Ion Drive, etc

Well, I saw this program talking about all the UFO sightings in the 50s and/or 60s (can't remember). They had a bunch of stuff, including people reporting the as-then unanounced stealth 'fighter', which was in testing as being an UFO. Some old guy was going on about how they have stuff in development '50 years ahead of what most people can imagine'. OK I didn't really believe that... sounded a bit to much like lizardmen ruling the world and the like. Anyway, he did a little demostration, he had a coil of wire on a table, which he said was connected to some kind of high-current supply. He turned the supply on, and the coil hovvered about 2 inches off the table. I didn't think it was real, but was nonetheless interested.

A bit of looking around later, and I found a bunch of websites on about 'ion drives'. You seem to be able to make one pretty easily, provided you have a high voltage supply: http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm. There are tons of videos, and overall, it seems to be real - what do you guys think? The theory sounds feasable (ionised air reppeled downwards by an electrostatic field), but I'm not 100% convinced. Apparently the measured volume of air being forced out of the bottom of these things is much less than what would be needed to give the measured lift, and nobody knows where the rest of the lift comes from.

Lastly, everything I found was using a high voltage supply connected to basically an air-capacitor. But the guy on TV had a high current coil, seeming to give the same effect. He was saying how normally the high current needed would cause the coil to overheat, and so superconductors were the prefered choice. They were comparing this coil idea to 60s photos of UFOs, which seemed to show a glowing-hot circle in the centre of the craft. Can anybody think of a way this might work?

Cant debate the physics myself, I hate science - competent enough to pass decently but it never grabbed me :smile:

However, that RealPlayer video seems real enough, very interesting
indeed.. my basic understanding of physics seems like the coil or loop
with energy passing through theory is plausible enough for me to
swallow.

It's probably just expensive and dangerous on a large scale.. and more
so, how would the craft control itself in terms of navigation and
thrust? Perhaps why they canned the experiments..

Mysterious, yet exciting :smile:

If I remember correctly a magnetized coil will produce a flux that goes right through the coil comes out the end and loops back around. This will produce a force and...I... I hate physics.

I thought I read somewhere that NASA was working on ion engine type things that would propel ionized particles, but it sounds far-fetched to me. It would be cool to be able to build a Y-Wing though /nerd

More feasible (hah!), and more infinitely more cool would be an AT-AT, Yak :razz:

Always collects the prize for "Coolest Vehicle In a Star Wars Film". Always.

pfft my modified T-47 airspeeder could take your ass down in three passes. amateur.

I have read the research paper on which those lifters are based: it can be found hereshould you be interested.

I am quite skeptical of the theoretical basis on which this system is purported to function. The article does NOT come from a peer reviewed journal, and therefore is untrustworthy. The article itself has some odd unprofessional qualities to it such as the presentation of raw data, something which is inappropriate to a formal research article, as this attempts to present itself. all that aside my main reservation comes from this bit:

[size=13]"The finding of Prof.Biefeld and T.T.Brown, which is called Biefeld-Brown effect, suggests the coupling between electricity and gravitation. However this phenomenon can not be explained within the framework of the conventional physics. The author attempts to explain this phenomenon by introducing a new gravitational field generated by high potential electric field inside the atom."[/size]

In my opinion, they have far to little evidence to go around knocking accepted physical theory on it's ear. you need much more than two or three simple experiments before any reputable scientist would postulate such fantastic ideas.

On the other hand however, this "B-B" effect seems as though it is probably real, regardless of how preposterous the theory sounds. the experiments are simple. If I had a month or two to work on it I could easily replicate them myself.

I might of course be wrong, there have definitely been times in the recent history when accepted physical theory was challenged. A prime example of this is the failure of classical physics to explain certain things such as particle diffraction, the photoelectric effect, and black-body radiation. however these failures were many in number, and they came from many different sources. Certainly what this theory of the B-B effect proposes is not as radical as quantum mechanic was in it's day, but none the less, there is still far to little evidence.

That got so long I thought I'd better do a second one on Ion drives.

Ion drives are very simple in principle, and very efficent, but provide very little thrust, and are unsuitable for anything but deep-space propulsion. you would never be able to get one off the ground.

All it is a block of some material which is electricaly ionized. the resulting plasma (soup of charged particles) is accelerated by an electric field and ejected out the rocket nosle. A freshman physics student could work it all out easily enough, although I don't the equations off the top of my head.

OK, so overall, do you think the videos are faked? It sounds like you are saying that you think they are not fake, but at the same time that they shouldn't work in theory?

Hopefuly I can try and make one some time next week. We have suitable voltage generators (could even make one to run off batteries), and it looks pretty easy to make one that supposedly works, looking at a couple of guides on the website I posted. If it does work, I can see about this magic force that is meant to be seperate from the 'ionic wind' by putting the thing inside a box on some scales. Also I can ask a couple of lecturers and see if they laugh in my face :smile:

No, it seems as though there is allot of evidence that it does indeed work. the main point is that there is currently no viable theoretical explaination for why it works.

Be sure to post some pictures if you manage to build one. You've gotten me very curious about this stuff!

<DIV>The theory of the ion drive sounds OK. The main problem would be sending the ionised particles downwards, rather than having them gravitate towards the voltage which ionised them in the first place.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>These things would be completely useless in space - the only advantage which they have over chemical propulsion is an unlimited supply of fuel when used within the Earth's atmosphere.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Also, I forsee a small problem with the need for a superconductor - the only superconductor discovered so far is Plutonium-23 something when kept at around -200C. Real useful, eh?</DIV>

Well it does look like it works, but again we have a power problem. It seems that in order to make a viable industrial Ion drive would require more power than would be safe for any decently sized vehichle.

Come on cold fusion!

perhaps a more practical aplication would be as artificial gravity on a space station, hehehe.

SumhObo said:
<DIV>These things would be completely useless in space - the only advantage which they have over chemical propulsion is an unlimited supply of fuel when used within the Earth's atmosphere.</DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>Also, I forsee a small problem with the need for a superconductor - the only superconductor discovered so far is Plutonium-23 something when kept at around -200C. Real useful, eh?</DIV>

Incorrect on both points. How do you think current vehicles propel themselves in space? They use engines that push exhaust in one direction and the vehicle goes in the opposite direction. An ion engine that spits out particles is no different than a rocket engine in that respect.

Also, there are plenty of superconductors that have been discovered/developed. They've used natural elements, alloys, organics, and even ceramics to create superconductors. The highest temperature they've gotten a superconductor to work is at 138 K, which if I remember correctly is something like -135C.

Geez, I got a C- the last semester I took physics and even I know this stuff. :razz:

I just had an entire course over these kind of 'journals' TB is talking about. (Non peer reviewed).

It wasn't anything big, but some of the articles we went over were flat out ridiculous. Amongst other things we analyzed taboo topics like: the moon landing being a hoax, spontaneous human combustion, I personally did John Titor (found some MAJOR plot holes without even looking at the actual physics, which were fraudulent), The blanket of Christ/holy grail, UFO landings, the world being flat, and all sorts of other crap.

Pretty fun class.

But, yes, this data looks ... funky.
I suppose the best way to 'test' it is to build you own model with their schematics.
And hey, if it works try to explain it in a better fashion then these c**kwipes. :biggrin:

Yak_Fighter said:

SumhObo said:
<DIV>These things would be completely useless in space - the only advantage which they have over chemical propulsion is an unlimited supply of fuel when used within the Earth's atmosphere.</DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>Also, I forsee a small problem with the need for a superconductor - the only superconductor discovered so far is Plutonium-23 something when kept at around -200C. Real useful, eh?</DIV>

Incorrect on both points. How do you think current vehicles propel themselves in space? They use engines that push exhaust in one direction and the vehicle goes in the opposite direction. An ion engine that spits out particles is no different than a rocket engine in that respect.

Also, there are plenty of superconductors that have been discovered/developed. They've used natural elements, alloys, organics, and even ceramics to create superconductors. The highest temperature they've gotten a superconductor to work is at 138 K, which if I remember correctly is something like -135C.

Geez, I got a C- the last semester I took physics and even I know this stuff. :razz:

Incorrect on ONE point - notice I said the only ADVANTAGE. Yes, I know how vehicles currently propel themselves in space, but I figure it's just a lot more efficient to store said gases in tighter-bound chemicals than compressed air. That way, you can pack a lot more fuel.

And the temperature at which the superconductors work will still be a problem - have fun trying to keep your vehicle's engines at 138K. Especially when in the open air, as shown in said video...

But I'm just a 16-year-old high-school kid, what would I know?

Thank you Yak, I was about to have an aneurysm from the amount of misinformation SumhObo just spewed.

Are we a bit confused about Ion drives vs. "B-B" devises? Ion drives do indeed carry xenon gas as the propellant, but they are MUCH more efficient than chemical rockets. Why? because they have a propellant velocity of ~30 km/s. Even though you are using a low density propellant, the increased speed of the exhaust more than makes up for it. However despite their high efficiency, ion drives cannot produce very much thrust, and so are limited to applications which do not require high acceleration.

It is unclear how the "B-B" devises function, and unknown as yet whether the operate in a vacuum or not.

I have nothing against you SumhObo, despite the condescending arrogant tone of this post. Ignorance is perfectly excusable, especially for a high-school student. what is not excusable is spreading your ignorance in the form of false accretions.

Sounds like that was a fun class Crono, but at the same time I laugh, I am enraged by the people who write that stuff. I don't think the author of the paper I quoted is quite in the same league as you are referring to. However, it is still quite dubious.

The same website did however, have a much more reputable (I haven't read all of it yet) paper purportedly done at army research center in MD. They offer as far as I have read, no idiotic claims of gravitational induction.

Stabs self in eye with fork

SumhObo said:
But I'm just a 16-year-old high-school kid, what would I know?

Not much about physics, but that's ok, I didn't know squat about physics when I was 16. Then I had three straight years of it and learned to hate it. You'll learn to hate it soon I'm sure. :wink:

I thought they use superconductors in the generation of the containment field for fusion reactors?

The spontaneous human combustion thing is well documented? It happens when somebody has some piece of fairly tight clothing, of the correct type of material. Once ignited, the material sticks to the person, acts as a wick, and uses the persons own body fat as fuel, which burns at quite a high temperature. You get people with only some legs or something left where they were for example wearing nylon stockings, which can not function as a wick.

Faked mars landings - I never heard an explanation for that clip where there is a shadow being cast with no apparent source for the light casting it? Apparenty they didn't take any aritificial lighting with them.

The power consumed by the devices on the website is actually pretty low. 30 KV sounds like a lot, but a number of 'experiments' list the current drawn as being in the order of microamps. If you think about it, there isn't even a circuit for current to flow round. Similarly, the high-current coil does not have to draw much power at all. If the resistance of the coil is very low, then a very small voltage accross the coil will result in a high current, so V*I could still be low.

I thought about using a van der graff generator for the HV supply, but it looks like they produce a voltage much too high, that would just arc between the anode and cathode...

i heard that the static electricity generated while having sex, around the world, in one day could power a small city :rolleyes:

It was miliamps not microamps. I think they actualy listed the power consumption anyway. somthing like 290 W? I'm not sure I got that right, but whatever. 30 kV Isn't very much if you don't need much current. I'd recomend building a volatage multiplier. this seems like a good explaination although I didn't read much of it. It might also be possible to just use the power supply from an old computer monitor. I'm not sure what the voltages are there but they must be in the kV range.

Hah, TB, just been on that page myself :smile:

We actually have power supplies designed to produce around 25kV, and I was hoping to use one of those, but I might not be allowed to. I don't really like the voltage multipliers because they all seem to run from the AC mains. I'm not using the mains multiplied up 2⁷ times for anything :smile:

If I can make a simple boost switching power supply to run from a bunch of batteries or a bench supply, I will almost certainly be allowed to make anything - one of the examples on the 'flyer' website runs off 9-volt batteries. Ideally I might be able to get a lecturer on side, but it could turn out that I'm not allowed to make anything. They are pretty big on health and safety, but at the same time, you seem to be allowed to anything you want if there is somebody watching you. We will see :smile:

you can use voltage multipliers with batteries. One of my friends in my electroncs class built a "stun gun" which delivered a 400V 10 microamp shock from a 9V battery. you are right though I would definatly stay away from line current.

In the same class, I built a "rail gun". it never actualy fired because there was too much resistance, both mechanical and electrical, but I had set up a bank of capacitors that delivered an 800 A current! Whenever I "fired" it, the projectile would become welded to the rails

maybe this could prove my hover craft to work!

Tracer Bullet All you needed was some cooling device to super cool it then fire.

No, you don't quite understand because I haven't given all the details. I was trying to build a system that would operate at low potential ranges ~12V, and only produce a gentle push. remember, this was a class project not my attempt to conquer the world :biggrin: . This means that I needed very low resistance, and very low friction for the projectile. it turns out that these two requirements are mutually exclusive, at least on the limited budget I had. My problem was that I could not get efficient electrical contact between the armature and the rails. I would simply get a small arc that would spot weld the armature to the rails. even if all my materials were super conductors and kept at 1K it would not work.

Would coating the rails in graphite help at all?

It might indeed help, but I don't think so. I think the only way I could have gotten the conductivity and low friction I needed was is if I used liquid mercury for the armature.

Wikipedia has an excellent article on spacecraft propulsio. The nuclear fusion article's good too.

quote, unquote.

$loth, hovercraft exist and word on land and sea... :razz:

go get that shovel..