Lifters are worthless

[Steven Dufresne]

@allcanadian,
Good ideas here but keep in mind that lifters also work when mounted to move sideways on a rotor:
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/wfrtlift.htm
It would also be a rough ride, especially near the ground where the gradient is very irregular and differs depending on the humidity. Maybe that's why some UFO videos show them bobbing around so much.

@pese,
While looking for the above rotor page I was also reminded of Saviour's completely ungrounded lifter test:
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/savrclft.htm
-Steve
http://rimstar.org

[eserf]

you may be onto something there with the buoyancy thing.

I used to experiment with Lifters years ago quite a bit (still pull it out for the occasional dinner party conversation starter ).

I tried some experiments I saw on JLN's site, and they where very impressive (even if forces were small). They consisted of running the HV+ to a foil-covered shape (styrofoam) on a beam balance. Note: NO return or ground wire was used, and loss was minimal as the shapes were very rounded with no sharp/lossy edges... so we can say that no current was registered.

I tried a perfect sphere, applied ~28KV, and no matter the orientation, the balance did not move. I tried an EGG shape however, and the egg would "lose weight". Actually, it would want to move in the direction of the "top" of the egg. The effect is small, so the balance was necessary to see any effect.

If the egg was turned over, then the balance would move down. Upright egg, balance moves up. lay it on it's side, and nothing happens (although if I had something rotational, then it would have moved to the side!). I tried different attachment points for the HV lead to account for any leakage that could produce an Ion wind effect. Results were always the same.

It seemed to me that with ZERO ion wind, and possibly no current, just HV static charge, it behaved like a bubble. A perfect sphere of charge was balanced, while an egged shape was like "pulling" the "bubble" and it would move in the direction of the "pinch". The best that I can explain it at the moment.

Either way, it's something that I've always wanted to re-visit someday with better equipment, as it seems the "shape" of a HV charged surface has some interesting characteristics worth looking into. My thoughts led to the idea that perhaps there is a natural shape to the lifter cross section that is created that leads to a similar effect, but is held in tension through the dielectric (air).

thought: is it no wonder that a lifter doesn't work well in a vacuum when you've pumped out the dielectric!?

here is a link to the experiments I replicated. They worked perfectly 
http://jnaudin.free.fr/lfpt/html/espv1.htm

[Shanti]

you may be onto something there with the buoyancy thing.

I agree! In this relation I can only recommend the teachings of Walter Russell.

About you tests: It is really a pity, that you didn't put your egg in a airtight container, so that one could be absolutely sure, that no corona discharge (ion wind) is the cause for the imbalance.

thought: is it no wonder that a lifter doesn't work well in a vacuum when you've pumped out the dielectric!?

Well vacuum is also a dieletric, actually all the dielectric constants are indicated relative to the dielectric value of the vacuum.

But sure I think, the lift one does see in all the lifters is surely almost only due to ion wind. As the expected lift due to the natural potential differences would be very small.

[eserf]

About you tests: It is really a pity, that you didn't put your egg in a airtight container, so that one could be absolutely sure, that no corona discharge (ion wind) is the cause for the imbalance.

Not a difficult thing to test. Just bought my first house, so I do plan on furthering the explorations now with a dedicated project room. The reason I attached the wire to different spots was to try to detect exactly that. Also, since leakage/discharge occurs at "points", then is it safe to assume that the egg should have moved AWAY from the "point" of the egg instead? I think so... but it didn't! I used an egg and not the same setup like JLN because I didn't like the bottom edges of his "egg on cylinder". Thought they were too sharp 

[simonmagus]

I think asymetrical capacitors (lifters) may work just as welll in space as on the earth.

May work well?   

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=uLtb8ph2WQQ