The best way to check these lifters is testing them in absolute vacuum. It has been reported that they do not work in vacuum which is evident since they rely upon ion-wind. Some report they have a very little force in vacuum but this is caused by the non-perfect vacuum.
Some have increased the surface of the (counter) sheet which blocks the ionwind and thereby generating opposite momentum. Again, no thrust. Another evidence. If smoke is blown towards the electrostatic lifter it is pulled down (by the ion-wind (there are pictures of it on the web). So most evidence is leading to ion-wind mechanism and none towards some obscure anti-gravity. Besides, if you want to use this for sound reproduction you've got the problem of it being quite indirect. The whole thing starts with an ionisation process. After this, ions are accelerated towards the opposite pole. Then momentum of the ions is transferred to neutral atoms which creates upwards force of the whole capacitor device. The movements of the device have to be transferred to adjecant air (without distortion). Besides very inefficient (compared to the ESL) a lot of things can co wrong.
Anyway, I've caught an old TV monitor to tap the high voltage for my own lifter. The only sound I expect is some sizzling and sparks.
Bey,
Some have increased the surface of the (counter) sheet which blocks the ionwind and thereby generating opposite momentum. Again, no thrust. Another evidence. If smoke is blown towards the electrostatic lifter it is pulled down (by the ion-wind (there are pictures of it on the web). So most evidence is leading to ion-wind mechanism and none towards some obscure anti-gravity. Besides, if you want to use this for sound reproduction you've got the problem of it being quite indirect. The whole thing starts with an ionisation process. After this, ions are accelerated towards the opposite pole. Then momentum of the ions is transferred to neutral atoms which creates upwards force of the whole capacitor device. The movements of the device have to be transferred to adjecant air (without distortion). Besides very inefficient (compared to the ESL) a lot of things can co wrong.
Anyway, I've caught an old TV monitor to tap the high voltage for my own lifter. The only sound I expect is some sizzling and sparks.
Bey,
MJ Dijkstra said:
Make the plasma tweeter full range, and you might also find yourself sitting
with a full fledged euphonic 'Lifter', and MWO d:
Smoke Test
Just a note of precaution for your Lifter experiments, to remember the standard safety measures while working with high voltages.
It can also be a good thing to say a prayer to the god of all ions before before running a smoke test :
Just a note of precaution for your Lifter experiments, to remember the standard safety measures while working with high voltages.
It can also be a good thing to say a prayer to the god of all ions before before running a smoke test :
The guys at the American Army Research Lab (ARL) have already shown that the location of neighboring masses has no bearing on the direction of the force. See (ARL link) for their description. That seems to end the anti-gravity argument.
They also point out that the direction of the force is independent of the polarity of the applied electric field. The force is always toward the smaller electrode. How can you then use such a device to make sound from AC electrical signals? It seems you'd end up with a rectified form of the music, which isn't what most people would consider high fidelity. Perhaps there's a way around this problem, but simply hooking up a high voltage version of the music signal to the asymmetric capacitor doesn't look like it would work (I was going to say it wouldn't fly, but I guess this is one case where it actually *might* fly).
Of course, I could just be missing something. It wouldn't be the first time...
They also point out that the direction of the force is independent of the polarity of the applied electric field. The force is always toward the smaller electrode. How can you then use such a device to make sound from AC electrical signals? It seems you'd end up with a rectified form of the music, which isn't what most people would consider high fidelity. Perhaps there's a way around this problem, but simply hooking up a high voltage version of the music signal to the asymmetric capacitor doesn't look like it would work (I was going to say it wouldn't fly, but I guess this is one case where it actually *might* fly).
Of course, I could just be missing something. It wouldn't be the first time...
Wouldn't that be 'single-ended', as in class A amplifier operation? We should remember here that the plasma tweeters do work, and the Biefeld-Brown effect would have some influence on them as well. And their operation is also single-ended, they push the air in one direction and the audio signal is floating on the top of that 'air stream'.
Here is an excerpt from the ARL paper you mentioned.
<<On July 3, 1957, Brown filed another patent (granted on January 23, 1962, as U.S. Patent No.
3018394) for an “Electrokinetic Transducer.” This patent deals with the inverse effect, i.e., when
a dielectric medium is made to move between high voltage electrodes, there is a change in the
voltage on the electrodes. (This is reminiscent of Faraday’s law of induction.) Quoting from the
1962 patent by Thomas Townsend Brown (Figure 5). >>
So they were already into this back then 🙂
This above sounds like a very promising model for a plasma microphone (air as the
dielectric medium). Maybe that would be a better start...
About the single ended AC signal. Normally zero volts is at 0. In a single ended design
you put the zero (bias point) somewhere upwards, say at 2 Volts, then you could have
the peak positive part of the wave at (+) 4 volts and the peak negative at (-) 0 volt.
In a normal class A amplifier this 'SE' signal is converted by the output transformer.
Plasma tranducers operate natively with single ended signals, so no conversion is needed.
..eh, there seems to have been a systems overflow here:
It is the push-pull amplifiers who converts their signals at/by the output
transformer, and surely a dynamic transducer also operate natively with 'single ended' signals.
🙄
It is the push-pull amplifiers who converts their signals at/by the output
transformer, and surely a dynamic transducer also operate natively with 'single ended' signals.
🙄
MJ Dijkstra said:
Say! it has been established that the plasma tweeter principle do work (Acapella ION TW 1S and others), compared to a full range Biefeld-Brown based transducer, these may actually prove to be much less efficient (with their visually 'open flames', evidently a lot of waste going on there).
My suggestion for an arrangement of a new plasma transducer is to eventually have an array of very small units, much similar to a plasma TV 'wall'. The audio (maybe a little far away here) could be stored in a 20bit (18 and even 17 would be sufficient, but 20 is a more even number) video format. Instead of stereo one could now have a much more precise and natural localization of every instrument, without the need of using 'dirty/audio degenerating phasing tricks' as in conventional stereo programming. New mixer desks would have to be built, although most of this technology exists today, within video.
Every instrument channel could be made to carry audio in a more true 3d form - in fact as each instrument was physically shaped (with reference here to present day digital crossover processors able to store and actively make use of individual transducer data). Much of the signal processing could be based on the raw material from one microphone only (one for each instrument), and the rest of the sound modeling was from there made in software (phase/3D depth information mainly (by all means, some day microphones may actually have the appearance and function as a video camera, they could well be made into one eventually (and mic/camera's, eg one for each instrument) - with similar incorporation on the replay from the plasma wall, beside every video pixel one audio/plasma pixel etc)). [From there] one could zoom into each instrument. A violin or a cymbal could literally fill the room 🙂
I think much of the above is within reach for DIY.
(About the plasma microphone mentioned earlier, to make it safe it could have all its high voltage circuitry physically isolated and additionally use radio transmission. With active humidity compensation such microphones could well be capable of the highest SPL's ever, at the same time having the broadest of dynamics. Also being one of the safest - safer than 48 Volts of phantom power even.)
Far out. If you keep talking like that though I think Sony or the RIAA is going to end up rubbing you out 🙂
CV said:
This would be interesting to know for someone living or wanting to live on the Moon d:
(the 10% gravity compared to earth could be special for sure)
Talking vacuum: If one added a grid between the electrodes of a Biefeld-Brown based
transducer (operating in open air at atmospheric pressures), one will then most likely have
a very high voltage swing capable audio amplifier component, with an otherwise similar
function to that of a thermionic vacuum tube.
classd4sure said:
Two words, Open Source 😀
el`Ol said:
Thanks for the link L! Lots of interesting things going on 🙂
From the Abiophonics site <<Fortunately, it does turn out that only two recorded channels are in fact needed for realistic music reproduction (more are actually detrimental) and it is the purpose of this book to show why this is so and how to do it.>>
My proposed 'plasmawall of sound' only needs one recorded channel, with some minor additional picture recognition data for recording the phase angles and distance. However the processing related to the playback could be a little more dense. In five years time though, no problemo 🙂
More Fairy Tales from the Elysian Audio-plasma Fields (?)
If the plasma wall was rated 40W/square feet (this could appear to be a lot on a wide wall - it is for headroom - and one would seldom cover the whole wall simultaneously with audio program), it would have 280 mW/square inch. At full power, if one put ones hand onto the audio plasma, one could cover something like 30 square inches. With 40.000 Volts and 200 micro Amperes (.00694 mA x 30 inches), one might have 8 Watts of power at the surface that hand.
Touching the audio plasma wall should at most not feel any different than that of the occasional clothing/weather/carpet-static electricity discharge.
More often touching it should only give a tickling, and at this low power the eventual ozone production should be minimal - practically non-existent.
Now, I could still need some help with a solid state Biefeld-Brown audio modulator and plasma driver design (I have no immediate plans to use it for aviation or space-flight d:
If the plasma wall was rated 40W/square feet (this could appear to be a lot on a wide wall - it is for headroom - and one would seldom cover the whole wall simultaneously with audio program), it would have 280 mW/square inch. At full power, if one put ones hand onto the audio plasma, one could cover something like 30 square inches. With 40.000 Volts and 200 micro Amperes (.00694 mA x 30 inches), one might have 8 Watts of power at the surface that hand.
Touching the audio plasma wall should at most not feel any different than that of the occasional clothing/weather/carpet-static electricity discharge.
More often touching it should only give a tickling, and at this low power the eventual ozone production should be minimal - practically non-existent.
Now, I could still need some help with a solid state Biefeld-Brown audio modulator and plasma driver design (I have no immediate plans to use it for aviation or space-flight d:
Breaking News - We Have Sound
I now have a functional Biefeld-Brown effect based transducer running
frequency modulated at 10kHz. Even at this early stage I estimate
it to be more efficient than any conventional transducer, in that it has
no mass to move around, without waste of energy in moving magnetic
flux etc - it drives the air practically loss-less, directly.
About the safety of this transducer. At the cathode, that is its outer most
part, most of its high voltage energy is already spent, so it is safe to
touch, almost not even a tickle (Note to Lifter experimenters: my 'pixel sized'
module is very tiny, operating at nano Amperes, your modules (those based
on computer monitor PSU's and others) are most likely lethal to touch - anywhere,
especially at the high voltage emitter/anode).
With its anode a bit deeper inside the wall, it would normally be safely out of reach.
There would naturally have to be built in a 'safety shut down' mode for events
where it was in contact with anything else than air between its electrodes.
The wrap up again, we now have sound coming out of a Biefeld-Brown effect
based transducer
It blows lots of air for being such a tiny 'audio plasma pixel'.
Next step is to incorporate a class-D based audio modulator module.
(insert a Gary Larson cartoon here; in the lab, inventing the computer mouse)
I now have a functional Biefeld-Brown effect based transducer running
frequency modulated at 10kHz. Even at this early stage I estimate
it to be more efficient than any conventional transducer, in that it has
no mass to move around, without waste of energy in moving magnetic
flux etc - it drives the air practically loss-less, directly.
About the safety of this transducer. At the cathode, that is its outer most
part, most of its high voltage energy is already spent, so it is safe to
touch, almost not even a tickle (Note to Lifter experimenters: my 'pixel sized'
module is very tiny, operating at nano Amperes, your modules (those based
on computer monitor PSU's and others) are most likely lethal to touch - anywhere,
especially at the high voltage emitter/anode).
With its anode a bit deeper inside the wall, it would normally be safely out of reach.
There would naturally have to be built in a 'safety shut down' mode for events
where it was in contact with anything else than air between its electrodes.
The wrap up again, we now have sound coming out of a Biefeld-Brown effect
based transducer
It blows lots of air for being such a tiny 'audio plasma pixel'. Next step is to incorporate a class-D based audio modulator module.
(insert a Gary Larson cartoon here; in the lab, inventing the computer mouse)
If there are any vacuum diodes that can hold 30kV I could think about a magamp (magnetic amplifier). Lundahl once had a hifi-amp based on that technology. Only 10Watt, but no active elements needed.
It`ll also be tough to find transformers that do the job with mA.
It`ll also be tough to find transformers that do the job with mA.
el`Ol said:
On a eventual vacuum based design - What if we instead directly could have
a grid between the electrodes of the plasma transducer, and have the function
of amplifier and transducer in one?
I believe there is a good chance this actually will work
Approaching Holographic Fidelity d:
By the way, I have now got a fuller understanding of what I was trying to say earlier
about the plasma transducers' way of operation, compared to that of dynamic transducers.
The dynamic transducer is compatible with a single ended signal, however
what it then does is converting it into a 'push-and-pull' motion - It has to stop its mass
(relatively/partially) at every wave crossover point, and by this inducing distortion.
A plasma transducer pushes the air more and less hard in one direction only, without
ever having to change direction on anything. This is true class-A operation.
By the way, I have now got a fuller understanding of what I was trying to say earlier
about the plasma transducers' way of operation, compared to that of dynamic transducers.
The dynamic transducer is compatible with a single ended signal, however
what it then does is converting it into a 'push-and-pull' motion - It has to stop its mass
(relatively/partially) at every wave crossover point, and by this inducing distortion.
A plasma transducer pushes the air more and less hard in one direction only, without
ever having to change direction on anything. This is true class-A operation.
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