Re: lifter power supply - using Tesla coil (fwd)

[Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 15:16:54 -0400
From: davep <davep@xxxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: lifter power supply - using Tesla coil (fwd)

(I comment with some reluctance, never having built a
lifter, however:)

High Voltage list wrote:


>>Two questions are how intense this vacuum was

	Good Question


> He was using glass tubes I believe, however am am having trouble
> finding that page again.  I did however just find another sane
> looking site that appears to disprove any assertions that lifters
> work in a vacuum. They basically enclosed an entire lifter in a
> vacuum chamber, brought the chamber down to 3.75E-5 Torr, and found
> that there was little if no thrust.

	Good Comment (in my opinion...)
	A perhaps analagous case is the 'sunlight
	radiometer', the little spinny vanes in a
	'vacuum' which were said to 'demonstrate the
	push of light'.

	Turns out that when a Really Good Vacuum is pulled,
	they Do Not Spin.  The spin is actually
	due to effects of heating of SMALL amounts of
	gas remaining.

	(whether this actually applies to lifter
	technology I make no assertion: simply an
	illustration of the care required im
	experimentation... and interpretation...)

As to Tesla Coils as 'power supplies'. simply 'wiring up'
a normalish coil will result in Way Too Much Voltage:
it will all corona away.  A 'small' coil, or one detuned to
provide small amounts of voltage (by Usual Tesla Scales)
is one approach.

(pardon if I am 'preaching to the choir' but HV does not
simply 'run down wires', like the usual voltages...)


	best
	 dwp

...the net of a million lies...
	Vernor Vinge
There are Many Web Sites which Say Many Things.
	-me
...for he has read everything, and written nothing...
	A J Raffles