittings or even better braised together. HVAC air conditioning equipment is designed to be vacuum tight but the rubber hoses still leak somewhat.
Thanks for this info. Yeah…. I do wonder if it was the hose…
I've heard that next to metal, teflon hoses are the next best. One of the few plastic type materials that doesn't off gas much nor have much gas permeation through it.
@@PlasmaChannel Yeah... The first thing I thought was, as you were connecting the clear rubber (silicon? PVC?) hose was, "Uhmmm... nope... that will collapse long before it can reach the vacuum you are looking for". Think... McDonalds triple thick shakes and the flimsy plastic straw they used to provide for us to herniate ourselves with.
Hey Jay, I just finished building a 100 kv voltage multiplyer and I'm so freaking happy with it! I owe you a big thank you for opening the door for me and giving me the confidence to take a leap into high voltage physics. (I uploaded it to my channel if you are curious to see it)
Brilliant is a sponsor I’m definitely going to check out! I love Computer Science and Physics, and this seems like a platform I’d be willing to pay for.
Should of did 2 side by side, more energy.
Going off of the pyramids, take in consideration the point as it goes up from 4/8 sides depending what angle you look. Of the top was a reactor, there was plenty of sea water for fuel. Like china's artificial sun uses.
Don't give up
Congrats and awesome luck in the future 👍 the world needs people like you
ᴄᴏɴɢʀᴀᴛꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ꜱᴇʟᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴀᴍᴏɴɢ ᴏᴜʀ ꜱʜᴏʀᴛʟɪꜱᴛᴇᴅ ᴡɪɴɴᴇʀꜱ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀᴄᴋᴀɢᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴇʟᴇɢʀᴀᴍ ᴀʙᴏᴠᴇ
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^🎁
The sun might be one, but you're our star. Love the videos!
Oh god….
@@scrimmo The god Ra? ; )
But yeah, I agree with your sentiment. A little too much pedestal for my taste.
Tell kraft dinner you have stolen all of their cheese supplies.
Absolutely awesome build! I've a half-finished, really ugly one somewhere in storage from a couple of years ago, never got the whole system working. May have to revisit that sometime...
VERY excited to see what happens when you put some deuterium or tritium in!
Awesome build! I love how you showed your troubleshooting process and how you fixed the issues. Now that everything is set up, I’m excited to see you do fusion in the next video. Although I imagine that deuterium and tritium are not cheap or easy to come by. 😅
Thank you! Yeah, i'll be processing my own Deuterium gas (will be making a video about it too)
respect for the visual quality of the studio and equipment and editing.
Cool experiment, engineers have always loved the perpetual motion challenge.
Great video! Suggestion - connect your vacuum gauge directly to the pump with as few connections as possible to see how much vacuum pressure the pump is capable of. If it is stronger then you have a leak somewhere else in your plumbing.
Damn this is the coolest thing I've seen in a while 🔥 keep it up Jay you're changing the world
Ah thanks GreenMan, I appreciate that.
Awesome video! I love to see the progress on this project!
I consider myself a honorary science geek, having no formal schooling to draw from.
But I've always loved everything about science/space, so think this is a cool concept.
Once bought one of those plasma orbs, that I believe you showed at the beginning of the video, and played with it for hours.🤓👍🏼👍🏼🔭✨
I certainly would like to see the continuation of this build, so freaking cool. I'd love to learn to build stuff like this.
Honestly, it would be really neat if you could show the wiring diagram for this, because now I just want to make one.
Beautiful build! Excited to see this one. I like that you added a bit about the challenges you faced with the vacuum, it's good to see how the build is an iterative process. I'm looking forward to the next part when you add the deuterium. Also, side note, I like the addition of the aerial B-roll between scenes. Did you film it with your own drone?
Your stuff as components are awesome. What happens when you have these self sustained plasma experiments all come together in say an aircraft? Ion thrusters powered by fusion generator. One step closer to TIE fighter.
Dont give my secrets away now, Alan. :P
The effect the high voltage creates in the container is wild looking! Doesn't even look real to an extent, curious to see how the next phase goes!
Just amazing. I have a feeling that is gonna be some youtuber or someone in their garage to get closer to a bigger sun in a jar like that.
Yeah I think source of the issue was the Teflon tape and lack of hose clamps on that tygon tubing. If it was straight brass on brass it would have been much tighter and easy to undo. Also a digital gage could help you see much lower pressures. I've done some work that needed some ultra low vacuum for some cryogenically cooled radiation detectors that fail with the slightest atmospheric impurity.
Hey! Awesome video! I am planning on making my own nuclear fusor (non-demonstrative, it'll fuse deuterium), but I'm having trouble finding a good HV power supply. Can you share the schematic for your multiplier, or provide a more in-depth look at it (I will give you credit)? If so I'd greatly appreciate it! Thank you, again great video.
I am already on Adderall so please do not do that it would destroy my secret advantage over normal people...
You just gotta find the right balance between microdosing mdma, modafinil, bupropion, clonazolam, testosterone cypionate, hgh, nad+, caffeine, erythropoietin, prefab skin, sildenafil, lsd, and finasteride like me
Why is this just an acceptable example? First thing this guys mind goes to is secretly dosing a population to make them more productive! That’s some na*i sh*t.
This channel is insanely awesome, it will definitely become part of my routine to follow your videos, thanks TH-cam for this decent recommendation
Hey, thanks for taking the time to drop a comment Arthur! Honored you enjoyed my content.
Looking forward to putting one of these badboiz in my EVTOL
В этом нет ничего нового. Раньше таким способом делали газоразрядные индикаторы
I work for a company doing PVD, i recommend either using vacuum hosing, or some sort of clamp around the hose connections.
I love that you used neon acrylic. Definitely the move
Your country is very rich in resources, I love work like you
wow! so much progress is being made with nuclear fusion! I bet its only 20 years away now!
Cool hi-tech art project
This is excellent! looking forward to part 2
That’s a really nice vacuum pump!! Wish I had that for fibreglass work
I like energy, electricty, fusion, I know I sort of repeated things related to energy, thus I subscribed to your channel.
That was one of the greatest watches I've had on this platform... thanks for sharing...
Nice work! Watch out for virtual leaks from oils on the chamber walls. They'll sometimes persist for a long time, slowly off gassing and preventing a strong vacuum.
You can also use isopropyl to detect leaks if it is just a tiny hole.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but from some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations it seems like you either need to greatly improve your vacuum or up the voltages to get decent reaction rates.
With around 15torr (20mbar) pressure your mean free path for a proton in H2 would be around 20um (hard sphere model). With a potential difference of 50kV and a distance between the electrodes of around 50mm, your ions will get to only 7eV energy. You need somewhere around 5keV to get any sort of reaction probability with D-T and 10keV for D-D.
The idea of the fusor is that the ions get generated close to the outer electrodes, then accelerate all the way towards the inner electrode, pass by it and hit ions coming the other way in the center. So your mean free path should be at least as large as the radius of the chamber. With a 150mm chamber that would mean you need at least around 4e-3torr (5e-3mbar), more than 1000 times better than what you have now...
Alternatively you can up the voltage and make the chamber smaller. That way you get higher field strengths and need less good of a vacuum. For a 30mm chamber it would be around 2e-2 torr, which is just about in the range of mechanical pumps. Otherwise you need some sort of turbomolecular pump or diffusion pump, which is probably too expensive. They then easily get you down to 1e-7torr and lower. You could make a crude getter pump by just heating a titanium wire in the chamber, but no idea if that is realistic at such high pressures you are at.
Also personally I would scrap the screw connectors. Proper high vacuum KF components aren't all that expensive and much MUCH better. Maybe you could even make a chamber directly from a KF extension tube.
Anyway, good luck!
I wanted to thank personally Chris. Thank you Man you da realMVP
Please make a video on how to build the high voltage circuits and equipment required for Plasma Thruster with the theory.
From building pyramids to building mini star at home. Gosh we humans are just amazing. Keep up the awesome work buddy.✌️
Years ago we built a large stainless steel vacuum bottle for Corning Ware. We had to pull a vacuum in the milliTorr region, so we used a diffusion vacuum pump.
I was just watching Integza and now he's suddenly on screen again?? That got me 😅
I’m subbing specifically for the follow up to this. Holy crap this was just so cool.
cant wait for part 2
Beautiful project...nice work.
I like how it didn’t go to plan makes it more realistic cool video 👍
Now to wait for the Integza follow up. it'll happen, probably, knowing him. Gotta love it.
...
I want one.
Excited for the next vid on it! fusion time!
I would definitely recommend looking up The SAFIRE Project. The design you've chosen is actually remarkably close to what they have build and I am pretty sure you'll like what they have been able to do create in terms of plasma structures. 'Star in a Jar' is truly what they have achieved and I am surprised the scientific community is still ignoring such a successful experiment. I guess alot of people have stakes in the standard model of The Sun, considering this basically provides conclusive evidence for the Electric Star model proposed by proponents of The Electric Universe, a modernized version of The Plasma Universe model.
I was gonna make a comment like "he went from (insert first video) to building a star" but his first video is fire bending man has always been a god
Wait on the next video very excited!
ᴄᴏɴɢʀᴀᴛꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ꜱᴇʟᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴀᴍᴏɴɢ ᴏᴜʀ ꜱʜᴏʀᴛʟɪꜱᴛᴇᴅ ᴡɪɴɴᴇʀꜱ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀᴄᴋᴀɢᴇ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴇʟᴇɢʀᴀᴍ ᴀʙᴏᴠᴇ
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^🎁
You already know many of these but: aluminum accordion vaccuum tubing or high quality vaccuum rated teflon tubing, glass over acrylic, DEFINITELY not a barb fitting, kf standard vacc stuff minimum cf if you're splurging.
You can use teflon tape (blue monster is my favorite) + high vaccuum grease (shin etsu is same as dow corning but cheaper) to get pipe threads to seal high vacuums and be easy to undo. If you don't mind going permanent loctite green is known high vacuum safe as well.
If the mean free path isn't long enough for a particle to oscillate about 100,000x across the middle of that little grid, you will not be doing fusion in the middle. 100k is just a best case, assuming a collision with every transit, and typically only 1 in 100,000 collisions, at exactly the best energy, will lead to fusion. Hence the need for a crazy long MFP. It's probably higher.
You won't be getting anywhere near there with that *kind* of pump. It isn't good enough. As far as the physics are concerned, you've still got a container full of gas, not a vacuum - it's just at less than atomospheric pressure. That means a very short mean free path - much smaller than the size of the chamber, so it'll have 'fluid dynamics' physics, not 'particle flow' physics. You'll just be doing fusion as particles hammer into the wire from very close range, in which case the shape of that wire doesn't really matter at all. (mean free path on the order of a few mm).
@11:52 you can see multiple 'shells' around the inner grid: These are shocks caused by electrons obtaining enough energy to cause just the very first level, not of ionisation, but just enough to excite electrons in the outermost shell of atoms in the gas. Thus losing energy, before they warm up and do so again. The MFP here is likely vastly smaller than the width of those structures. You can see three layers. This isn't a plasma, it's just a hot, excited gas. If it were a fully-ionized plasma, it would be invisible (except perhaps to xrays or so) because there would be no orbital electrons to be transmitting a light glow like that.
Fairly recent experimental results with fusors has shown that the neutrons that are generated actually come from the surface of the inner electrode, not the centre of it as it is supposed to: Hence, operated like this, these machines are just an awkward variation on single-stage linear electric particle accelerator into a target. Which *is* known to cause some fusion. It's just that you can never reach breakeven that way.
Key to the whole idea of the fusor, is to make it into a spherical particle accelerator. The particles are supposed to only collide in the middle of the inner cage/grid. So you have to run it like a particle accelerator, and that mostly means a sufficiently extreme vacuum so that you can really have a long enough MFP (everywhere but the core, where the particles focus) and thus at least have a chance of recycling every fast, scattered particle, no matter what solid angle it happens to scatter into, until it eventually undergoes fusion.
This is not that, it's just the ordinary particle accelerator driven into target kind.
You'll probably get better results just putting a sharp needle in the middle there, in place of the cage; at least the electric field will be really strong very close to the needle point, because of the shape.
You could perhaps find a nice piece of, oh, say palladium. Check under a SEM, and get the one with a nice array of very fine microscope sharp high points across the surface, and try that. For greater simplicity, you could just fill the 'vacuum' chamber up with heavy water too. Oh wait... Sounds like 'LENR' (previously known as 'cold fusion') was just the same old 'very small range, awkward particle accelerator type' fusion ALSO! (Else, why would some pieces of Palladium generator neutrons, and others not? It's probably just this nanosurface electric field concentration thing going on, at least up until it finishes electropolishing itself flat again).
(BTW, yes, sharp points do cause very strong local electric field strength, and it's the electric field strength that actually matters, not the voltage. This is why air ionizers use very thin wires or an array of needles).
Anyway, needs basically a **huge** diffusion oil pump, preferably multiple stages thereof, and a cryo trap to stop oil getting back into the chamber. (Or you could use a very big turbomolecular pump... how big is your budget?)
The 'vacuum connection' also needs to be as much of the surface of the vacuum chamber, too - can't use a crappy little hose like that, it will have too little vacuum conductance. Ideally you shape the chamber sortof like an old school headlight reflector - so that the surface tends to bounce loose particles right into the high vacuum pump inlet. This will help keep background neutrals down.
To actually get 'fuel' gas in, you need a gas injection system. This needs to trickle in almost no gas at all: otherwise you'll flood the thing with too much gas, and it'll no longer be a particle accelerator again.
At 7:12 you put the Teflon tape on the brass elbow backwards. In doing so the tape can unwrap as the piece is threaded in. This can cause a leak.
You need to put several hose clamps on the poly tubing connecting the pump to the spars on your device. It will make a difference.
Thank you for existing and having this channel.
That is so kind. Thank you for leaving a comment.
Everytime I see a Fusor video it takes me back to the Makezine Fusor Video.
You will be so rich if this project succeeds, good work.
That's beautiful! 🥺
Some nuclear fusion-based plasma gadgets. Usually in foreign countries may look like something out of a sci-fi movie.
Exactly sure what I just watched but it was highly enjoyable
Love your channel man, inspired me to start learning about electronic components and such and now I can't stoppp
I used argon for my plasma lamp that I made in 8th grade. I also used automotive Schrader valve fittings so I can use refrigerant vac pump. I wanted to use xenon gas but it was too expensive. The argon was pretty try it out.
Fun fact for the fans: flyback power supplies are reputedly named thusly because if they get hold of you, you, well, fly back. Oh - a pro tip from a guy who's plumbed *lots* of lab-scale gasses, Swagelok compression fittings aren't (outlandishly) expensive, and can, in practice, perform decently in vacuum setups (well into the millibarr range)
That Cambridge is a huge source of energy
You shouldn't be so sure about not having any x-rays. Most domestic Geiger-Muller tubes will only start picking up x-rays over 50keV and with your CW feeding only 40kV, you could very well be missing a large quantity of "soft" x-rays that make it through your windows but not over the threshold of detection.
Real life superhero. You have a mind that can change the world like the old masters. You got that real deal super power - brilliance.
I am master now! no more slave
Wow, This Is Insane!! I have been Always Fascinated With this stuff!
Hope your next video will power up a load(i.e. light, motor etc.) with that set up.
Amazing plasma Star ⚡️🌟