Exploring Cavity Magnetrons for Energy Research

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Charles Bagwell
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I am a retired Nuclear Engineer with a Senior Reactor Operator certification On 1150 MW General Electric Boiling water Reactors. I also operated a 3,000 MW Coal fired power plant for DTE Energy. (Detroit Edison). I started my Energy training as a E-5 Boiler operator for the US Navy in the Vietnam war era.

For over 50 years I have been investigating exotic energy systems, to find the most energy efficient ones to install in my home, working toward a “Zero” net energy bill from the local electric utility every month. I finally achieved that goal four years ago, with the installation of 12 kw of ground mounted Solar panels. I sell the Electricity they produce to my local Electric Utility at a premium price, which offsets my all electric home’s energy usage.

To help get me to a net “zero” usage, I installed a three ton “Geothermal closed loop heat-pump system operating with a COP of 5.

Also, for the last five years I have been experimenting with Electromagnetic devices to make steam for a three horse power steam engine/generator in my basement shop. Toward that end, I discovered this Physics Review website and a discussion thread on magnetron microwave production.

My goal is to retrofit a standard kitchen microwave oven to produce 7 scfm of 100 psi steam to run the engine. But first, I need to understand the complete workings of a cavity magnetron tube.
 
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Welcome to the PF. :smile:

That's quite a background! If you want help with some of the efficiency calculations or similar, the Mechanical Engineering forum is probably a good place to post for now. We also have a DIY forum, which might also be a good place for some of your posts.

Enjoy the PF! :smile:
 
berkeman said:
Welcome to the PF. :smile:

That's quite a background! If you want help with some of the efficiency calculations or similar, the Mechanical Engineering forum is probably a good place to post for now. We also have a DIY forum, which might also be a good place for some of your posts.

Enjoy the PF! :smile:

Thank you for the information, Looking forward to learning a lot on this forum. Sorry for breaking the rules and receiving a warning for solicitation of an open source project collaboration offer. It was an accident on my part and will not happen again. It looks like Electrical Engineering has a lot of threads on magnetrons. I will peruse those posts and go from there.
 
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Hi everyone, I'm just a physics enthusiast. I took some first-year courses a long time ago, but I wasn't able to continue, so I don't have a degree. Still, I'm really passionate about the subject and try to keep up with it as much as I can. I mostly study in my (limited) free time, going through books I didn’t get the chance to read when I was younger. Thanks for your attention!
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