Great work again Kyle! I had expected things would be easier to see with the rotor locked. As a matter of fact I believe I had suggested this test to Miklos himself ages ago, as well as what just turned out to be the correct explanation, but he wasn't interested. So the front of the balls is indeed the ion discharge point as we had imagined initially, due to the ball being a lousy insulator.
Can you post a photograph or a video of your test #2 somewhere? Ideally you would need a smoke source under each corona emitter for results to be totally unambiguous, but this may not be easy to arrange, not to mention the smell ;-) Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kyle R. Mcallister" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2007 6:43 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Miklos Borbas Thruster?? > Gentlemen, an update from the lab, > > Tests using smoke reveal the following: > > 1. With the Borbas device free to rotate, smoke is relatively unaffected > in proximity to the device. It is hard to tell however exactly what is > going on as the smoke is also being stirred around by the device motion. > > 2. With the device locked and unable to rotate, things get more > interesting. There is a slight general movement of the smoke opposite > the direction of which the device would want to rotate, were it free to > do so. But the velocity of the smoke is very small; the volume of > movement is very large however, extending several inches from the device > in all directions, less so above and below it. Now, if the column of > rising smoke is allowed to touch the stator corona wire, things are very > clear to see: upon touching the corona wire, the smoke instantly makes a > 90 degree turn and goes straight towards the balls, and at a much higher > speed. It doesn't stop at the balls either, it goes right past them and > then immediately behind them spreads out and joins the rest of the > slowly moving air. > > 3. Outside of a thin polyethylene bag, there is still air flow. Image > charges? It isn't high speed, but certainly is enough to contribute to > thrusting action. > > 4. Removing the balls from the rotor wires and covering them with > silicone resin reduced motion of the device (now set up free to rotate > again) by about 1/2. Turning the corona wires in the opposite direction > reversed the thrust. Making the corona wires point exactly radially > outwards reduced the thrust to zero. Putting the corona wires back into > their original (pointing towards the rotor) configuration but covered > with silicone resin again gave zero thrust. It is my belief that given > these results, the Borbas device is clearly conventional. > > 5. Per Horace's suggestion, I powered the device with AC. The results, > were to say the least, disappointing. No thrust was observed using any > of the configurations given above, save one. With rotor electrodes > having a more flattened surface and corona wires very pointed, there was > a slight motion, but I determined this to be again corona > wind....insulating the pointed electrodes killed the effect. These > results remained the same at 60cps, 400cps, 1500cps, 5000cps and 8000cps. > > Thoughts? > --Kyle >
