Asymmetrical Capacitor?

[ChronoFish]

Hi there,

If this is old news I apologize for bringing it up again. There is a guy in France who has started a wave of "lifter" projects -
objects that lift off the ground with nothing other than electricity. No moving parts - no hidden wires(other than to keep it from
hitting the ceiling) - just high voltage electricity.

From the web site:
The Lifter is an asymmetrical capacitor which uses High Voltage ( > 20KV ) to produce a thrust.
The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an
additional payload. The Lifter uses the Biefeld-Brown effect discovered by Thomas Townsend Brown in 1928. The basic design of the
Lifter has been fully described in the Townsend Brown US Patent N°2949550 filed on Aug 16, 1960 and titled "Elektrokinetic
Apparatus", you will find in this patent the full description of the main principle used in the Lifter devices.

Today, more than 240 Lifter replications have been done successfully by many experimenters and physicists Worldwide ( see The
Worldwide Lifters replications logbook ).



His web site is here:

http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm
(Caution: There are two Pop-ups - the first asks if want to install something - you'll most likely want to say "no" and the other if
you want to change your home page - again say "no")


I was totally skeptical until I went through the 250 testimonials and pictures of people from all over the world who have replicated
the experience.

He has his own theories about why this effect works - which I personally think is keeping him from being taken too seriously - but I
was wondering if someone here might be able to enlighten me with their own hypothesis.

My thought is that these things are interacting with Earths own magnetic field - it's certainly detectable - why couldn't it be
utilized?

Regardless it is a cool affect - Some have already built a 5 meter 'craft' (for lack of a better word) that hovers at 15 meters
above the ground.
(http://jlnlabs.imars.com/lifters/5mjapan/index.htm)


Thoughts?
CF

 

[Mike]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 09:38:16 -0500, ChronoFish wrote:

Hi there,

If this is old news I apologize for bringing it up again. There is a guy in France who has started a wave of "lifter" projects -
objects that lift off the ground with nothing other than electricity. No moving parts - no hidden wires(other than to keep it from
hitting the ceiling) - just high voltage electricity.

From the web site:
The Lifter is an asymmetrical capacitor which uses High Voltage ( > 20KV ) to produce a thrust.
The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an
additional payload. The Lifter uses the Biefeld-Brown effect discovered by Thomas Townsend Brown in 1928. The basic design of the
Lifter has been fully described in the Townsend Brown US Patent N°2949550 filed on Aug 16, 1960 and titled "Elektrokinetic
Apparatus", you will find in this patent the full description of the main principle used in the Lifter devices.

I think the amount of time Naudin spends looking for the truth is inversely
proportional to the product of the number of free energy quack websites he
links to and the number of idiotic theories he provides to show how the
things work.

-- Mike --

 

[Tim Wescott]

ChronoFish wrote:

Hi there,

If this is old news I apologize for bringing it up again. There is a guy in France who has started a wave of "lifter" projects -
objects that lift off the ground with nothing other than electricity. No moving parts - no hidden wires(other than to keep it from
hitting the ceiling) - just high voltage electricity.

From the web site:
The Lifter is an asymmetrical capacitor which uses High Voltage ( > 20KV ) to produce a thrust.
The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an
additional payload. The Lifter uses the Biefeld-Brown effect discovered by Thomas Townsend Brown in 1928. The basic design of the
Lifter has been fully described in the Townsend Brown US Patent N°2949550 filed on Aug 16, 1960 and titled "Elektrokinetic
Apparatus", you will find in this patent the full description of the main principle used in the Lifter devices.

Today, more than 240 Lifter replications have been done successfully by many experimenters and physicists Worldwide ( see The
Worldwide Lifters replications logbook ).



His web site is here:

http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm
(Caution: There are two Pop-ups - the first asks if want to install something - you'll most likely want to say "no" and the other if
you want to change your home page - again say "no")


I was totally skeptical until I went through the 250 testimonials and pictures of people from all over the world who have replicated
the experience.

He has his own theories about why this effect works - which I personally think is keeping him from being taken too seriously - but I
was wondering if someone here might be able to enlighten me with their own hypothesis.

My thought is that these things are interacting with Earths own magnetic field - it's certainly detectable - why couldn't it be
utilized?

Regardless it is a cool affect - Some have already built a 5 meter 'craft' (for lack of a better word) that hovers at 15 meters
above the ground.
(http://jlnlabs.imars.com/lifters/5mjapan/index.htm)


Thoughts?
CF

I think if it were really a valid effect my car wouldn't have wheels.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

 

[Tim Auton]

Tim Wescott <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote:
[Biefeld-Brown effect]

I think if it were really a valid effect my car wouldn't have wheels.

What a silly thing to say. These lifters do indeed produce thrust, but
the mechanism isn't used in cars. It's an ion wind that produces the
thrust, btw.


Tim
--
Love is a travelator.

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 18:27:41 +0100, Tim Auton
<tim.auton@uton.[groupSexWithoutTheY]> wrote:

Tim Wescott <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote:
[Biefeld-Brown effect]
I think if it were really a valid effect my car wouldn't have wheels.

What a silly thing to say. These lifters do indeed produce thrust, but
the mechanism isn't used in cars. It's an ion wind that produces the
thrust, btw.


Tim

And maybe a little electrostatic repulsion from the sprayed-with-ions
tabletop? I wonder... would you get less lift working above a grounded
metal surface? Does lift drop with height?

This is a cute but mainly useless trick, ideal for hobbyist fantasies.

John

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Wed, 31 Mar 2004 08:23:27 -0800) it happened Mike
<mike@nospam.com> wrote in <13lzcva575n51.1qagnmionj7it$.dlg@40tude.net>:

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 09:38:16 -0500, ChronoFish wrote:

Hi there,

If this is old news I apologize for bringing it up again. There is a guy in France who has started a wave of "lifter"
projects -
objects that lift off the ground with nothing other than electricity. No moving parts - no hidden wires(other than to keep it
from
hitting the ceiling) - just high voltage electricity.

From the web site:
The Lifter is an asymmetrical capacitor which uses High Voltage ( > 20KV ) to produce a thrust.
The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an
additional payload. The Lifter uses the Biefeld-Brown effect discovered by Thomas Townsend Brown in 1928. The basic design of
the
Lifter has been fully described in the Townsend Brown US Patent N°2949550 filed on Aug 16, 1960 and titled "Elektrokinetic
Apparatus", you will find in this patent the full description of the main principle used in the Lifter devices.

I think the amount of time Naudin spends looking for the truth is inversely
proportional to the product of the number of free energy quack websites he
links to and the number of idiotic theories he provides to show how the
things work.
Yes, think for a minute.

there is current flowing.
So ionization happens.
5 G takes 250 uA at 25 kV, to lift.
So 5 kg takes 250 mA
A small (very small) spacecraft would weight 500kg, and take 25 A
25 A at 25 kV = 625 kW
And we need air, for the ionization.
A battery or power source plus fuel that can deliver 625 kW for an hour,
weights?
Now the topic of ultra light nuclear reactors..
AND I would not want to be a around a vehicle with25 or more kV on the
outside..
On the other hand, the movies of the little thing look fun
Did I get the numbers right (from memory)?

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Tim Wescott wrote:

ChronoFish wrote:

Hi there,

If this is old news I apologize for bringing it up again. There is a guy in France who has started a wave of "lifter" projects -
objects that lift off the ground with nothing other than electricity. No moving parts - no hidden wires(other than to keep it from
hitting the ceiling) - just high voltage electricity.

From the web site:
The Lifter is an asymmetrical capacitor which uses High Voltage ( > 20KV ) to produce a thrust.
The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an
additional payload. The Lifter uses the Biefeld-Brown effect discovered by Thomas Townsend Brown in 1928. The basic design of the
Lifter has been fully described in the Townsend Brown US Patent N°2949550 filed on Aug 16, 1960 and titled "Elektrokinetic
Apparatus", you will find in this patent the full description of the main principle used in the Lifter devices.

Today, more than 240 Lifter replications have been done successfully by many experimenters and physicists Worldwide ( see The
Worldwide Lifters replications logbook ).



His web site is here:

http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm
(Caution: There are two Pop-ups - the first asks if want to install something - you'll most likely want to say "no" and the other if
you want to change your home page - again say "no")


I was totally skeptical until I went through the 250 testimonials and pictures of people from all over the world who have replicated
the experience.

He has his own theories about why this effect works - which I personally think is keeping him from being taken too seriously - but I
was wondering if someone here might be able to enlighten me with their own hypothesis.

My thought is that these things are interacting with Earths own magnetic field - it's certainly detectable - why couldn't it be
utilized?

Regardless it is a cool affect - Some have already built a 5 meter 'craft' (for lack of a better word) that hovers at 15 meters
above the ground.
(http://jlnlabs.imars.com/lifters/5mjapan/index.htm)


Thoughts?
CF



I think if it were really a valid effect my car wouldn't have wheels.

If you trust the people who make these sorts of claims, it might not
have wheels anymore. ;-)

--
Paul Hovnanian mailtoaul@Hovnanian.com
note to spammers: a Washington State resident
------------------------------------------------------------------
Tech support: Do you have any windows open right now?
Customer: Are you crazy? Its twenty below out!

 

[Jeffrey Turner]

Tim Auton wrote:

Tim Wescott <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote:
[Biefeld-Brown effect]

I think if it were really a valid effect my car wouldn't have wheels.

Of course it would. He's using 297W to lift 190g. A car easily
weighs 5000 times that. I can't quite see using one and a half
megaWatts just to keep one car hovering. That's 2000 horsepower
before you add anything for propulsion. At the price of gasoline
these days you'd have to be nuts. Of course, adding another 2000
horsepower engine to your automobile might increase the weight a bit.

What a silly thing to say. These lifters do indeed produce thrust, but
the mechanism isn't used in cars. It's an ion wind that produces the
thrust, btw.

How many electric beans do you have to eat to produce sufficient ion wind?

--Jeff

--
A man, a plan, a cat, a canal - Panama!

Ho, ho, ho, hee, hee, hee
and a couple of ha, ha, has;
That's how we pass the day away,
in the merry old land of Oz.

 

[Bob Stephens]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 16:41:21 -0500, Jeffrey Turner wrote:

A man, a plan, a cat, a canal - Panama!

?

OK, I'll bite. Why screw up a perfectly good palindrome?

Bob

 

[petrus bitbyter]

"ChronoFish" <deja@chronofish.com> schreef in bericht
news:vJAac.9049$of.8468@lakeread03...

Hi there,

If this is old news I apologize for bringing it up again. There is a guy
in France who has started a wave of "lifter" projects -
objects that lift off the ground with nothing other than electricity. No
moving parts - no hidden wires(other than to keep it from
hitting the ceiling) - just high voltage electricity.

From the web site:
The Lifter is an asymmetrical capacitor which uses High Voltage ( > 20KV )
to produce a thrust.
The Lifter works without moving parts, flies silently, uses only
electrical energy and is able to lift its own weight plus an
additional payload. The Lifter uses the Biefeld-Brown effect discovered by
Thomas Townsend Brown in 1928. The basic design of the
Lifter has been fully described in the Townsend Brown US Patent N02949550
filed on Aug 16, 1960 and titled "Elektrokinetic
Apparatus", you will find in this patent the full description of the main
principle used in the Lifter devices.

Today, more than 240 Lifter replications have been done successfully by
many experimenters and physicists Worldwide ( see The
Worldwide Lifters replications logbook ).



His web site is here:

http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm
(Caution: There are two Pop-ups - the first asks if want to install
something - you'll most likely want to say "no" and the other if
you want to change your home page - again say "no")


I was totally skeptical until I went through the 250 testimonials and
pictures of people from all over the world who have replicated
the experience.

He has his own theories about why this effect works - which I personally
think is keeping him from being taken too seriously - but I
was wondering if someone here might be able to enlighten me with their own
hypothesis.

My thought is that these things are interacting with Earths own magnetic
field - it's certainly detectable - why couldn't it be
utilized?

Regardless it is a cool affect - Some have already built a 5 meter 'craft'
(for lack of a better word) that hovers at 15 meters
above the ground.
(http://jlnlabs.imars.com/lifters/5mjapan/index.htm)


Thoughts?
CF

Looked around and cannot imagine all that stuff made and played to fool you
or me. But it should be relatively simple to check it out building a simple
variant your own.

As for building craft this way I doubt it to be usefull. Even the leight
weights showed require 30kV and an amount of power that cannot be provided
on the models itself. What voltages and energy should be needed to do real
work? How dangerous are voltages that high on the outside of whatever
vehicle you may build?

petrus


petrus



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.639 / Virus Database: 408 - Release Date: 22-3-2004

 

[ChronoFish]

Tim Wescott <tim@wescottnospamdesign.com> wrote in message news:<106lsg846fn2ve2@corp.supernews.com>...

ChronoFish wrote:


Today, more than 240 Lifter replications have been done successfully by many experimenters and physicists Worldwide ( see The
Worldwide Lifters replications logbook ).

Regardless it is a cool affect - Some have already built a 5 meter 'craft' (for lack of a better word) that hovers at 15 meters
above the ground.
(http://jlnlabs.imars.com/lifters/5mjapan/index.htm)


Thoughts?
CF



I think if it were really a valid effect my car wouldn't have wheels.

The effect is "valid" in that people are successfully demonstrating
small balsawood crafts that hover (because of what? Static
electricity? Magnetic Induction?). These things are extreamly light
and the power source is proportionately extreamly large (hardly "free"
energy). I think the heavist "payload" has only been 60g. Not one
"floater" is efficient enough to carry it's own power source. This
would explain why your car still has wheels.

So yeah, it's extreamly impracticle, and the guy may be stoned. In
reality he has done nothing other than read someone's patent and
reproduced the demonstration - and then put the results on the web
with directions on how to do it yourself.

I was hoping we could get passed that, and hear some professional well
thought-out ideas of how/why it works (as opposed to the
psudeo-science that the guy professes)


-CF

 

[Tim Auton]

deja@chronofish.com (ChronoFish) wrote:
[Lifters]

I was hoping we could get passed that, and hear some professional well
thought-out ideas of how/why it works (as opposed to the
psudeo-science that the guy professes)

HV ionises air around the +ve electrode (made easier by it being small
- corona effect), the ions are then pulled to the -ve electrode and
drag some air with them on the way. It's the air that gets dragged
along for the ride by the ions that produces the thrust.


Tim
--
Love is a travelator.

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Tim Auton wrote:

deja@chronofish.com (ChronoFish) wrote:
[Lifters]
I was hoping we could get passed that, and hear some professional well
thought-out ideas of how/why it works (as opposed to the
psudeo-science that the guy professes)

HV ionises air around the +ve electrode (made easier by it being small
- corona effect), the ions are then pulled to the -ve electrode and
drag some air with them on the way. It's the air that gets dragged
along for the ride by the ions that produces the thrust.

Its basically a variation of an ion rocket engine. The problem is that
ion drives are very low thrust devices. Although they are very efficient
from the point of view of not requiring as much fuel mass as chemical
rockets, they are very low thrust. In space, they work when very low
levels of acceleration over long periods of time eventually result in
high speeds. But when you aren't in orbit, you need thrust (lift) to
keep an object aloft.

--
Paul Hovnanian mailtoaul@Hovnanian.com
note to spammers: a Washington State resident
------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and
then to make sure it's still there.

 

[Tim Auton]

"Paul Hovnanian P.E." <Paul@Hovnanian.com> wrote:

Tim Auton wrote:
deja@chronofish.com (ChronoFish) wrote:
[Lifters]
I was hoping we could get passed that, and hear some professional well
thought-out ideas of how/why it works (as opposed to the
psudeo-science that the guy professes)

HV ionises air around the +ve electrode (made easier by it being small
- corona effect), the ions are then pulled to the -ve electrode and
drag some air with them on the way. It's the air that gets dragged
along for the ride by the ions that produces the thrust.

Its basically a variation of an ion rocket engine. The problem is that
ion drives are very low thrust devices. Although they are very efficient
from the point of view of not requiring as much fuel mass as chemical
rockets, they are very low thrust. In space, they work when very low
levels of acceleration over long periods of time eventually result in
high speeds. But when you aren't in orbit, you need thrust (lift) to
keep an object aloft.

The big difference being that ion engines as used in space carry their
own "fuel" (the stuff that gets ionised and thrown out the back - it's
not fuel in the conventional sense though, just mass, it's the
electrical stuff that does the work) and lifters use the air around
them. Lifters don't work in a vacuum (at least nobody has done a
reputable experiment that demonstrates that they do), which squashes
any notion of some kind of electro-gravitational effect.


Tim
--
Love is a travelator.

 

[Jeff]

Tim Auton <tim.auton@uton.[groupSexWithoutTheY]> wrote in
news:3ufo60pug1n6nppm2fnd3qtakpfv6ppsou@4ax.com:

The big difference being that ion engines as used in space carry their
own "fuel" (the stuff that gets ionised and thrown out the back - it's
not fuel in the conventional sense though, just mass, it's the
electrical stuff that does the work) and lifters use the air around
them. Lifters don't work in a vacuum (at least nobody has done a
reputable experiment that demonstrates that they do), which squashes
any notion of some kind of electro-gravitational effect.


Tim

There was a UK TV show a while ago that looked at these 'lifters'.
Somebody had patented one supposedly for space propulsion. They took one
to NASA who with good grace and suppressed amusement tested one in and
out of a vacuum chamber. It didn't work in even a partial vacuum, much to
the delight of the NASA guy who had previously explained how the 'ion
wind' lifters worked.

 

[@com.aol(reverse)]

Regardless it is a cool affect - Some have already built a 5 meter 'craft'
(for lack of a better word) that hovers at 15 meters above the ground.
(http://jlnlabs.imars.com/lifters/5mjapan/index.htm)

Thoughts?

It's an interesting technology demonstrator, but if you read the specs,
you'll see that they're pumping 438 watts (about .6 horsepower for us
yanks) into it to keep it levitated. It doesn't appear very massive,
judging by the pictures, it's some type of light frame strung with what
might be aluminized mylar.

Charitibly assuming the mass is a kilo, the power to weight ratio is
twice that available from my old Kawsaki Ninja, which seems like it
would be much more fun to ride.

- Steve

 

[Jeffrey Turner]

Bob Stephens wrote:

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 16:41:21 -0500, Jeffrey Turner wrote:


A man, a plan, a cat, a canal - Panama!


?

OK, I'll bite. Why screw up a perfectly good palindrome?

But it's still a palindrome.

--Jeff

--
A man, a plan, a cat, a canal - Panama!

Ho, ho, ho, hee, hee, hee
and a couple of ha, ha, has;
That's how we pass the day away,
in the merry old land of Oz.

 

[N. Thornton]

"ChronoFish" <deja@chronofish.com> wrote in message news:<vJAac.9049$of.8468@lakeread03>...

If this is old news I apologize for bringing it up again. There is a guy in France who has started a wave of "lifter" projects -
objects that lift off the ground with nothing other than electricity. No moving parts - no hidden wires(other than to keep it from
hitting the ceiling) - just high voltage electricity.

Electrostatic discharge is a well known (impractical) propulsion
method, and has long been used to levitate little lightweight items. I
dont know but guess the current induces airflow, or ion wind, thus its
a bit like a micropower jet.

From the web site:
The Lifter is an asymmetrical capacitor

fairly meaningless I think.


Regards, NT