[JimmyT]

Deuterium–helium-3 fusion 2D + 3He → 4He + 1p + 18.3 MeV
Deuterium–lithium-6 fusion 2D + 6Li → 2 4He + 22.4 MeV
Proton–lithium-6 fusion 1p + 6Li → 4He + 3He + 4.0 MeV
Helium-3–lithium fusion 3He + 6Li → 2 4He + 1p + 16.9 MeV
Helium-3-helium-3 fusion 3He + 3He → 4He + 2 1p + 12.86 MeV
Proton–lithium-7 fusion 1p + 7Li → 2 4He + 17.2 MeV
Proton–boron fusion 1p + 11B → 3 4He + 8.7 MeV
Proton–nitrogen fusion 1p + 15N → 12C + 4He + 5.0 MeV[2]

This is from wikipedia

Attached files

[JimmyT]

In answer to your question #2. Yes a DPF can produce a high energy/temperature ions, but it does so by fusing them. At least some or most of them, that’s where a substantial fraction of their velocity comes from. I’m not certain why fusing them is undesirable?

Question #3 on scaling: Can’t scale the machine. Can’t make it bigger or smaller. At least not from what we know NOW. No reason you couldn’t operate several of them together though. There is a little bit of tweeking you can do to mess with the ion beam vs X ray emissions. All the energy the DPF releases is released in the form of either x-rays or ion beam. Higher voltage increases the fraction emitted as x-rays, which for an ion propulsion system (which I assume you’re aiming at) is undesirable.

[JimmyT]

Did you mean to say Hydrogen 3, as in tritium?

[JimmyT]

If the onion and ion beam capture hit the 80-90% targets then everything will be just peachy.

But I’ve been following this project for a while and there are more twists and turns than a
mountain road. Switch problems that had to be overcome, arcing issues, plasma impurities,
and several redesigns of the cathode and anode…

>I agree with you completely about the twists and turns, but I wonder if the difference in this research project is that Eric is very open and public with not just his successes, but his setbacks too. Eric is very WYSIWYG.

[JimmyT]

Yes, I think it’s quite possible that filamentation could be explained by electromagnetic forces. I don’t think you can explain the velocity curve that way. (If anyone knows better say so.) I’m no expert on this stuff.

[JimmyT]

You might want to go to you tube and watch Arthur B. McDonald’s talk about neutrinos. He is last years winner of the Nobel prize in physics. Towards the end of the talk he mentions that they are going to start using some of their equipment to try to detect WIMPS. In the opinion of many researchers WIMPS represent the best candidate for dark matter.

[JimmyT]

No, I’m afraid you misunderstand the way orbital mechanics works. It’s not like a rigid clock hand. It’s objects independently falling toward the center of mass of the galaxy. The forward momentum of these objects causes them to orbit. Their speed however does not increase as their distance from the center of mass increases. Their speed decreases with the inverse square of the distance from the center. It’s a flattening out of this orbital velocity (rather than a decrease) which makes astronomers postulate dark matter. The only way to get away from this idea is to somehow modify the inverse square law of the force of gravity. This has been tried by astrophysicist’s, but results in even greater complexity than the dark matter idea. And if you enbrace the idea that the simpler idea is usually the correct one, then right now the dark matter idea has it.

I should have worded that differently. The speed of orbiting objects still decreases with increased distance from the apparent center of mass of galaxies. Just not as fast as predicted by Kepler.

[JimmyT]

Do I understand correctly that the private placement restrictions go away this May (May 2016)? I have a friend who wants to invest several tens of thousands in this enterprise, but doesn’t meet the current net worth/income requirements.

[JimmyT]

As the filaments form and migrate toward the end of the electrode they grow and merge. I think that at least the inner surface of the outer electrodes have to remain exposed to facilitate this.

[JimmyT]

Is it possible that when the axial coil is used the dimple in the end of the cathode might not be necessary? Elimination of that dimple sure would simplify cathode cooling.

[JimmyT]

The end date on the 70 people investing in LLP is not correct. Some investors are as recent as 2014.

[JimmyT]

I simply wanted to advance the idea that maybe those steps, and all the extra expenses that it entails, wouldn’t be necessary.

[JimmyT]

MarkRh, yes you are right. The addition of some capacitance might be needed to smooth out the wave to make it more sine-like. But we don’t know the exact form this wave will be. Maybe it will approximate a half sine wave already. And of course every circuit or grid has some capacitance anyway, every element does. But this appeals to my minimalistic nature. Might not need any transformers either. Just size the coils appropriately. One thing that will definitely be needed is good switches. Better than any in existence today.

[JimmyT]

mchargue wrote:

One easy way to get 60 Hz is to drop the pulse rate to 180 Hz (if possible, we really don’t know yet do we?) and use one pulse for each of the three phases of conventional 60Hz current. As far as alternative energy goes, it will be abandoned rather quickly except for specialized applications like mountain top cell towers or freeway signs with no access to power lines.

Where are you electrical engineers?

So far as I understand it, the power that comes from the reactor will be pulsed DC. That can then be accumulated, and converted into AC for the grid.

Think of it as a hand-cranked pump filling up a bucket. Power splashes out into the bucket each time you crank the handle. From the bucket, you pull power out into a converter for the rest of the grid. So, the level in the bucket rises & falls, but keeps some average level required by the converter. So long as the reactor can supply enough power to keep that average, all is good.

Pulsed DC can be converted to AC without any accumulation as long as the timing of the pulses is right. Hence, 180 Hz/3 phases = 60 Hz.

What is optimally needed is positive pulse at time zero and a negative pulse 1/120th second later for each of the three phases. Hence a pulse rate of 360/sec. Or two reactors each pulsing at 180/second.

[JimmyT]

Where are the electrical engineers?

[Author]

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