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Re: [TCML] "Lifter" power supply questions
As I have asserted early in this thread, I believe the best performance is
with smoothed DC to give large amounts of stable corona short of sparking.
An ignition coil as per the original enquiry is composed of short pulses of
low duty cycle. Power is only available while the voltage is applied so a
10% duty cycle means 10% power for that peak voltage.
I know of no-one who has constructed a successful lifter with these.
I have made one that can carry its own weight in payload (3g) using 80kV
smoothed DC from a CW multiplier derived from a Royer driven flyback.
http://tesladownunder.com/Lifters.htm#Lifters-80kV
I agree with Antonio's comments. Sadly lifter enthusiasts are almost as
prone to pseudoscience as Tesla enthusiasts are and the whole field is
muddied by antigravity and asymmetrical capacitor nonsense.
Unfortunately it is real "rocket science" as ion drives are used in a
thrusters in various spacecraft. Real scientists understand it perfectly
well and they don't use Naudin's site for reference, I'm sure.
Amateur experimentation will be plagued by the difficulties of measurement.
Even simple voltage measurement at the lifter itself is difficult and the
loading effect of even changing polarity giving different corona levels will
be significant.
Similarly any force measurements will be disturbed by electrostatic
attraction to adjacent structures.
To keep some association with Tesla coils I have observed that, while small
coils drive ionic spinners quite well (where corona thrust is also used), a
large(ish) Tesla coil has almost no effect.
http://tesladownunder.com/Lifters.htm#IonicSpinners
Cheers
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Phillips
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 6:22 AM
To: Tesla Coil Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TCML] "Lifter" power supply questions
Have you tried using an ignition coil? With typical drivers the
output is 'semi unipolar'.
Ed
.Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz wrote:
On 16:59, stork3264@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Hi PBT,
There is a lot of misinformation and "theories" on force produced by
asymmetric capacitors. For instance one misconception is air thrust
causes lifting force. Actually, any air thrust is 2-3 orders of
magnitude less than lifting force.
A reference about this extraordinary affirmation would be interesting. The
mechanism of ionic wind is well understood, and the effect can be even
simulated with results that agree with experiments.
There is nothing of "asymmetrical capacitor" in these devices. They don't
store significant charge, and are practically pure nonlinear resistive
elements.
Some folks deny lifters can be powered with HVAC. Just shows how much
confusion and false theory surrounds lifters. All I can say is do the
experiments.
AC may work too, specially low-frequency AC, because the travel time of
the ions across the device is small. It just happens that symmetrical AC
sources of sufficient voltage are not so easy to build and there are less
experiments done with them. Anyway, the current through the lifter would
be somewhat asymmetrical due to the structure. I have tried a 5 kV NST,
but the thrust produced was very small. Even a 100 uA electrostatic
machine worked better. Enough voltage is important.
Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz
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