Re: Ion Motors / Electrostatic Pendulum

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

Original poster: "Scott Fulks by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <darkthing-at-earthlink-dot-net>

Christopher Boden wrote:
> Now....how can the energy of a coil be turned into electromotive force?

I don't think that the term "electromotive force" is what you meant to use
here.  EMF is equivalent to voltage, and tesla coils have plenty of that!

I assume you meant, "How can the output of a tesla coil be efficiently
converted to mechanical energy?".  I don't think this is a very useful
application for a TC.  A coil's output is at high frequencies, and high
frequencies don't translate to mechanical motion very easily.  I doubt you
could even begin to approach the efficiency of an ordinary 60 hz motor with
any kind of mechanical device attached to a TC.

If there is a good practical application for a tesla coil, I think it lies
in the realm of acoustics, radio, or plasma physics, not mechanics.

Regards,
Scott Fulks (darkthing-at-earthlink-dot-net)