On Sat, 2 Jun 2007, Horace Heffner wrote: > It seems to me the ion stream momentum *eventually* has to be > converted into broad air momentum - provided the opposed electrode is > far enough away.
But "far enough" is typically several feet! For 10KV, the filaments remain coherent over a couple of feet. If using a VDG generator, they typically extend at least five or six feet. Since Lifters use spacings of a few inches at most, any "ion filaments" would have no problem in extending directly from the corona-wire to the foil plate, with only a small coupling to the air. But there's another solution: crank the voltage way up. This turns all the narrow filaments into big wide fuzzy cylinders, each a couple of CM across. With my microamp-meter experiment with the needle, I was using a 10KV battery-powered ion generator. Perhaps if I could turn it up to several times higher voltage, then suddenly the ion streams would become subject to crosswinds. > > One thought - a ring electrode opposed to the pointed electrode might > be adjusted so as to send the ion beam through the ring, and thus > "defocusing" it on the other side. If too close I assume it would > just "short out" the ion stream, but maybe some specific proportions > would work. > > Another thought - the binding of the stream may in part be magnetic. > An orthogonal or even oblique magnetic field might break up the > stream in any case, by inducing cycloid motions. Waving a supermagnet near the "filaments" has no effect. Well, it has the same effect as waving a metal non-magnetic object of similar shape. (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb at amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 425-222-5066 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
