Back in the day when more people were playing with lifters I recall at least one person who got a dirigible shaped helium balloon and attached a lifter to it with controls for tilting the lifter for steering. So the balloon was for the lift and the lifter was for the propulsion. Worked great. And I'm glad you liked the video. Thanks!
Cool! It became very popular with more of the mainstream when MIT released a paper around a month ago about ionocrafts (which is what lifters are) and their efficiency. This video was embedded on a large number of websites since it was the only clear how-to-make and demonstration one out there. Thanks for letting me know, Grant.
It's amazing how many innuendos you can get out that part of the video with terms like discharge stick, balls, skirt, safe. I realized it as I was saying it but left it in anyway. Gotta have some humor. :)
Penny Lane Micah Burgin Yeah, I remember when I was saying that part while making the video that it could be taken differently than I meant it, but I left it in for fun. Can't be too serious all the time :). Penny, did you eventually find a power supply?
Nicely done. I'll have to try this when I finally have my flat sorted. Another project I'd like to try is a variation on this theme: Create a disc with a series of concentric wire circles. Power them such that they sum, centre to edge, but never exceed the breakdown voltage between adjacent concentric circles. Arrange a surface with a dense population of strong magnets below the disc such that there's a toroidal field, again concentric with the disc, with the field lines passing vertically through the body of the disc. The idea is to create a combination of magnetic and electric fields such that a Lorenz force acts on the air ionised by the circular electrodes, causing it to spin (concentric with the disc) and centrifuge outwards from centre to disc edge; in effect, creating a vortex. I'm curious as to how much aerodynamic lift you could generate in this way...
When I built my first lifter I was having an hard time making the triangle ones like yours work, so I decided to build an hexagonal one because I had figured a way to use less wood per triangular section that way. I guess the more triangular sections, the less would (by comparison) is needed!
Thanks for the suggestion, Paul. I've thought of that approach but that just gives the lift-off thrust, though I guess you could keep adding mass until it can't lift anymore. By the way, such a challenge was done back in 2003 and was the 100 gram challenge, to lift 100 grams in addition to the weight of the lifter. Do a search on google for "100g payload lifter".
I had such crappy math and physics teachers. I am not surprised how ordinary people build crafts u would never tought people could build outside an lab hidden for the mass. Thx for the video ❤
I always wanted to thank you for making your videos! It really inspired me to dive into DIY science projects and this was the video especially that really sparked my curiosity. So again thank you!
Thanks. I'm glad you like my videos. And yeah, I knew even as I was saying it that I would get a lot of comments about it. It wasn't intentional but I left it in for the fun of it. Even I laughed inside as I realized what I was saying. :)
Just made one of these using coffee stirring straws which were lighter than balsa and won't immediately catch fire when I inevitably jack the power up to make pretty coronas and shorting arcs :)
years ago (they probably still do) popsci had advertisements for the plans for these - only $30 apparently. but they branded them as 'antigravity machines'
John Bump Yeah, the part that takes time is finding a suitable power supply. Once you have that, the lifter takes a half hour or so. Just make sure you try it in the dark. Seeing where the purplish corona is makes all the difference in getting it to work.
The fact that the wire has a small diameter and the foil is smooth determines the direction of airflow and lifter movement. The polarity has some effect, but is secondary. Any other wiring between the two would have the same effect as decreasing the distance between the two and result in more charge flowing directly between the two, shorting it out and making it no longer work. People have gotten better performance by using DC pulses instead of straight DC.
Putting some close to each other is ok as long as the structural requirements don't weigh too much. What I'd really worry about it the weight of the gyro sensor or whatever type is needed, making sure it safe from the ions and high voltage (which may mean more weight for structure), and how to communicate with the sensor. If it's a feed wire then that'll drag down on the lifter, if it's remote control then that's added weight. A lot has changed over the years. It may now be possible.
If you're getting arcs then the wire should be moved farther from the aluminum foil. Mine are 3.5cm at the closest. Also try playing around with the wires that lead to the lifter. Arrange them so that they don't restrict the lifter from lifting up. You can lift the lifter by hand to get an idea of if they're holding it down. Also, it has to be as lightweight as possible. Mine are only around 2 grams. 15kv is a little low, but don't give up yet.
Re the ozone, the room was ventilated. If you run this for only a few minutes and not often then it's not that harmful. Ions around a sharp point will spread out since they repel each other. But to become ionized there's usually an electrode with opposite polarity nearby. That's the foil skirt in this case. We don't want the ions shooting down to start with since we want an ion cloud for the foil to attract upward to. They will move down because of the foil though.
Never actually paid attention to how these are made before. It is so simple. Gonna make one. Got a flyback from an old tv for the high voltage supply and a driver to run it.
Raymond Bivens Be aware, these need DC or pulsed DC. The high voltage AC output from a straight flyback won't work. The one I use has a tripler after the flyback which you can see here th-cam.com/video/GEuK1OdYxHk/w-d-xo.html I recently tried my Cube power supply that has a flyback with a built-in diode as the very last stage but I suspect the current was too high and voltage too low. But it was suggested that I might be able to add a capacitor to fix that. Here's the Cube power supply th-cam.com/video/-KFhBVfpfDw/w-d-xo.html and my recent Google+ post about my lifter test with it plus.google.com/116395125136223897621/posts/4MeNfcWoACN
It's really high voltage with high current too. The voltage need only be enough to create the necessary electric field across the given gap size. The current is what provides the electrons for ionizing the air (or takes them away depending on your polarity.) So 26kV which mine is supplying, plus more current would allow larger ones to fly.
It is. One pole of my psu is HV positive with respect to ground and the other pole is ground. I prefer to connect the skirt to ground since the skirt is closer to the table and the table is also ground. But it can be done either way. Theoretically, you get better results with the wire connected to positive, but the actual performance is hard to measure.
bharath puluru It would require at least a million volts but also with a lot of current. The ionocraft would also have to be around the size of a house and require protection to protect the human from the high voltage/current. It's not practical.
No it could work with just 30kV. The voltage is not that relevant. You just need enough voltage to ionize the air. To prove this, just imagine a lifter running on 30kV. It has a thrust to weight ratio larger than 1. This means you could use a million lifters to lift something heavy, all running on the same voltage. It is the amount of ionized air that counts here. The amount of total thrust. Sure a million volts would increase the thrust, but you only NEED 30kV as a minimum
sai kumar reddy Sama Some satellites do use ion propulsion with xenon gas as the propellant for moving around while in orbit. But they're not being lifted against Earth's gravity so the thrust can be much less and the acceleration is very small, so the satellite moves and can get up to high speed (if needed) over a longish period of time.
In this power supply the negative is connected to ground and is connected to the skirt. So the negative is at the same potential as the Earth ground which is ultimately connected to a pole stuck in the ground in the backyard. The positive can be as much as +30kV relative to that. If the ground truly has the same number of electrons as protons then you could say it's not negative as all, in which case I have HV positive and 0V.
Glad you enjoyed the video. The two ozones are the same, O3, but I guess the location is the problem. Maybe we should be flying lifters up where the ozone layer is located.
Sorry, I somehow missed this comment of yours. It works with the top wire positive or negative - this video uses positive, my other lifter video uses negative - but I think I recall it works a little better if negative (I could be remembering wrongly - something for your science fair experiment to test!) Alligator clips are heavy. You can use them as long as it's where the lifter doesn't have to lift them.
That's a good sign as far as the lifter is concerned because that means ionization is going on. But you should have some ventilation if you'll be breathing it a lot, though it takes a alot to be harmful. To see ionization, turn out the lights and you should see a purplish glow around the wire in places. The less powerful your power supply, the dimmer the glow. You may also hear a hissing sound.
The thin wire acts like a sharp edge. The electric field near a sharp edge is very strong. This strong field either leaks electrons (if the wire is negative) or rips electrons from nearby atoms in the air (if it's positive.) This results is ionized air near the wire. This ionized air is attracted to the field around the foil skirt and is what starts off the whole ion wind that makes the lifter fly. The wire must be uninsulated and as thin as practical. Mine was 30 AWG (American Wire Gauge).
Kudo's to your vid demo skills. Thoughtful, plain-english, down to earth, instructive, and time-compressed when appropriate. I first learned about ionic propulsion from a world book encyclopedia back in the '70's. at the age of 14. The DIY of a rocket motor hanging by the high voltage wire. Thanks for the blast from the past.
Do you have any suggestions or opinions why they lift? I know the MythBusters said it was because the wire is vibrating so much it causes lift because it was vibrating the air around the lifter, but somehow that doesn't sound right to me. They tried to prove their point by placing the lifter in a container that was vacuumed of air to prove it wasn't defeating Gravity, and it didn't rise in an atmosphere vacuumed of air. Correct me if I am wrong. What is at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by another force, and what is in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. By removing the air they cut out the force of buoyancy lifting something that was at rest. Before they removed the air the force of buoyancy help lift the lifter. Am I right or is MythBusters right?
+Steve Rabon Really? That was Mythbusters' theory? I'm surprised. It's just plain old ion propulsion. Here's my explanatory video th-cam.com/video/01F8V5IhB5k/w-d-xo.html. And here's a smoke test video I did a while back th-cam.com/video/LOGAaObsN4g/w-d-xo.html.
+Steve Rabon Because it's basically a jet. It takes air from the top and pulls it down. That's the action. The reaction is that the lifter moves up. If you watch my ion propulsion video that I gave a link to you'll see that air is needed. You can even see the moving air in the smoke test in the other video I gave a link to. I didn't see the Mythbuster episode so I can't speak about what they said.
That's commonly known as a Variac, basically a variable transformer. I plug it into the wall socket so it gets 120 volts AC as input. I then plug something else into the Variac. As I turn the dial from 0 to maximum, whatever is plugged into it gets 0 volts AC up to 120 volts AC. In my case my I plug my 24 volt DC power supply into it. Giving my 24 VDC power supply an input voltage from 0 to 120 volts AC causes the power supply to output 0 to 24 volts DC. That feeds my high voltage power supply.
The very thin, uninsulated wire acts like a sharp point. When you use high voltage with a sharp point it ionizes the surrounding air. The foil thickness doesn't matter but the fact that the edge facing the wire is smooth means it doesn't ionize air, or not much. Instead, the foil is attracted to the cloud of ions that the wire made, and so the whole thing rises up. At the same time the ions are attracted downward, producing a noticeable downward ion wind.
It's a very efficient design in terms of a weight to lift ratio. Lifters have to be extremely lightweight and this triangular shape uses a minimum of material. A good shape is one with a hole in the middle but it's harder to make a lightweight cylinder. Two sided wouldn't have a hole. Four sided required more material than three sided.
I know what you're getting at but terminal velocity applies to an object that's falling, not under power. If a jet is flying downward under power then it can move downward at a higher velocity than it's terminal velocity. A lifter under power is just like the jet under power. So I'd imagine an upside down lifter, under power, moving downward would move down faster than if it were not under power, even assuming a heavy lifter that wouldn't be blown sideways in a wind.
Yeah how'd he ever guess that if you don't have balls to touch that you'd probably have a skirt? May have been a freudian slip and unintentional, but I got a laugh out of that as well.
With the lifter we want unidirectional thrust. So the bare wire does the corona discharge (i.e. it ionizes air) and the smooth foil skirt is attracted up to the ionized air. The fact that it's smooth allows it to build up a surface charge, or high voltage with respect to the ionized air, so that it can be attracted to the ionized air. If it discharged instead, then it wouldn't build up the surface charge and it wouldn't be attracted.
Rim this has helped me. you tube has been a wonderful source of information. More so then I thought at first. thank you both. I have seen what I have needed to see and hear what I have needed to hear to build a flying pyramid. this video has made it a step easier. I am looking for a team of people to help me in their own smart ways. I want to build a mother Flying Pyramid. your welcome to come along.
The term "lifter" is an accurate description because it is "not" an anti-gravity device; rather, it produces lift using the same basic principle as a rocket, i.e. from the equal but opposite force upward generated by the driving force downward, specifically by driving the ionized air downward in the case of the ionocraft. Much like a rocket or a jet engine.
Richard Green Yup. You can find a more detailed explanation of how the ion propulsion works in my other video "How Ion Propulsion, Lifters and Ionocrafts Work".
You'd need something that still very lightweight. This lifter is only around 2 grams. The only thing that comes to mind is carbon fiber, which you can usually get in hobby stores that sell radio controlled planes. And I guess you can find it online. I don't have experience with it so I don't know if even that is light enough or what kind of work is involved in making parts out of carbon fiber. I know there are also carbon fiber rods.
I don't think it can be scaled up to lift people off Earth to get to space but it is used in space for deep space missions. It doesn't work in vacuum this same way since it needs a gaseous medium but for the deep space missions they carry their own gaseous medium with them, often xenon gas. It gives very little thrust but for a given mass of gas you can get enough and it doesn't use up much gas at a time so you can build up speed slowly. There is a some ongoing research by NASA and others.
It depends on the voltage and how light your lifter is. The lighter your lifter, the lower the voltage required. The lower the voltage, the smaller the distance can be. Humidity also has an effect. So I don't have any specific numbers. In my "Lifter Voltage/Current and Smoke/Airflow Test Measurements" video my 2 gram lifter lifted off at 26,000 volts, with a distance at one corner of 2.5 cm and 4 cm at another corner. I suggest making the distance adjustable like mine.
It gives off ozone. Some say that large quantities of ozone can be harmful. Just use it in a ventilated room and you'll be fine. When I'm filming a lifter I have to shut all windows due to sound issues, but I open them afterwards and run a fan and I've had no problems.
Well, I guess I'm not sure it's ozone since I have no reference. But there's a very distinct smell when I heavily ionize air in these types of experiments and so I've just always said it's ozone. A lot of people do the same. Maybe it's not the ozone that's stimulating the nasal senses, but maybe if whatever it is is present then we can assume there's ozone too. It's a fact that this type of ionization produces ozone. Either way, it's good that there's a smell to remind people to ventilate.
I think you need at least 30kV but I seem to recall reading once years ago about someone using single digits kV. If you do try, you'll have to put the wire much closer to the top of the foil skirt due to the lower voltage. Best if the distance between wire and foil skirt is adjustable so you can try different distances. Make it as lightweight as possible too.
The experiment was done with pulsing from 0 to 100Hz. 70Hz required the least power, 17.72 watts, 14.59Kv RMS and 1.22 mA RMS. But you can experiment to find what works best for you. It can't be alternating. It has to be DC pulses. You can see it at jnaudin.free.fr/html/lftphv.htm
I've no doubt shape would make some difference and as you point out, there are many variations. But I don't think any one person has done enough variations to rigorously say what's best. Oh, pulsing the high voltage can also be an improvement. The best list I know of is on the blazelabs website, in the EHD Thrusters menu, Thrusters Performance page. No one's gotten close to lifting the power supply and until some kind of super light power supply tech is invented, they probably won't.
Ha ha! I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not, but doesn't matter. Most of the time I use metric since it's a heck of a lot easier, but I sometimes use the old imperial units too. And since my viewers are from everywhere, sometimes I'll use one and sometimes the other.
If your cloth is light enough and you have enough current feeding your needle, you might get a reaction. You'd probably have to do quite a bit of trial and error first. I also find cloth hard to charge up. Thin nylon or acrylic might be better. But you can do without the cloth since a sharp, negatively charged needle will emit electrons on its own due the the strong electric field at the needle tip. That's what I did in my "Ion Wind Rotor" video.
If the rips/holes are near the top of the foil then it's the same as the foil having some sharp edges. Instead of the foil holding onto its charge, it will start losing some and ionizing air. The voltage between the foil and the wire-produced ion cloud will be lower and the lift will be less. I usually see this if there's a lot of sparking between the wire and the foil. The sparks blow tiny holes in the foil and the lift performance eventually decreases.
So you're suggesting that air could be let out around the lifter and the lifter could then ionize that air? It may take a long time to go fast and may not be practical, but it sounds like it'd work.
No, not by itself. The lifter needs at least 30,000 volts, though if I recall correctly I've heard of as low as 10,000 volts being used. But that's still much higher than 12 volts.
There are many different high voltage DC power supplies so it depends on which one. Ones that have a flyback as their last stage put out AC but ones that have a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier as their last stage are rectified and put out DC. Mine has a flyback followed by a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier so it's rectified and hence is DC.
The GRA 10 supplies up to 20kV. My lifter didn't fly until 25kV, so I can't guarantee that it'll work. They are fairly reliable and knowledgeable people, so it may just take a little playing with the lifter and care with the wiring leading to the lifter to minimize losses. The GRA 10 requires a 12V, 3amp power supply. I'd just use an adaptor, one of those things you plug in the wall that puts out 12V DC. There's also no fuse so either add one or use resistors as I point out in my video.
I thought they already were used for cooling systems. I haven't read the study but I've read an article about it. Sounds like there might be renewed interest.
I explain myself in a hoop, put a copper and aluminum coil equally insulated from each other calculating the separation so that there is no arch, I think it would give more stability
Most of the instability is from the uneven spacing between the wire and the aluminum foil. There are more ions where the spacing is smaller. Using a hoop, as you suggest, would help by having fewer sharp corners.
Thanks - fancy a control line model - a 'lifter' powered plane going around and around with power flowing down the control lines - tricky for all sorts of reasons!!
Hmmm... Interesting idea. Because of the weight issue though, about all you could lift would be the sensors. The comparitive circuit and everything else would have to stay on the ground.
Breathing too much ozone can cause health problems, so if you do a lot of this then do it in a ventilated room. But as for the dangers of just ionized air, without ozone, I'm not aware of the health effects either way.
You can buy a power supply, or you can use an old computer monitor, one that doesn't have power saving features. There are links in the description below this video for both those. Some of the very first triangular lifters actually used a very large Van de Graaff generator, one with a dome that looked to be around 12 inches in diameter, though I've never tried it myself or heard of anyone else doing it since.
Theoretically yes. The main problem with scaling it up to the required size is that the whole body of it would have to be charged, and with high voltage in the millions.
Hey Steve, this video is featured on TH-cam's suggested videos page!
Hello grant
Hiiiiii
Miss you bro
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Back in the day when more people were playing with lifters I recall at least one person who got a dirigible shaped helium balloon and attached a lifter to it with controls for tilting the lifter for steering. So the balloon was for the lift and the lifter was for the propulsion. Worked great.
And I'm glad you liked the video. Thanks!
Cool! It became very popular with more of the mainstream when MIT released a paper around a month ago about ionocrafts (which is what lifters are) and their efficiency. This video was embedded on a large number of websites since it was the only clear how-to-make and demonstration one out there. Thanks for letting me know, Grant.
*REAL* craft would lift itself. this POS won't move if it was attached 2 the power supply. RIP
Were can I purchase an HVG10 High Voltage Power Supply?
@@nskmda Outside lasers propelling the object; Seems like it could be used in a variety of circumstances.
It's amazing how many innuendos you can get out that part of the video with terms like discharge stick, balls, skirt, safe. I realized it as I was saying it but left it in anyway. Gotta have some humor. :)
Tinfoil, check. Wire, check. Wooden sticks, check. High-voltage power supply ..... dammit.
balls to touch check ?
***** Dude, if that was supposed to be a way of hitting on me, you need a new strategy ;)
Penny Lane It was a joke referring to his referencing the balls on his power supply.
Penny Lane Micah Burgin Yeah, I remember when I was saying that part while making the video that it could be taken differently than I meant it, but I left it in for fun. Can't be too serious all the time :). Penny, did you eventually find a power supply?
RimstarOrg I didn't keep looking. I guess when I ever stumble upon a high-voltage power supply, I will get back to this.
*sponsored by SERN*
stein be like
Its cern not sern.
@@charlesyoung8600 its Sern mate
El psy congroo
Im here cuz of stein too lol
Your attention to detail and safety is awesome. Thank you for the demonstration.
Cool!
Can you please make an extra large one kinofrandom i like your page on fb videos are cool
@@Thecarverman that would use almost the amount a quarter of the power a nuclear power plant produces
so this is how SERN used the LHC and lifter to make a time machine on the year 2036
yup
why I'm here as well
el psy kongroo...
El Psy Kongroo
Shitttt you went back home for abit to aii? We about to think 2026 is the year to talk about 😂😂😂
*CERN
Nicely done. I'll have to try this when I finally have my flat sorted.
Another project I'd like to try is a variation on this theme:
Create a disc with a series of concentric wire circles. Power them such that they sum, centre to edge, but never exceed the breakdown voltage between adjacent concentric circles.
Arrange a surface with a dense population of strong magnets below the disc such that there's a toroidal field, again concentric with the disc, with the field lines passing vertically through the body of the disc.
The idea is to create a combination of magnetic and electric fields such that a Lorenz force acts on the air ionised by the circular electrodes, causing it to spin (concentric with the disc) and centrifuge outwards from centre to disc edge; in effect, creating a vortex.
I'm curious as to how much aerodynamic lift you could generate in this way...
Did you get your flat sorted?
@@AnimalChinzI was thinking the same 🤣
@@ravereviews6853 😂
This reminds me of working with CRT TVs or monitors. You can feel the hair on your arms moving!
When I built my first lifter I was having an hard time making the triangle ones like yours work, so I decided to build an hexagonal one because I had figured a way to use less wood per triangular section that way. I guess the more triangular sections, the less would (by comparison) is needed!
Thanks for the suggestion, Paul. I've thought of that approach but that just gives the lift-off thrust, though I guess you could keep adding mass until it can't lift anymore. By the way, such a challenge was done back in 2003 and was the 100 gram challenge, to lift 100 grams in addition to the weight of the lifter. Do a search on google for "100g payload lifter".
I had such crappy math and physics teachers. I am not surprised how ordinary people build crafts u would never tought people could build outside an lab hidden for the mass. Thx for the video ❤
Great, now i only need a microwave and a telephone
And to outrun cern
And you also need to avoid detection by Echelon, you fool.
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from! :)
Thanks TH-cam for censoring any recent posts of lifter building. Keep us in the dark, way to go.
Hahha
I always wanted to thank you for making your videos! It really inspired me to dive into DIY science projects and this was the video especially that really sparked my curiosity. So again thank you!
Thanks. I'm glad you like my videos. And yeah, I knew even as I was saying it that I would get a lot of comments about it. It wasn't intentional but I left it in for the fun of it. Even I laughed inside as I realized what I was saying. :)
"if you don't have balls like that to touch then you can always just touch the skirt..."
couldn't help myself
Ha ha ha ha ha ...........! Zap! OOh!
Sounds like the uber drivers handbook.
You were one year faster then me :P
there was nooo other way to say this ;)
Just made one of these using coffee stirring straws which were lighter than balsa and won't immediately catch fire when I inevitably jack the power up to make pretty coronas and shorting arcs :)
This is pretty cool. I've never heard of an ionacraft before.
years ago (they probably still do) popsci had advertisements for the plans for these - only $30 apparently. but they branded them as 'antigravity machines'
John Bump
Yeah, the part that takes time is finding a suitable power supply. Once you have that, the lifter takes a half hour or so. Just make sure you try it in the dark. Seeing where the purplish corona is makes all the difference in getting it to work.
John Bump
Oh, you need a much higher voltage and current. Mine takes off at around 25kV and 250microamps.
Can I use 100kv AC? It is real problem to rectify it
Vladimir Knežević
You need DC or pulsed DC. AC won't work because the ion wind will just keep reversing directions. It wouldn't get off the ground.
The fact that the wire has a small diameter and the foil is smooth determines the direction of airflow and lifter movement. The polarity has some effect, but is secondary. Any other wiring between the two would have the same effect as decreasing the distance between the two and result in more charge flowing directly between the two, shorting it out and making it no longer work. People have gotten better performance by using DC pulses instead of straight DC.
The Steins;Gate VN brought me here.
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Same
My name is Hououin Kyouma, muhahaha
@@LimboJimbo Okay Okarin... smh
Putting some close to each other is ok as long as the structural requirements don't weigh too much. What I'd really worry about it the weight of the gyro sensor or whatever type is needed, making sure it safe from the ions and high voltage (which may mean more weight for structure), and how to communicate with the sensor. If it's a feed wire then that'll drag down on the lifter, if it's remote control then that's added weight. A lot has changed over the years. It may now be possible.
El.
Psy.
Congroo.
TheArchsage74 steins gate bought me here too brother
@@andyhollar5620 STEIN GATE BOUGHT ALL OF US HERE
If you're getting arcs then the wire should be moved farther from the aluminum foil. Mine are 3.5cm at the closest. Also try playing around with the wires that lead to the lifter. Arrange them so that they don't restrict the lifter from lifting up. You can lift the lifter by hand to get an idea of if they're holding it down. Also, it has to be as lightweight as possible. Mine are only around 2 grams. 15kv is a little low, but don't give up yet.
Proof this video was produced by SERN 12:38
el psy kongroo
Re the ozone, the room was ventilated. If you run this for only a few minutes and not often then it's not that harmful. Ions around a sharp point will spread out since they repel each other. But to become ionized there's usually an electrode with opposite polarity nearby. That's the foil skirt in this case. We don't want the ions shooting down to start with since we want an ion cloud for the foil to attract upward to. They will move down because of the foil though.
Never actually paid attention to how these are made before. It is so simple. Gonna make one. Got a flyback from an old tv for the high voltage supply and a driver to run it.
Raymond Bivens Be aware, these need DC or pulsed DC. The high voltage AC output from a straight flyback won't work. The one I use has a tripler after the flyback which you can see here th-cam.com/video/GEuK1OdYxHk/w-d-xo.html I recently tried my Cube power supply that has a flyback with a built-in diode as the very last stage but I suspect the current was too high and voltage too low. But it was suggested that I might be able to add a capacitor to fix that. Here's the Cube power supply th-cam.com/video/-KFhBVfpfDw/w-d-xo.html and my recent Google+ post about my lifter test with it plus.google.com/116395125136223897621/posts/4MeNfcWoACN
El...
Psy...
Kongalee...
Almost nailed it, Lukako. Almost.
It's really high voltage with high current too. The voltage need only be enough to create the necessary electric field across the given gap size. The current is what provides the electrons for ionizing the air (or takes them away depending on your polarity.) So 26kV which mine is supplying, plus more current would allow larger ones to fly.
"touch the balls..." LOL XD
I haven't tried a circular shape but I've seen others who have. It works.
What!What kind of sorcery is this!
The magic of science😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂!!!
It is. One pole of my psu is HV positive with respect to ground and the other pole is ground. I prefer to connect the skirt to ground since the skirt is closer to the table and the table is also ground. But it can be done either way. Theoretically, you get better results with the wire connected to positive, but the actual performance is hard to measure.
"If you don't have balls like that to touch, you can touch the skirt"
I learned about these in my late teens, early 20's in the early 2000's. Always interested me.
Good for you
how much voltage is needed to lift an avg.human? please reply me
bharath puluru it doesn't work that way. More voltage does not mean more lift.
bharath puluru It would require at least a million volts but also with a lot of current. The ionocraft would also have to be around the size of a house and require protection to protect the human from the high voltage/current. It's not practical.
RimstarOrg oh! then how does satellite thrusters work?
No it could work with just 30kV. The voltage is not that relevant. You just need enough voltage to ionize the air. To prove this, just imagine a lifter running on 30kV. It has a thrust to weight ratio larger than 1. This means you could use a million lifters to lift something heavy, all running on the same voltage. It is the amount of ionized air that counts here. The amount of total thrust. Sure a million volts would increase the thrust, but you only NEED 30kV as a minimum
sai kumar reddy Sama Some satellites do use ion propulsion with xenon gas as the propellant for moving around while in orbit. But they're not being lifted against Earth's gravity so the thrust can be much less and the acceleration is very small, so the satellite moves and can get up to high speed (if needed) over a longish period of time.
Ah, I see. Thanks for filling me in so quickly, now I can actually learn the teacher something for a change!
does anyone think this could be implemented into somebody's boots or something so they could fly around like iron man?
In this power supply the negative is connected to ground and is connected to the skirt. So the negative is at the same potential as the Earth ground which is ultimately connected to a pole stuck in the ground in the backyard. The positive can be as much as +30kV relative to that. If the ground truly has the same number of electrons as protons then you could say it's not negative as all, in which case I have HV positive and 0V.
12:38 for the ladies
Hahah
Glad you enjoyed the video. The two ozones are the same, O3, but I guess the location is the problem. Maybe we should be flying lifters up where the ozone layer is located.
Nikola Tesla had a DC voltage for lifting and flying for his anti gravity ship and did not tell Edison
saucersourc
Of course he did. Everyone has one of those.
Sorry, I somehow missed this comment of yours. It works with the top wire positive or negative - this video uses positive, my other lifter video uses negative - but I think I recall it works a little better if negative (I could be remembering wrongly - something for your science fair experiment to test!) Alligator clips are heavy. You can use them as long as it's where the lifter doesn't have to lift them.
El Psy Kongroo
That's a good sign as far as the lifter is concerned because that means ionization is going on. But you should have some ventilation if you'll be breathing it a lot, though it takes a alot to be harmful. To see ionization, turn out the lights and you should see a purplish glow around the wire in places. The less powerful your power supply, the dimmer the glow. You may also hear a hissing sound.
Who came here because of the Riddle episode of how planes will look like in 20 years??
Mee haha
Same, lol.
MythBusters episode
The thin wire acts like a sharp edge. The electric field near a sharp edge is very strong. This strong field either leaks electrons (if the wire is negative) or rips electrons from nearby atoms in the air (if it's positive.) This results is ionized air near the wire. This ionized air is attracted to the field around the foil skirt and is what starts off the whole ion wind that makes the lifter fly. The wire must be uninsulated and as thin as practical. Mine was 30 AWG (American Wire Gauge).
Can someone explain me this with cute girls?
mic-chan and cro-chan
Kudo's to your vid demo skills. Thoughtful, plain-english, down to earth, instructive, and time-compressed when appropriate. I first learned about ionic propulsion from a world book encyclopedia back in the '70's. at the age of 14. The DIY of a rocket motor hanging by the high voltage wire. Thanks for the blast from the past.
Do you have any suggestions or opinions why they lift? I know the MythBusters said it was because the wire is vibrating so much it causes lift because it was vibrating the air around the lifter, but somehow that doesn't sound right to me. They tried to prove their point by placing the lifter in a container that was vacuumed of air to prove it wasn't defeating Gravity, and it didn't rise in an atmosphere vacuumed of air. Correct me if I am wrong. What is at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by another force, and what is in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. By removing the air they cut out the force of buoyancy lifting something that was at rest. Before they removed the air the force of buoyancy help lift the lifter. Am I right or is MythBusters right?
+Steve Rabon Really? That was Mythbusters' theory? I'm surprised. It's just plain old ion propulsion. Here's my explanatory video th-cam.com/video/01F8V5IhB5k/w-d-xo.html. And here's a smoke test video I did a while back th-cam.com/video/LOGAaObsN4g/w-d-xo.html.
Thanks; why didn't it continue to move in a place that was vacuumed of air? Shouldn't it had moved without the absent of air?
+Steve Rabon Because it's basically a jet. It takes air from the top and pulls it down. That's the action. The reaction is that the lifter moves up. If you watch my ion propulsion video that I gave a link to you'll see that air is needed. You can even see the moving air in the smoke test in the other video I gave a link to. I didn't see the Mythbuster episode so I can't speak about what they said.
OK so it ionizes the air?
Steve Rabon
Did you watch either video I gave a link to?
That's commonly known as a Variac, basically a variable transformer. I plug it into the wall socket so it gets 120 volts AC as input. I then plug something else into the Variac. As I turn the dial from 0 to maximum, whatever is plugged into it gets 0 volts AC up to 120 volts AC. In my case my I plug my 24 volt DC power supply into it. Giving my 24 VDC power supply an input voltage from 0 to 120 volts AC causes the power supply to output 0 to 24 volts DC. That feeds my high voltage power supply.
I wonder if that's how UFOs fly? :P
No, because you need air to ionize for an ionocraft to work.
Space is a vacuum.
Br!an Delta V
Internal Xenon Tanks
The very thin, uninsulated wire acts like a sharp point. When you use high voltage with a sharp point it ionizes the surrounding air. The foil thickness doesn't matter but the fact that the edge facing the wire is smooth means it doesn't ionize air, or not much. Instead, the foil is attracted to the cloud of ions that the wire made, and so the whole thing rises up. At the same time the ions are attracted downward, producing a noticeable downward ion wind.
But he's a guy
It's a very efficient design in terms of a weight to lift ratio. Lifters have to be extremely lightweight and this triangular shape uses a minimum of material. A good shape is one with a hole in the middle but it's harder to make a lightweight cylinder. Two sided wouldn't have a hole. Four sided required more material than three sided.
El...Psy....Kongroo.
I know what you're getting at but terminal velocity applies to an object that's falling, not under power. If a jet is flying downward under power then it can move downward at a higher velocity than it's terminal velocity. A lifter under power is just like the jet under power. So I'd imagine an upside down lifter, under power, moving downward would move down faster than if it were not under power, even assuming a heavy lifter that wouldn't be blown sideways in a wind.
Does anyone else find his commentating dirty? "if u don't have balls to touch, just touch the skirt"
Yeah how'd he ever guess that if you don't have balls to touch that you'd probably have a skirt? May have been a freudian slip and unintentional, but I got a laugh out of that as well.
2Sneaky4You get a life.........
Balls aren't dirty and neither are skirts, enough said.
Yes, that was the idea - add mass until you find its limit. Time to google this 100g lifter you mentioned - thanks! Paul.
Touch the balls😂😂😂😂
With the lifter we want unidirectional thrust. So the bare wire does the corona discharge (i.e. it ionizes air) and the smooth foil skirt is attracted up to the ionized air. The fact that it's smooth allows it to build up a surface charge, or high voltage with respect to the ionized air, so that it can be attracted to the ionized air. If it discharged instead, then it wouldn't build up the surface charge and it wouldn't be attracted.
This might be the technology of the future !
Rim this has helped me. you tube has been a wonderful source of information. More so then I thought at first. thank you both. I have seen what I have needed to see and hear what I have needed to hear to build a flying pyramid. this video has made it a step easier. I am looking for a team of people to help me in their own smart ways. I want to build a mother Flying Pyramid. your welcome to come along.
The term "lifter" is an accurate description because it is "not" an anti-gravity device; rather, it produces lift using the same basic principle as a rocket, i.e. from the equal but opposite force upward generated by the driving force downward, specifically by driving the ionized air downward in the case of the ionocraft. Much like a rocket or a jet engine.
Richard Green Yup. You can find a more detailed explanation of how the ion propulsion works in my other video "How Ion Propulsion, Lifters and Ionocrafts Work".
I felt a strange urge to sneak up behind you and yell BANG !! lol ,,, thanks ! great vid !
You'd need something that still very lightweight. This lifter is only around 2 grams. The only thing that comes to mind is carbon fiber, which you can usually get in hobby stores that sell radio controlled planes. And I guess you can find it online. I don't have experience with it so I don't know if even that is light enough or what kind of work is involved in making parts out of carbon fiber. I know there are also carbon fiber rods.
I don't think it can be scaled up to lift people off Earth to get to space but it is used in space for deep space missions. It doesn't work in vacuum this same way since it needs a gaseous medium but for the deep space missions they carry their own gaseous medium with them, often xenon gas. It gives very little thrust but for a given mass of gas you can get enough and it doesn't use up much gas at a time so you can build up speed slowly. There is a some ongoing research by NASA and others.
It depends on the voltage and how light your lifter is. The lighter your lifter, the lower the voltage required. The lower the voltage, the smaller the distance can be. Humidity also has an effect. So I don't have any specific numbers. In my "Lifter Voltage/Current and Smoke/Airflow Test Measurements" video my 2 gram lifter lifted off at 26,000 volts, with a distance at one corner of 2.5 cm and 4 cm at another corner. I suggest making the distance adjustable like mine.
It gives off ozone. Some say that large quantities of ozone can be harmful. Just use it in a ventilated room and you'll be fine. When I'm filming a lifter I have to shut all windows due to sound issues, but I open them afterwards and run a fan and I've had no problems.
Well, I guess I'm not sure it's ozone since I have no reference. But there's a very distinct smell when I heavily ionize air in these types of experiments and so I've just always said it's ozone. A lot of people do the same. Maybe it's not the ozone that's stimulating the nasal senses, but maybe if whatever it is is present then we can assume there's ozone too. It's a fact that this type of ionization produces ozone. Either way, it's good that there's a smell to remind people to ventilate.
I think you need at least 30kV but I seem to recall reading once years ago about someone using single digits kV. If you do try, you'll have to put the wire much closer to the top of the foil skirt due to the lower voltage. Best if the distance between wire and foil skirt is adjustable so you can try different distances. Make it as lightweight as possible too.
"If you don't have balls like that to touch" the best line ever
Surely this warrants further research and development.
The experiment was done with pulsing from 0 to 100Hz. 70Hz required the least power, 17.72 watts, 14.59Kv RMS and 1.22 mA RMS. But you can experiment to find what works best for you. It can't be alternating. It has to be DC pulses. You can see it at jnaudin.free.fr/html/lftphv.htm
I've no doubt shape would make some difference and as you point out, there are many variations. But I don't think any one person has done enough variations to rigorously say what's best. Oh, pulsing the high voltage can also be an improvement. The best list I know of is on the blazelabs website, in the EHD Thrusters menu, Thrusters Performance page. No one's gotten close to lifting the power supply and until some kind of super light power supply tech is invented, they probably won't.
(~12m40s) “If you don’t have balls like that to touch, you could always touch the skirt.”
Well said Sir, well said.
Ha ha! I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not, but doesn't matter. Most of the time I use metric since it's a heck of a lot easier, but I sometimes use the old imperial units too. And since my viewers are from everywhere, sometimes I'll use one and sometimes the other.
If your cloth is light enough and you have enough current feeding your needle, you might get a reaction. You'd probably have to do quite a bit of trial and error first. I also find cloth hard to charge up. Thin nylon or acrylic might be better. But you can do without the cloth since a sharp, negatively charged needle will emit electrons on its own due the the strong electric field at the needle tip. That's what I did in my "Ion Wind Rotor" video.
If the rips/holes are near the top of the foil then it's the same as the foil having some sharp edges. Instead of the foil holding onto its charge, it will start losing some and ionizing air. The voltage between the foil and the wire-produced ion cloud will be lower and the lift will be less. I usually see this if there's a lot of sparking between the wire and the foil. The sparks blow tiny holes in the foil and the lift performance eventually decreases.
Alright, thanks so much!!!!!!! Seriously, you're a huge help. I'm attempting to see if it is possible to make ionocraft movements more controlled.
So you're suggesting that air could be let out around the lifter and the lifter could then ionize that air? It may take a long time to go fast and may not be practical, but it sounds like it'd work.
Tanks for the instruction man i'm going to try this out
Glad you like it!
No, not by itself. The lifter needs at least 30,000 volts, though if I recall correctly I've heard of as low as 10,000 volts being used. But that's still much higher than 12 volts.
There are many different high voltage DC power supplies so it depends on which one. Ones that have a flyback as their last stage put out AC but ones that have a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier as their last stage are rectified and put out DC. Mine has a flyback followed by a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier so it's rectified and hence is DC.
I don't know enough about taser batteries to say but tasers do seem to produce quite a strong, continuous arc, so maybe.
The GRA 10 supplies up to 20kV. My lifter didn't fly until 25kV, so I can't guarantee that it'll work. They are fairly reliable and knowledgeable people, so it may just take a little playing with the lifter and care with the wiring leading to the lifter to minimize losses. The GRA 10 requires a 12V, 3amp power supply. I'd just use an adaptor, one of those things you plug in the wall that puts out 12V DC. There's also no fuse so either add one or use resistors as I point out in my video.
Love the grounding stick!
Hahah
The green screen space background yessssss!
I thought they already were used for cooling systems. I haven't read the study but I've read an article about it. Sounds like there might be renewed interest.
I explain myself in a hoop, put a copper and aluminum coil equally insulated from each other calculating the separation so that there is no arch, I think it would give more stability
Most of the instability is from the uneven spacing between the wire and the aluminum foil. There are more ions where the spacing is smaller. Using a hoop, as you suggest, would help by having fewer sharp corners.
Thanks - fancy a control line model - a 'lifter' powered plane going around and around with power flowing down the control lines - tricky for all sorts of reasons!!
Hmmm... Interesting idea. Because of the weight issue though, about all you could lift would be the sensors. The comparitive circuit and everything else would have to stay on the ground.
Breathing too much ozone can cause health problems, so if you do a lot of this then do it in a ventilated room. But as for the dangers of just ionized air, without ozone, I'm not aware of the health effects either way.
You can buy a power supply, or you can use an old computer monitor, one that doesn't have power saving features. There are links in the description below this video for both those. Some of the very first triangular lifters actually used a very large Van de Graaff generator, one with a dome that looked to be around 12 inches in diameter, though I've never tried it myself or heard of anyone else doing it since.
Theoretically yes. The main problem with scaling it up to the required size is that the whole body of it would have to be charged, and with high voltage in the millions.
Thank you so much for replying. I really appreciate it... honestly the science fair is really stressful and I want to get into districts.