But I want to "burn it in" and have a know working neutron generator to test the sensors and data aq, and had these parts kicking around (due to BillF).
While I don't feel like this justifies a ton of work (even though it weighs close enough), it's worth doing sort of right, if for no other reason than to make it easy to surround with chicken wire
and somehow limit the current (inrush and steady state). The transformer is "only" rated at 1.5kw continuous in a hot room. By the weight - my back still hurts from walking that upstairs with
a hand truck - I'd say that was a really conservative rating. When it first got here, the most obvious way to test it was to try and make a Jacob's ladder. The first arc instantly shut down my 4kw average, 10kw peak inverter - for reference, a 20 foot piece of #14 romax doesn't do that - it simply turns to plasma...it takes short #12 or fatter to actually shut the thing down.
- Run whatcha brung, like racing in the old days.
This will be voltage doubled using half of the diodes etc from an old X ray supply that had a very intermittent duty transformer; otherwise unusable, though we did make our first neutrons with it - you had to work fast to beat the smoke.
- This board also has voltage and current sensing parts.
I'm just blocking out an open air frame to hold the semis and a couple of capacitors which are from yet another HV supply - that one was just the caps and diodes designed for a 3 phase drive,
and really old - 40 6 amp(!) 1.5kv diodes in series for each "diode", complete with R's and C's in case the slow diodes didn't divide up well enough. Those were just too much of a mess, but might be a fallback if the diodes on the board I'm using fail (I saved room).
- Just sizing things.
Those big old caps are just .05 uF at 40kv, which isn't much at 60hz...I may want to add a little more with these caps from the same X ray supply the diodes are from.
- extra capacitors?
Not shown is the ballast resistor I'll use - a 200 watt 100k wirewound. I'd rather have that burn up than expose anything else to what this transformer can do...and for this, I don't need precise
voltages, which is always going to be a problem with a 60hz supply. By the time you kill off some ripple, you have enough stored energy to compete with a high power rifle...only it can come out
faster and with a much larger peak power.
And of course, in true packrat fasion, we picked up some meters from out favorite HV power supply company surplus somewhere, and now they're going to find a home in errrm, somewhat lesser gear.
- Meters are as important as blinken lights.
I'll be using a 1kw variac to control this...so we're not shooting for high accuracy here, just a nice 40kv supply to make some neutrons with and calibrate/shake down the rest.
That transformer must weigh most as much as a chevy small block (but thank heavens, without the heads).
- My back is complaining.
