Modified Electrophorus (precharged variable capacitor)

[guest1289]

I will have to read that last post later.

In the following post, 
http://overunity.com/16295/all-permanent-magnet-complete-levitation/msg475693/#msg475693
sm0ky2  typed :

that townsend-brown guy did this 50 yrs or so ago, after he started making things electrostatically levitate.

the force can be arranged to repel, propel, attract, or detract motion between the source and the opposing charge,
whether it be on the object being moved or not.

in this manner, it is much like magnetism

   So many or most things that can be done with a magnet,  can be done with electrostatics.
     
   (  I still don't fully understand why electrostatic-motors do actually  rotate successfully,  but I'll check the wikipedia-page and it's links   )

    So,  is it possible that by replacing a magnet with an electrostatically-charged-object  that you could achieve having  the  long sought   MONOPOLE   that  magnet-motor  makers have always claimed would make a  magnet-motor  possible,   although it would be an electrostatic-motor .

   I'm guessing that if the  'moving-electrostatically-charged-components'  in an   electrostatic-motor  could be  'prevented'  from discharging some of their charge to the  stators,  then the motor could run perpetually ( even though,  doing that to all  known  'electrostatic-motor'  designs would probably stop them functioning  ).
___
  So,  plastics etc,  can hold an  electrostatic-charge,   but are very poor electrical-conductors.

    That makes me wonder if the  'electrostatic-charge'  held by plastics etc,   might actually exist 'ONLY' on the surface of the plastic object,  and since a plastic-object can hold a very high electrostatic-charge,  would that be a layer just made of electrons on the surface of the object .

   Also,  watching a youtube video of the  Electrophorus  powering  light-bulbs etc,  are these NON-ELECTRICAL-CONDUCTOR-CHARGED-MATERIALS( including plastics etc ),  at some point functioning as  electrical-conductors .

   If these  non-electrical-conductor-charged-materials( including plastics etc ),  are at some point functioning as  electrical-conductors,  then,  are they also generating a  MAGNETIC-FIELD around them,  which should not happen since they are not metals.
   

[conradelektro]

   Also,  watching a youtube video of the  Electrophorus  powering  light-bulbs etc,  are these NON-ELECTRICAL-CONDUCTOR-CHARGED-MATERIALS( including plastics etc ),  at some point functioning as  electrical-conductors .

   If these  non-electrical-conductor-charged-materials( including plastics etc ),  are at some point functioning as  electrical-conductors,  then,  are they also generating a  MAGNETIC-FIELD around them,  which should not happen since they are not metals.

Dear Guest1289,

one can not answer your questions manly for two reasons:

1) You seem to have almost no knowledge in the principles of electrical engineering. (Which is fine, one can not know everything and you might have had a different kind of career.) And if some one has no knowledge in a certain filed one would need to educate this person for some years which is usually done in schools, colleges and universities. And nobody can do that for you by answering questions which touch on the most trivial and the most difficult.

2) You question principles which have been discovered in the last 300 years and are well established. And in order to discuss these principles you again would need not only basic but advanced knowledge in electrical engineering and physics (mainly about atoms). And again one can not give you this knowledge by answering questions which are mostly silly (not because you are dumb but because you lack the most basic understanding which can only be gained by learning about the subject for several years).

I do not want to talk you down (I myself know very little in almost all fields) but you should understand the problem we have with answering your questions.


But I will write about one of your questions (which is cited above) because it concerns my electrophorus experiment:

The electrophorus is a simple capacitor (metallic plate - electrolyte - metallic plate). The electrolyte is the acrylic plate in the middle. A current can go "through" a capacitor (although the electrolyte is absolutely no conductor, it is insulation) if it is alternating current. You have to learn a bit about capacitors and AC to understand that (and I am not providing this teaching here and now).

So, why is there a closed circuit in my "basic circuit" and in the "basic doubler"? It is because the electrophorus is an Alternating Current generator and not a Direct Current generator. The generated AC current is not a nice sinus wave, it is a pulse (or several pulses) in one direction and then a pulse (or several pulses) in the other direction, hence some sort of dirty AC. And AC (also dirty AC) can pass through a capacitor.

In the "basic circuit" this dirty AC (the pulses in both directions, positive and negative) passes through the electrophorus itself and through the additional two "normal" capacitors and goes alternately through the gas discharge lamp.

In the "basic doubler" this dirty AC goes through the electrophorus itself and is then rectified (to pulses in only one direction) by the two diodes. So, this is practically speaking an AC source and a rectifier.

In addition one has to understand, that the electrophorus is "pre-charged" because the acrylic plate holds on its top surface some charge. This charge is created by rubbing the acrylic with fur or wool and this charge stays for many hours if not days. But eventually it disappears literally into the air.

An now the "charge separation" principle has to be understood, because it is which makes the current flow out of the low Voltage "pre-charge" (in my contraption it is about 3 Volt) by becoming a high Voltage (several thousand Volts) when lifting the top plate.

https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/boundless-physics-textbook/electric-charge-and-field-17/overview-133/charge-separation-476-5639/

The energy is put in by lifting the top plate against the attraction force between the negatively charged top plate and the positively charged acrylic plate surface. (One also has to lift the top plate against gravity because it has a weight, but this does not create electricity. Floating in space one would only feel the electrostatic attraction between the top plate and the acrylic plate.)

I am pretty sure this answer will not help Guest1289 because it needs quite a lot of knowledge in electrical engineering (which took me years to learn).

Greetings, Conrad

[guest1289]

Your replies,  and my websearching,  have answered my questions .

   I only type posts incase I type anything useful,  either for the thread,  or if I am the first to invent something new on the thread,  then it stays on the thread as proof ,  so there's no real need to answer any of my questions  .

   Obviously, and as I think you said,   the  electrophorus is  the most efficient design for electricity-generation, and I assume more efficient than any  wimhurst-type-generators,  maybe if someone thinks of a way to design a  RADIALLY-FUNCTIONING-ELECTROPHORUS,  then that would replace current generator-designs .

   Now that I have confirmed the only reason  electrostatic-motors  eventually stop, is because they lose their charge to the atmosphere,  I can see OU potential in them.
  (  But since I have never seen, or know of a successfully functioning  magnet-motor which has been authenticated( replicated ),  then I would assume the chances of success with an  electrostatic-motor  are equally low, or lower  )

   In electrostatic-motors,  and the  device that this thread is based on,  there is a flow of electricity,  and especially when it flows through metal,  it creates  pulsating-magnetic-fields,  maybe those pulsating magnetic-fields could be used to create-kinetic-movement, or to flip-switches,  etc .
  (  Now I'm wondering about electrical-currents, and magnetic-fields,  in the the insulator-materials you use, like acrylics.
     A year or two ago, I read about plastic-magnets,  and in the past I have read that electricity can flow in many, or almost all insulating materials.   
      That made me wonder about a charged-acrylic-object,  maybe   'Persistent_Current' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_current )    could occur in a charged insulator-material like acrylic,  especially if it was designed in just the right way,  and maybe by adding a diode .

  What About,   running an  electrostatic-motor  inside a simple sealed-container,  containing air at normaL pressure,  so that the air containing the charge which the  electrostatic-motor  has lost,  will remain inside the container,  and then eventually all the charge in that air will be transferred to the sealed-container,  and then you could direct that charge back to the  electrostatic-motor .   And,  the sealed container containing air at normal pressure,  would itself be inside a hard-vacuum,  so that no charge is lost .

   

   

[conradelektro]

Obviously, and as I think you said,   the  electrophorus is  the most efficient design for electricity-generation, and I assume more efficient than any  wimhurst-type-generators,  maybe if someone thinks of a way to design a  RADIALLY-FUNCTIONING-ELECTROPHORUS,  then that would replace current generator-designs .

I like to say that the electrophorus is the most simple electric generator machine (not the most efficient). But I speculate (and try to prove in the near future) that the electrophorus (charge separation) is more efficient than the Piezo electric effect. More efficient in  the sense that it needs less mechanical energy to get the same amount of electrical energy because the losses when squeezing a Piezo crystals are high. The reason I see in the fact, that one can not squeeze individual crystal molecules. And by pressing down on a Piezo crystal one only deforms a low percentage of the crystal molecules in the right way (mostly heat is generated).  But charge separation works very uniformly over the whole surfaces which are pulled apart. But this is speculation, please do not quote me.

Now that I have confirmed the only reason  electrostatic-motors  eventually stop, is because they lose their charge to the atmosphere,

An electrostatic motor does lose charge into the air, but this is negligible. It stops when the electricity supply is interrupted. Electricity flows through an electrostatic motor like through all things driven by electricity. If no electricity runs through a lamp it will not shine. If no electricity runs through an electrostatic motor it will not turn. The brightness of the lamp depends on the amount of current going through and the torque of an electrostatic motor also depends on the amount of current running through it. So, there is no miracle or unexpected energy.

I said that an electric charge put on the top surface of the acrylic plate (by rubbing it with fur or wool) will dissipate into the air eventually. This happens everywhere not only in an electrophorus. A non conducting surface can hold charge for many hours but not indefinitely.  (I think TinselKoala explained that in one of his posts above.)

What About,   running an  electrostatic-motor  inside a simple sealed-container,  containing air at normaL pressure,  so that the air containing the charge which the  electrostatic-motor  has lost,  will remain inside the container,  and then eventually all the charge in that air will be transferred to the sealed-container,  and then you could direct that charge back to the  electrostatic-motor .   And,  the sealed container containing air at normal pressure,  would itself be inside a hard-vacuum,  so that no charge is lost .

The electrophorus (or any other electrostatic generator) does not take electrons from the air. The "charge separation effect" does not create electrons and does not suck electrons from the air and does not push electrons into the air. It just increases the tension (Voltage) between the positively charge and the negatively charged surfaces. Positive charge is a surplus of electrons and negative charge is a lack of electrons.

So, your sealed container does not change anything. And people did put electrostatic machines in a sealed housing to keep them in dry air and to protect them from dust and also for security reasons as not to hurt bystanders, and the machines worked like outside of the housing (under the same air humidity).

And this leads us to the age old question: are electrons flowing through a conductor when a current flows. Well, this is a difficult one. You will get many different answers. I say, this is not the case. I know this is most confusing but not really relevant in practice. For all practical purposes one can imagine that something flows (why not electrons). It is less confusing if you imagine Alternating Current. One could depict AC as electrons going a short way forward and then backwards again. But this is just a mental  image and not reality. "What is electric current?" is a very difficult topic. The analogy with water flowing through a pipe is totally wrong, it is only a mental crouch. So, finally we have touched a difficult and complicated subject which is not clearly answered by science. But we do not know what electrons really are, or Protons or molecules or atoms. We only have theories about them and these theories are very consistent and can be proven over an over again. Even if one does not know what something really is, one can measure and observe what this something is doing when treated in a certain way. One can say that electrical engineering is to know how electric current behaves, although one does not know what electric current is.

Greetings, Conrad

[guest1289]

Yes, the charge-separation of the  electrophorus  must be the simplest .
   For a long time I have wondered if a changing  magnetic-field  can be used to cause the  Piezo-electric-effect in some types of crystals,  to try and create that effect more efficiently.
   But,  to design a  proper-Radial-Electrophorus,  you could use a spiral shape, like the one in the magnet-motor  I posted below :
http://overunity.com/15774/permanent-magnet-motor/msg475833/#msg475833
    But how could you achieve the electrophorus charge-seperation without physical-contact,  or could it be achieved by a very narrow distance of separation.

  Ok, so an eventual interruption in the discharging-cycles of the  electrostatic-motor  is what causes it to stop,  and the interruption is caused by the gradual depletion of the charge, which I assume has been lost to the air.  In that case,  when the motor stops,  it still contains alot of it's charge .

 

The electrophorus (or any other electrostatic generator) does not take electrons from the air.

Yes, I know.  The idea I typed was just to put an  'electrostatic-motor'  into a sealed-air-container( containing air ),  and then put that container,  into a hard-vacuum. 
       I thought that once the static-charge of the motor,  had been lost to, and absorbed by the air,  that  'eventually'  the static-charge in the air could be absorbed by the walls of the sealed-air-container,  and then fed back to the motor.
    But I think you have let me know that when the motor stops,  it still contains alot of it's charge ,  so my idea should not work .

    Well, I had read that  'electron-drift'  occurs in electrical-current,  but that the current is primarily  'electromotive-force',  and there are separate wikipedia pages for electrical-current  and  'electromotive-force'.
    I think its been explained( lately by sm0ky2 ) that in a  permanent-magnet,  since the atoms are all aligned,  then the  electrons orbits are aligned,  and since an electron has an electric-field,  all these aligned-spinning-electric-fields are the magnetic-field. ( the electric-field and magnetic-field are unified in the  'theory-of-relativity'  I think )
    My own theory is either sm0ky2's  theory,    or,   fact,  electrons  are always changing the height of their orbit ( scientists call it a  change-of-energy-state ),  and each time they change the height of their orbit,  they either gain or lose photonic-like-material( what photons are made of, I don't know the term,  and I don't know if electrons emit full photons ).
    So,  could that continual emission of  photonic-like-material  from electrons be what the electromotive-force  is made of,  or maybe it's what the magnetic-field is made of.   
   Not that thats relevant.
     
   anyway, please don't waste time with my utterings, you should be developing your own devices and ideas further