p.168rqfunmvhs6z@ryzen...On 6/28/2023 6:15 AM, Brian Gaff wrote:
If that is what I think it is, its crackpot stuff. Now if you could harness the power in a thunderstorm that might be worthwhile.
Brian
You can.
There\'s a whole book at the public library about this
Even at a young age, I was suspicious of the contents of
some of my library books. This particular book was
a high quality print, with details on making fractional
horsepower motors to run off an electrostatic field kite.
There were colour plates of the finished electrostatic motors.
But no plates showing the motors connected to a Wimhurst machine
for test.
But I was not tempted in any way, to build anything I\'d
seen in that book. It all seemed like a very dangerous \"crock\".
Even at a young age, Paul could \"imagine himself being
blown out of his socks\"
I have built one of those tiny corona engines
(rotor with needles arranged tangentially with
corona coming off the needles). But that wasn\'t using
an electrostatic source, that was using a high voltage
project to drive it (my 15kV flyback). the amusement of
doing that, lasts for, oh, thirty seconds or so.
*******
If you do a Google, you can see topics like this are alive
and well. The same silly experiments, only with a twist.
The individual here, uses a drone instead of a kite! Eureka!
I wonder what happens to a drone hit by lightning ?
https://hackaday.com/tag/corona-motor/
*******
And yes, falling water can generate electrostatic energy.
Kelvin water dropper
I built one of these as a kid, and it really works. Where
the criss-cross wires go to the collector rings, there is
a thin arc discharge between the wires, about once a second.
Holding an AM radio near the unit, the sound on the AM
radio, helps the audience when they can\'t see the arc.
The thinness of the arc, hints at the small number of
joules involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_water_dropper
The project details claim, you can scale the thing up,
by using a garbage can as a collector, which means the
farads of your \"capacitor\" are going up. Which is
just a recipe for something nasty to happen (the arc
is going to have a bit more \"snap\" to it).
Kelvin water droppers are self-defeating. As the
voltage potential builds on the ring, the \"beam\" of
water droplets no longer fall straight. The water
can fall to the side of your collector bucket.
And translated into English, this means there is a
maximum voltage the cans can develop, before the
generation process is upset. That\'s why you set up
the unit, to discharge the cans at regular intervals
(once every two second is good). Setting the spacing between
the two crossing wires, sets the arc-over voltage point.
Mine was built with three 48oz juice cans. Two paraffin
blocks (out of a 2.2kg box of paraffin blocks) serve
as insulators under two of the cans. The third can is
elevated above the collector rings, and is the water
reservoir for the generator.
Paul