DailyDirt: Making Fusion Reactors For Fun...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Amateur fusion isn't quite a new fad. Online resources have been available since the early 2000s, and plenty of people have learned about or built a Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor for themselves. Philo T. Farnsworth (perhaps more famous for inventing TV) designed equipment that could fusion atoms together. Before anyone gets too excited, though, none of these designs look like they could ever produce any excess energy. It would be nice if fusion generators actually did exist, but we're probably not going to see any in the near future. In the meantime, playing with fusion reactors might inspire a really clever design, so here are a few links on DIY fusion. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: diy, doug coulter, energy, farnsworth-hirsch fusor, fusion, philo farnsworth, taylor wilson


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 13 Mar 2014 @ 5:09pm

    I Didn’t Believe It Myself, But...

    ...it turns out a Farnsworth Fusor is an actual real thing you can build at home, without a military-level budget. Heating a few ions to temperatures of millions of degrees is not that hard to do, it just requires an electrical potential of a few thousand volts, which any hobbyist can manage.

    However, the current feeling is that such a device will never get close to giving back as much energy as you have to put into it...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Cory, 14 Mar 2014 @ 7:44am

    I believe you mean fission. Viable nuclear fusion is still in the works.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    John Fenderson (profile), 14 Mar 2014 @ 8:48am

    Re:

    "the current feeling"

    Very punny.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Andrew Norton (profile), 14 Mar 2014 @ 10:42am

    Re:

    No, Fission.

    It's still energy-negative, but it's fissin.

    I've played around a little with the current 'pocket generatoin' (a Farnsworth fusor), and while the 13yo is the youngest one now, that one was built on a design a friend (Chad ramey) made when he was 17 from about $5k in recycled gear, and which is the smallest design available at present.

    Here's some pics from 6 months ago http://www.flickr.com/photos/ktetch/11918718676/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottmjones/11780364796 /

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbgIQ8X3uc

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.