over a 36-hour livestream, I built a neutron-producing nuclear fusor in my kitchen using Claude.
successfully achieving nuclear fusion, entirely assisted by AI.
this was my first hardware project!—full story below
a few months ago I built a demo fusor that produced plasma—this was nowhere near capable to *actually* do fusion.
I spent the last many weeks gathering parts on ebay, battling Canada post strikes and then speedrunning the assembly using Claude Projects in less than 2 days.
building a fusor to do fusion is an order of magnitude more lethal.
the specs of this setup:
- 30kV/10mA electrostatic precipitator
- 3 mTorr of pressure (253,333x more vacuum than atmospheric)
- bubble counter to count neutrons
- hydrocar to electrolyze my own deuterium
I electrolyzed my own deuterium gas from heavy water using a hydrocar toy that had a PEM cell (mini electrolysis machine) and stored the gas in a syringe.
this costed only $32 for the car + $80 for 50g of D2O to produce 56 litres of D2 gas!
I primarily relied on a giant claude project filled with documentation from forums, call transcripts from @meetgranola, email threads and more.
I use it extensively to debug, help me with safety, and follow otherwise unknown instructions that were outlined in the build process.
a lot of my fusor work started at a @socraticainfo coworking session in sf— I demo'd it there when it was only a notion doc and by the time I had finished building the whole thing out!
also—a shoutout to all the great humans who helped out with this!
@oliviali_ for constantly helping with debugging on random facetimes.
@pavitarsaini for skipping out on a family Christmas dinner to stay with me and build this out.
@ansonyuu for being the most joyful welding
and lastly, a big <3 to @sriramk and @tylercowen for helping fund this and making this a reality :>
thank you for enabling the future!!!
one more shoutout to @moaazsidat and @535Toronto for also being early supporters
over a 36-hour livestream, I built a neutron-producing nuclear fusor in my kitchen using Claude.
successfully achieving nuclear fusion, entirely assisted by AI.
this was my first hardware project!—full story belowa few months ago I built a demo fusor that produced plasma—this was nowhere near capable to *actually* do fusion.
I spent the last many weeks gathering parts on ebay, battling Canada post strikes and then speedrunning the assembly using Claude Projects in less than 2 days. building a fusor to do fusion is an order of magnitude more lethal.
the specs of this setup:
- 30kV/10mA electrostatic precipitator
- 3 mTorr of pressure (253,333x more vacuum than atmospheric)
- bubble counter to count neutrons
- hydrocar to electrolyze my own deuterium I electrolyzed my own deuterium gas from heavy water using a hydrocar toy that had a PEM cell (mini electrolysis machine) and stored the gas in a syringe.
this costed only $32 for the car + $80 for 50g of D2O to produce 56 litres of D2 gas! I primarily relied on a giant claude project filled with documentation from forums, call transcripts from @meetgranola, email threads and more.
I use it extensively to debug, help me with safety, and follow otherwise unknown instructions that were outlined in the build process. a lot of my fusor work started at a @socraticainfo coworking session in sf— I demo'd it there when it was only a notion doc and by the time I had finished building the whole thing out! also—a shoutout to all the great humans who helped out with this!
@oliviali_ for constantly helping with debugging on random facetimes.
@pavitarsaini for skipping out on a family Christmas dinner to stay with me and build this out.
@ansonyuu for being the most joyful welding and lastly, a big <3 to @sriramk and @tylercowen for helping fund this and making this a reality :>
thank you for enabling the future!!!one more shoutout to @moaazsidat and @535Toronto for also being early supporters
