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

[Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 10:41:28 -0400
From: Charles Brush <cfbrush@xxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: lifter power supply - using Tesla coil (fwd)

>  > From: Charles Brush <cfbrush@xxxxxxx>
>
>>  On a related topic, I saw one site where the HV wire that is normally
>>  suspended above the skirt was enclosed in a cylinder under vacuum.
>>  There was no ion wind, yet the device still developed thrust.  Is
>>  this for real?  As with anything related to Tesla, this type of
>>  technology seems to attract a certain fringe element in addition to
>>  serious researchers.  As someone entirely new to this subject it can
>>  be hard to tell which is which.  Any direction appreciated.
>
>Two questions are how intense this vacuum was and how effective was
>the insulation of the corona wires (straws don't insulate 30 kV).
>The effect is expected to decrease as the pressure is decreased, but
>is probably still observable at quite high vacuum.
>
>Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz


Hi Antonio,

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.  Here's the site for those
interested:

http://blazelabs.com/l-vacuum.htm

There is really a lot of nutty UFO type stuff out on the net relating
to these gadgets (as with Tesla coils sadly).

Anyway getting back to power supplies, in response to Terry's post I
have to say I like the idea of an out-of-control flying stun gun.
The image of something like that flying around someone's lab,
destroying anything it touches, while the experimenters flee in
terror is pretty amusing.  On a serious note this is no doubt the
type of supply to consider for a self powered unit....that is with
some good safety precautions in place!

Zap!

Charles Brush

[On a somewhat related note, last year I saw an operating lifter.  There
was a significant downdraft through the middle, although nobody did any
tests to try to determine whether that was the source of lift.  All we
noted was that cigarette smoke got pulled through very quickly, and you
could even feel the air over your arm when you put it under the (tethered)
lifter. SRR]