configuration question and possible idea

[eserf]

Hello all, I'm new here. Just found the site through some messages from some JLN Labs yahoo messages I get. Looks great!

It's been ahwile since I've played around with lifters, but my mind always seems to wander back.

So, my question is this: a conventional configuration is a wire emmitter and a foil collector with a dielectric air gap... would it be essentially the same if one were to take a sheet of paper and paint (with nickel print) an "emitter line" on one edge of the paper, leave a gap, then coat a wider section with more conductive paint to form a collector? Of course, it may be too heavy to lift itself... but I just had an idea of taking honeycomb sheet, and painting just the top edge with a bit of nickel print, then dipping the opposite side into nickel print a bit deeper, essentially to produce a lifter with a hige number of closely spaced cells quickely and cheaply. This could also be done with a bundle of paper or plastic straws.

www.mcmaster.com sells phenolic resin impregnated kraft paper honeycomb core (product # 9412K64) up to 2" deep with 1" cells for less than $10 a square foot. Might be a good for horizontal thrust tests.

[betajim]

Hi,

You should read the PDF linked from this site: http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/GLTRS/browse.pl?2004/CR-2004-213312.html

Electrostatic lifters are fun to experiment with, but there efficiency is very low. To make this
worse they don't work outside an atmosphere!

Take care.

[eserf]

Ahhh... thanks for the link!