Re: Ion Motors / Electrostatic Pendulum

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br>

Tesla list wrote:
 
> Original poster: "Christopher Boden" <chrisboden-at-hotmail-dot-com>

> With Balls as the electrodes your raising the air temp (and pressure)
> between the balls and sucking them together.

This would require a very strong air movement, and nothing that can be
felt is observed. I think that the "levitation" is just a balance
between
electrostatic force and breakout distance. Too large distance and there
is only the electrostatic force. Too small distance and the sparks
reduce
the voltage, and the electrostatic force. With the more powerful arc
from the NST, there is practically an explosion that pulls the balls
apart when the arc starts.

> Your spark is doing this do a smaller degree (you must have light balls,
> they look like floats for a switch, similar to what we used for the first
> pendulum, now we use bronze). If your ball is to light it won't have enough
> weight to pull it back down, but we've never had this problem. I believe you
> need to stationary electrodes to increase the swing of your ball, then
> "Sticking" won't be a problem.

Those balls are hollow, made from aluminium plates by metal spinning
technique. Those particular balls are not very good, as they were some 
of the first that I tried to make. I will make some experiments with
different configurations and power levels to see what happens.

(inverse Tesla coil)

> Great idea, and something I've been kicking around with the Group for years.
> But I will have to use a Coil for preliminary tests and Harpo (our Megavolt
> Marx bank of 220 lbs caps) for the actual proving of the theory I would
> think, sone Coils produce AC and Lightning is DC, and MUCH higher powered.

Ok. A Marx generator is a convenient power source. A single arc from a 
Tesla coil would work too, as it's also DC.
The idea would be to produce a fast spark that charges the top terminal 
of a Tesla coil, and then to make the inverse operation of the coil 
charge the primary capacitor (no gap in the primary), opening the
primary
circuit (zero-current switching) when the energy transfer is complete.
 
> Sparks are cool, and I love watching them. Especially when you break the 6'
> barrier, then they get REALLY cool. But I'm greedy, we're all working on
> bigger and getter ways to horribly bastardize Nick's greatest dream (He
> didn't build his to make sparks, we're doing it wrong!). His work was
> focused on the Before Breakout condition as I understand it, and with the
> other things going on (The NoCal thread) it seems that there may be a lot of
> coilers playing in the before breakout (<B?) condition.

Humm... Take a better look at the patent where Tesla describes his 
idea for energy transmission through the atmosphere (US 645.576, March 
20 1900. Tesla's patents are available on-line at several places). 
He says clearly that the idea is to transport -current- through the 
relatively conductive higher atmosphere, using Tesla transformers with 
terminals placed at high altitudes as transmitter and receiver 
(paragraph 115, page 2, claims, page 5). 
There is no reference to "longitudinal waves" (inexistent) or any form 
of electromagnetic wave. The transmitter would operate -after- breakout, 
feeding the conductive air with -current-.
(I have to say that the idea still seems totally infeasible.)

Or there was some other patent with a different idea? 

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz