RE: Cap W/ Electret

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Michael.Day-at-USPTO.GOV>

Greetings,

Point well taken.  A pre-stressed dielectric would only be stronger if
reversed biased.

The purpose of an electret cap is two fold.  While an electret does not
provide 
free energy, it does act as a battery and can provide the illusion of free
energy.  
(An electret should be shorted to maintain its charge, somewhat analogous 
to a keeper on a magnet.)  I also have been curious, if a brush discharge
were 
biased, would there be an observable difference?  Would a static build-up
effect 
the discharge?

-mike day

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com [SMTP:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
> Sent:	Monday, May 07, 2001 2:58 PM
> To:	tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject:	RE: Cap W/ Electret
> 
> Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
> <Gary.Lau-at-compaq-dot-com>
> 
> I see a couple of problems.
> 
> First, polycarbonate and acrylic are fairly lossy dielectrics compared
> to polyethylene or polypropylene.
> 
> More importantly, by "freezing" a static charge into the dielectric, it
> would then have a DC bias.  If an unmodified sheet of the material had a
> nominal static breakdown voltage rating of 10kV and you imparted a 5kV
> bias into it, then it could only withstand a 5kV AC oscillation, whereas
> an unmodified sheet could withstand 10kV.. 
> 
> I'm not sure what the goal of the electret is in this application.
> You're not going to be getting any "free energy".
> 
> Gary Lau
> MA, USA
> 
>