Where's Van De Graff On This Board?

[onthecuttingedge2005]

This is more along the lines of what I was referring.

in a bit I will take a picture of some of my samples and post it, I will see about making a 'short sample' of the belt I am talking about because all my samples are small squares and not of long lengths.

you can have custom weaves done, all the Kevlar, Glass, Carbon mix variety weaves I have are diagonal and not linear horizontal weaves. the only ones I have with linear weaves are the non mix weave types, I will have to get some linear samples of mix types.

Jerry

[onthecuttingedge2005]

It seems that OverUnity.com was down for two days on my end.

Here are the Kevlar, Fiber Glass, Carbon fiber samples I was referring about.

Jerry

[AbbaRue]

A Van De Graff generator produces static electricity through friction.
It's not collecting the electrons from the atmosphere it's producing them from friction.
It's like rubbing your feet across a carpet and then touching a door nob.
Van De Graff generators work best when the atmosphere is very dry,
because moisture in the air discharges some of the charge built up.
As 2 insulating materials are passed by each other in close proximity electrons get knocked off.
These electrons can then be collected using a form of capacitor.
The metal dome of the generator acts as a capacitor and collects this charge.
The initial charge applied to the belt acts as a polarizing charge to align the electrons. 
The charged belt acts something like an electret. (Electrets are something worth investigating further)

Of coarse some of the charge developed will come from the atmosphere but the bulk of the charge,
comes from electrons that where knocked off the belt. 
The same thing happens when 2 conductors pass each other in close proximity but the charge developed,
is immediately discharged again by the conductors to produce heat.
An insulator holds this charge just like the insulator of a capacitor holds the charge applied to the capacitor.

[the_big_m_in_ok]

onthecuttingedge2005 said:

It seems that OverUnity.com was down for two days on my end.

I'm still! locked out on my mainly borrowed computer.            At least I'm not the only one.                This is another computer somewhere else in S.F.

Here are the Kevlar, Fiber Glass, Carbon fiber samples I was referring about.

Good.  You might be right about the carbon belts.  I did finally see a very good representative drawing from a university on the operation of the Van De Graaf.

Using a Greinacher or Cockroft-Walton circuit can charge up your Van De Graaf quicker with a pre-charge impulse at the outset.

--Lee

[infringer]

More or less that almost looks like a cap with the sandwich of different materials ...

Or at least the diagrams I have seen of them rather interesting choice.