ceramic permenant magnet holder

Discuss the technical details of an "open source" community-driven design of a polywell reactor.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Post Reply
Nanos
Posts: 363
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:57 pm
Location: Treasure Island

ceramic permenant magnet holder

Post by Nanos »

I was pondering how to make magnets vacuum friendly, gold plating was my first thought. Then I remembered reading about someone on the fusor.net forum talking about making their own ceramic insulators, and I wondered if that would be a good approach to keeping my neodymium magnets not just in place, but also from causing any outgassing issues.

Someone suggested to me using dental plaster, though they also mentioned it would need outgassing during its curing phase.

I wonder if instead of encasing the magnets in a single piece, whether two pieces might work just as well, as then I wouldn't need to break it open to get the magnets out. (Thus could reuse them, and not risk damaging the magnets.)

Thoughts ?

drmike
Posts: 825
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:54 pm
Contact:

Post by drmike »

Any metal coating will work. Standard processing of Neo's is to add a metal coating (Nickel I think) so that should work fine in a vacuum.

Nanos
Posts: 363
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:57 pm
Location: Treasure Island

Post by Nanos »

I had worried that Nickel might outgas (Plus gold looks nicer, never underestimate the value of PR!), but my main reasoning/concern is something to hold the magnets in place.

That and I also would need to replate the magnets (I got a job lot of damaged magnets at a reduced price with their nickel coating damaged.) if I was using them naked so to speak.

Then it occured to me looking at the toilet, that ceramics could be a cheap option which might not outgas (I don't know on this front, perhaps someone more knowledgable than me could say.) and I remembered vaguely about someone making ceramic insulators with a cold ceramic not requiring heat to cure, and wondered if that might be suitable.

drmike
Posts: 825
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:54 pm
Contact:

Post by drmike »

Check out Coors ceramics (yes, the same people who make beer!) I've used their stuff in vacuum systems and it holds up well.

Jccarlton
Posts: 1747
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:14 pm
Location: Southern Ct

Post by Jccarlton »

Nanos

Don't do anything other than clean the magnets really really well. Think soap and water, muriatic acid bath followed by a a wipedown with acetone. Its best that you do all this in a room that is as dry as possible, with a dehumidifier going and possibly covered in a filtered plastic hood with a positive air flow to eliminate dust. I know that all this sounds complicated but the idea is to remove any added problems to the vacuum. Plating will just cause problems if not done properly and I would not recommend doing it unless absolutely necessary.

Post Reply