This short post is
about an old experience that I did with a Lifter.
The Lifter is the dream
of any electrical engineer. It is a device that can flight but without any
mechanical moving parts...!
Basically is a
capacitor where we apply high voltage. One of the conductors is a large aluminum
sheet, the other conductor is a wire and the dielectric is the air (see picture
below).
There are a lot of theories
to explain why the device can flight. Some of them describe it as an
anti-gravity behavior.
Personally I believe
that is related with the air ionization that creates a king of "wind".
The device starts to flight when you can listen the noise of the air ionization.
You can see also the effect of this wind if you put a small paper sheet below
the lifter (it moves like a flag).
Below you have some
photos and a video that I put on youtube.
I built my lifter based
in the instructions that I found in the following site (in French): http://lifters.online.fr/lifters/index.htm
However I have used my
own design for the power supply (with an IGBT transistor and overcurrent
protection).
