Lifters! (fwd)

[Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 10:33:20 -0400
From: Charles Brush <cfbrush@xxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Lifters!

Hi everyone!

A while ago the topic of lifters came up on this list.  Well this
last weekend after dinner one night I decided to try building a
simple triangular unit.  I had bought some balsa wood the week before
at an arts supply store.   The frame was actually incredibly easy to
build with some scissors and a glue gun.  I didn't even really
measure anything, just eyeballed it.  The hardest part was cutting
the foil neatly (regular Reynolds Wrap).  A paper cutter made this
much easier.  A small transistor radio speaker coil turned out to be
the perfect source for ultra light gauge enameled wire.

To power the lifter I used a 50kV Plastic Capacitors Inc. supply, and
amazingly everything worked perfectly.  I had doubts that this thing
would work since it seemed pretty heavy, so when I turned up the
variac and saw one side start to lift off I was pleasantly surprised.
It takes off at somewhere around 25kV.  The only tricky thing about
these devices is really just tethering them correctly and
arranging/supporting the high voltage feed wire in a manner that
keeps it from getting to close to the grounded foil skirt as the
device rises.  After a couple of sparks I got things arranged so that
it worked pretty well.  Anyway for anyone interested I just threw up
a quick web page on my site with some photos and AVI movies which I
took yesterday:

http://www.voltnet.com/lifter/

Building one of these things is really a fun and easy project.  It
sort of combines the fun of model airplane building with high
voltage, and I think I will be playing around with this some more.

Zap!


Charles Brush