After a bit of a hiatus, we’re making good progress on the reactor! We recently replaced the cathode and feedthrough with a titanium surgical rod and a titanium bicycle stem spacer. Alumina tubing at this size is extraordinarily expensive, so we repurposed TIG welding nozzles for the shielding. I’m quite impressed with the results, but the new materials have added an additional element of unpredictability while it burns off and conditions.
Deuterium plasma lightsaber action, plus a few other different colors and plasma shapes:
The new cathode/poisser/feedthrough. Looks beautiful, but does it work?
Additionally, we have added in a mass flow controller so that we can control the entire reactor remotely. The goal is to write an algorithm to maximize neutron count by adjusting pressure, gas, voltage, and current simultaneously on the fly. For now, though, we’ll just use digital knob to manually control it.
