[DerekShannon]

Good tip, Patrick–The current limit there is $15k, but we could probably target a subproject in that budget range.

[DerekShannon]

Srslry, I told a machine shop “Picture Thou the T-Shirt of Charlie Brown…”

[DerekShannon]

A great Blessing of the High Voltage Kitteh upon Thee! ;-D

[DerekShannon]

Here’s an example of a preliminary drawing that I made in Sketchup. The idea is for a single press fit tungsten ring to replace the 100 (now 96, to have 16 [the number of cathode rods] as a divisor, fyi) tungsten pins, which continue to cause headaches.

Instead of a continuous upper edge, however, Eric wants to add a zigzag of 96 evenly spaced points, each 90 degrees, to duplicate the pin functionality but with much easier assembly. So I’m working to improve my Autodesk skills so we can get quotes on that more complex design, and in the meantime have found this as the closest analogue. So folks don’t have to wonder what the design in those .ipt files looks like, a hole saw looks like this. Our right angle points are actually a bit simpler than these wavy sawteeth.

Attached files

[DerekShannon]

Thanks, Ben. Eric is suggesting we re-do the first seminar, since the raw footage isn’t great. If that’s the case we’ll try to do a G+ Hangout, since that would be the most interactive and require the least post-processing. But we are still experimenting, so if you’d like any of those multi-gig video files to play with I could send them to you over Skype or similar.

[DerekShannon]

yeah, let’s go for it!

[DerekShannon]

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Kickstarter
Date: Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 5:07 PM
Subject: An update to your project submission on Kickstarter
To: derek@lpphysics.com

Michael McGregor commented on your Kickstarter submission:

Hi Derek,

Thank you for taking the time to share your idea. Unfortunately, this isn’t the right fit for Kickstarter. We receive many project proposals daily and review them all with great care and appreciation. We see a wide variety of inspiring ideas, and while we value each one’s uniqueness and creativity, Kickstarter is not the right platform for all of them. We wish you the best of luck as you continue to pursue your endeavor.

Best,

Mike

That was for a proposal to crowd-fund last summer’s switch upgrades, and I made them a video and everything! But don’t let that stop anyone from coming up with a (probably less hardware-oriented?) proposal.

[DerekShannon]

A *tougher* (shatter-proof!) insulator material than alumina, but still with as good or better dielectric strength and heat-resistance, pretty pretty please? Oh, and it has to come in the shape of a hat, with no delivery lead time, and people pay to have it taken off their hands ;-D

[DerekShannon]

There will be a January report. Unfortunately we have encountered some new engineering issues, so don’t expect any major breakthroughs, but there will be some good news to share. In the meantime….try to help beyond being an internet commenter, I don’t know how exactly, just figure it out ;-D

[DerekShannon]

Megajoules, yikes! 10kJ of fusion energy will be just fine for us on just the other side of the concrete wall, thanks ;-D

[DerekShannon]

James is on the mark at a few shots an hour. Regarding the quantity of data, though, you are wise to keep in mind that monthly update findings should in general be treated as preliminary, relative to future publication. We do hope to make 2010 and earlier data available in full soon, there has been some discussion of a public repository also shared with other DPF groups, so need to get cracking there. Fourteen shots today, FYI ;-D

[DerekShannon]

The max charging voltage for this machine will remain 45kV (limited by the capacitors), but peak voltage during the pinch is what can spike into the 120kV range.

[DerekShannon]

Eric and Murali are there, but I’ll have to check if they spotted this ;-D

[DerekShannon]

That’s also a great technology commercialization article–A lot of pitfalls illustrated ;-D

[DerekShannon]

Good idea, Dan! For starters, it is heartening when I see a focus fusion booster chime in on the comments of a fusion article that yet again forgot to mention the dense plasma focus experiments underway at LPP–I would definitely encourage focus fusion supporters to help make sure we’re at least mentioned amidst the other fusion news, either in the comments and/or contact the author of the FoFu-omitting article directly–And we’ll keep busy in the lab and try to have some good press release-worthy news soon!….

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