/diy/ - Do It Yourself

no

just for info how it works
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01F8V5IhB5k

>>1651168

Fuck no, and, if you don't already know why, you aren't capable of fixing the issues involved.

Shortly, ionocraft can't lift for shit. The closest you could realistically do is make a blimp with ion engines.

If I am not mistaken ion boosters are only viable in space.
I bet if you were to do some math with the energy density per unit mass of the batteries you'd use and the potential lift from the boosters, the batteries alone would weigh too much to get the drone airborne.
Also, I don't think I have seen a decent ion booster anywhere, what would you even ionize?

>>1651235
>>1651286
>>1651304

This was already covered here >>1651170

>>1651304
>what would you even ionize?

The air. Ionocraft are to ion rocket engines what propeller-driven aircraft are to chemical rockets.

>>1651304
are you too retarded to looks at the thread >>1651235 or at OP's picture

>>1651168
Look at the size of the power supply versus the size of his "lifter". You could never lift the power supply or a battery pack for it with the force generated. In zero gravity, this may not be true. Also it helps if you use heavier ions. Some ion engine concepts have used mercury vapor as a "propellant" rather than the air around them. Or you could be like Tesla with his death ray and use atomized tungsten dust.

>>1651168
No. The voltage is way too high. It'd arc like hell and destroy itself. You want a lower voltage with higher current. This way you move more air without the air breaking down and forming an arc.

>>1651168
Yes. You can do it with lower voltage by using a Frolov's Hat design:
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/elghatv1.htm

>>1652151
Almost forgot: Don't forget the input power has to be pulsed, not just flat DC.

>>1651168
>>1651838
/hover/ here
Saviour of Blaze Labs has already proven it can be done in normal household atmosphere using a flyback transformer from an old monitor and some batteries, yes rc electrostatic lifter craft have been done like with JLN's ARDA project. Of course I cannot prove it to you directly, you'd likely have to either test it or see it for yourself

>>1652414
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/ardaprjs.htm
that's a fucking plane though, not a hover

>>1652426
We are /hover/
Yes arda is a plane, your point is?
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/arda3cl1.htm

>>1652426
Its still radio controlled and using the same principle as the OP image craft
>>1651286
Instead of a balloon you can just stack a bunch of lifters and it can work with only lifters that way, but you need a lot of lifters if you're using OP's arrangement

>>1651168
Using lifter maximus (which has a payload of 60 grams) you could lift a "3.7V-6V to 400KV" HV generator which I just weighed to be 40 grams. That still leaves 20 grams for the radiocontrol parts so that you can control the craft. My generator works (it makes sparks) but I haven't gotten it to work with a lifter yet, post about how it goes if you get it to work

>>1652494
Oh and you'll need a battery, maybe you can make a bigger stack than lifter maximus

>>1652494
Cause the voltage is too fucking high to work on a lifter. Probably even AC too. Nice for making arcs, useless for moving ions.

>>1652550
Its not AC, I've seen one of these things taken apart, it has a voltage multiplier step up ladder made with diodes and capacitors in it and the diodes work as a rectifier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zs8nox4QoA

>>1652550
30KV - 50 KV seems to be the optimum voltage
The generator makes about 2 cm spark at about 3 volts and 1 cm spark is about 30 KV
It may still work at higher than 50KV but it be less efficient most likely

based on how these work those (>>1651235) alu foil ones seem very inefficient
the most efficient design seems to me to be a circular electrode (basically how ufos look like)
in the foil the ions will go the shortest ways and only hit a small amount of air atoms
but in a circle the ions will spread evenly on the whole electrode and hit much more atoms

thinking more about the efficiency, for an actual aircraft the haunebu design makes perfect sense
-you want the + electrode to be big so it creates lots of ions
-a dome is the best design if the electrode is placed on the top (and forms the head of the aircraft)
-the top placement and the dome design of the + electrode and the skirt bending downwards will create such an electromagnetic field that will bend downwards, it efficiently pushed the ions downwards and creates most thrust
-and of course the circular skirt to spread the ions evenly around the whole ship

>>1652781 cont
on top of that the skirt spreads the air (like on the Avrocar - Coanda Effect aircraft) and creates a vacuum which provides additional upwards thrust

cont
I was thing what are those ball things on the bottom
if the top dome is an electrode then the bottom domes could also be electrodes
what if it ionizes the air at the top, creates an elmag field all around the aircraft, pushes the ionized air around the skirt and fully utilizes the coanda effect and aerodynamic
this would make the ion aircraft highly efficient

the usual foil ioncrafts don't utilize any aerodynamic effects, they just push the air down which makes them highly inefficient

cont
I was thinking what are those ball things on the bottom
if the top dome is an electrode then the bottom domes could also be electrodes
what if it ionizes the air at the top, creates an elmag field all around the aircraft, pushes the ionized air around the skirt and fully utilizes the coanda effect and aerodynamic
this would make the ion aircraft highly efficient

the usual foil ioncrafts don't utilize any aerodynamic effects, they just push the air down which makes them highly inefficient

cont
those 3 symmetrical spheres on the bottom were probably used for steering - in all directions, by changing the voltage and force in the direction you wanted to go
it's a system like omnidirectional robots use

the easiest way to get a proper aircraft is to take the foil design and simply put it on a wing (to get an airplane)
to get a hover put it on a disk

the problem with these is that it has a tiny effective area (blue) over a propeller
so the best option is to use it on a wing (or a saucer but they are not practical)
or you would need to make a giant net of these

http://mars-news.de/ioncraft/markwilson/index.html

>>1653537
Ionocrafts don't scale. This is the reason we don't see helicopter sized ionocraft today. There may be a case for scaling them down though.

combining the ioncraft with a propeller might produce some interesting results, it would be like an ion jet engine
I have the impression that the ions are pretty strong but the tiny active area kills the performance
it's actually pretty impressive the ioncrafts can fly even though the active area is so tiny
using a propeller would massively increase the active area and the performance

theoretically putting the electrodes opposite of each other should allow you to use a big + electrode and create a big magnetic field, the combination of these two should create a big ion cloud and drastically increase the performance

>>1654067
why not just throw away the ion part and just use a propeller then?

>>1654082
the idea is that the ions should massively increase the performance of the propeller, it should turn the simple propeller into a jet engine

if you put a small ufo into a duct you get a motionless ion propeller
putting the saucer into a duct protects the air stream from outside influences and makes it more reliable

goddammit, who let /x/ in?
back to area 420 faggots

>>1652151
https://web.archive.org/web/20040803231203/http://www.faraday.ru/t-cap.html
http://67.198.37.16/mirrors/jnaudin.free.fr/2002.06.03/html/elghatv1.htm

This is also interesting. It bends the el field and turns the forces in one direction.
Though the construction of their ELG-Hat seems kinda inefficient if they want to use the Biefeld-Brown effect (ion thrust). They should be at least using a grid like >>1653537

>>1656817
>Biefeld-Brown effect (ion thrust).
The Biefeld-Brown effect isn't ion wind. If you actually read the work of Biefeld and Brown they say the electrogravitic thrust their method produced that the density of the dielectric, the dielectric constant and the greater the change in voltage over time for the input power and the more frequently the input power was pulsed the more thrust they got out of it.

This worked very well for horizontal thrust, but the density of the dielectric made it too difficult for vertical movement because all of the weight. By using air as a dielectric they could still get electrogravitic thrust, but the lack of its efficiency would be compensated by the added thrust from ion wind, which was known about decades before them. Idiots who try testing a lifter in a vacuum don't understand that they're using the worst possible dielectric for the effect; vacuum.

ELG-Hat is an improvement on their design without resorting to ion wind. Use a better dielectric than air and you'll get far more thrust. It's even reversible.

>>1656870
Yeah, its dielectric polarization and since air and vacuum can work as dielectric, it would still work but like you said, vacuum is the worst dielectric.
Its not thought of as an insulator in this case, but more as a polarizing medium. If the dielectric constant is higher, the electrode plates might have to be closer together, but maybe it also depends on the material.

I haven't gotten the pulsating high voltage to work yet, that turned out to be the most difficult part for me

https://web.archive.org/web/20050829013209/http://www.soteria.com/brown/

Brown's space vehicle looks familiar

http://67.198.37.16/mirrors/jnaudin.free.fr/2002.06.03/html/ehdfsv1.htm

>>1656882
>I haven't gotten the pulsating high voltage to work yet
Since you aren't breaking down the air, using a transistor might be fine.
Since the electrodes are still a capacitor the switch is to short and protect the transistor when turning on the power. The switch could be a timed relay.

>>1651168
Standalone would be difficult, a tethered one would be easier. if you had to go standalone you're essentially making a flying tesla coil, its heavy and doesnt generate a lot of lift. if you make some prototype thrusters you could easily calculate how much onboard power you would need. then scale that up to whatever you can afford to build. in the end you are looking at an aluminum sail, and a bunch of supercapacitors for a short lightning infused flight. wear a faraday cage, it might just work.

>>1656882
or this redneck switch that should be foolproof

>>1656898
nothing could ever go wrong

>>1654067
ive always thought this would be a good way to get some extra mileage out of a turbojet

>>1656882
They probably used a vacuum tube to pulse the voltage. Seems perfect for high voltage things. It could be just used as a diode and directly turn the voltage from the transformer into pulsating one.

>>1656883
That's not what it looked like at all.

>>1656870
>The Biefeld-Brown effect isn't ion wind.
So how does the propulsion work if it doesn't use ion wind?
>ELG-Hat is an improvement on their design without resorting to ion wind.
What does the ELG-Hat use then if not ion wind? Besides the T-capacitor effect.

>>1656932
>That's not what it looked like at all.
>This site commissioned by the Townsend Brown Family
There's a bunch of photos and sketches on that website that look like that. I doubt his family would make shit up.

>>1656936
Gravity propulsion. The displacement currents cause the gravitational field of the dielectric to become coherent, focused in the direction the craft should move. The reactionary force is subatomic. There's no 'exhaust' wind, just x-rays and such.

>>1656940
There's more than one style/design for saucers. The ones with spheres on the bottom usually use a different principle.

>>1651168
ITT: what guys talk about after finding their great Grandpa's collection of Tom Swift books.

Next week: the works of Robert Heinlein.

looked for Electrogravitic videos, not much but here are the interesting ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5W28OihN0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jMYVmUzZpU

Are there videos or something that actually confirms that electrogravitics work?
Most of the designs I find is stuff that can be explained with ion winds.
Apparently electrogravitics simply work by just having a capacitor and the + pole creates a gravity well.
Hard to believe no one managed to recreate it (in a convincing way with no ion wind effect) when it's supposedly so simple. While every dumb faggot makes those ion wind lifters but no one managed to confirm electrogravitic, that's strange.

very, very interesting
how many watts do those simplest triangle-foil take? and saucer ones?

>>1657033
pic looks like disinfo. there's nothing about a charge imbalance like that that produces anything like a "gravity wave", that's like lifting yourself up by your bootstraps to fly.

>>1657053
Apparently a 12V/4A supply is enough
https://rimstar.org/equip/30kv_pwr_supply.htm
http://67.198.37.16/mirrors/jnaudin.free.fr/2002.06.03/html/30kvgen.htm
https://rimstar.org/sdprop/lifter/lifter.htm
>>1657057
You can read about it here
https://web.archive.org/web/20030210204605/http://www.soteria.com/brown/docs/index.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20030415201747/http://www.soteria.com/brown/docs/egravity/rose.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20030213022358/http://www.soteria.com/brown/docs/egravity/control.htm
They claim that just a simple charge on a capacitor creates a gravity effect.
A guy in a video explained it that gravity is actually bipolar and that electrons create something like an over pressure in gravity and on the other side is an under pressure (a gravity well). I think it's here >>1657021

>>1657064
oh well as long as a guy said it i'm sold
i guess thats why this is how all planes work right?

>>1657064
>They claim that just a simple charge on a capacitor creates a gravity effect.
I understand what is being claimed, I just don't believe it. People have tried to replicate the effect in a vacuum and not succeeded.

>>1656893
>>1656898
>>1656921
Thanks
The high voltage itself is a fickle thing, it sometimes "leaks" across places you wouldn't think it could, a lot of components have failed on me before and its been some trouble making sure the circuit for the pulsing works right
Apparently JLN made a tiny lifter, which supposedly worked

>>1657153
seems like there are high voltage diodes so just use that
https://www.hvproducts.de/en/hv-active-components/diodes/high-voltage-power-diodes/
http://hvstuff.com/high-voltage-diodes-and-rectifiers
relays
https://www.gigavac.com/catalog/high-voltage-relays
ssr
https://www.highvoltageconnection.com/high-voltage-solid-state-relays.html
there are also transistors and triacs but seems like only to 1kV so they would need to be put into a series

https://web.archive.org/web/20030415202611/http://www.soteria.com/brown/docs/egravity/mercury.htm
>The Biefield-Brown Effect proves that an electrical condenser will move toward its positive pole, and remain so positioned until discharged; that this movement will occur, regardless of which plate of the condenser is made the positive pole, or which side of the dielectric receives the positive charge.
>Many scientists and engineers have witnessed these flying discs. Their opinion has been, generally, that the motive force propelling them was one which is often called "electric wind." Few, if any, up to now, have believed the Brown discs were propelled by the new principle Biefield or Brown had discovered.
>Though brown did not agree, he went to France. There he "sailed" some of his discs in a high vacuum with singular success. Not only did the discs fly more efficiently, but as there was no air present there could be no "electric wind."
>The first empirical experiments which led to the present scientific flowering of the Biefield-Brown Effect are these: suspend a simple, two-plate electrical condenser by a cord to allow as complete freedom of movement in all directions as possible - except of course, downward. When this condenser is charged with the proper amount and pressure of direct electrical current, it will swing from its vertical, uncharged position, to an angular one and remain there, quite evidently "defying gravity." The new position is always toward the positive pole of the condenser.
>When this condenser is discharged, and the positive and negative wires reversed relative to their former positions - and the condenser recharged - the entire condenser swings in the opposite direction from the one assumed during the first charge. In both cases the condenser maintains its angular position as long as the condenser is kept charged. This angular movement is equal in both directions, regardless of which side of the dielectric is positively charged.

How is it possible that no one managed to test something so simple?
Only found one test in a vacuum and it doesn't look very convincing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGN65lse5yE and the comments say that the pressure wasn't enough for a good vacuum or that it wasn't isolated and it could create an "electron wind".
Also in the test it moves towards the (-) electrode while it should be moving towards (+) if it should be the Biefield-Brown gravity effect.
It moves to the small electrode just like an ioncraft so it most obviously just works on ion winds because the vacuum wasn't good enough.
The rest of the people just test these things in open air.

How are these people so retarded? They just need to put it in a closed system like a plastic box or a baloon or a plastic bag to eliminate the effect of the ion wind. And then measure if it changes weight. How is it possible none of these retards did this and only test it in open air?

Even if Biefield-Brown effect could affect gravity the way the vehicle is supposed to move seems nonsensical.
There are no action-reaction forces. They still exist even in gravity. It's like you would try to move a vehicle with magnets all attached to it.
In reality the gravity well should be attracted to the vehicle and the vehicle to the gravity well, the gravity hill and vehicle should repel each other.

Even if Biefield-Brown effect could affect gravity the way the vehicle is supposed to move seems nonsensical.
There are no action-reaction forces. They still exist even in gravity. It's like you would try to move a vehicle with magnets all attached to it.
In reality the gravity well should be attracted to the vehicle and the vehicle to the gravity well, the gravity hill and vehicle should repel each other.

>>1657097
see:
>>1656870

>https://web.archive.org/web/20031006103116/http://www.soteria.com/brown/docs/egravity/control.htm
This was supposedly used to measure the gravity generator. It was put in a box with oil to remove outside influences like ion wind.
It says bullshit that reversing polarity doesn't change direction. How would this bullshit be possible? Isn't it supposed to move towards (+)?
Maybe it created ion wind in the oil. The direction of ion wind depends only on the size of the electrodes, not on their polarity.
Then it says that when the "gravity motor" is charged the effect (force) stops. Which would make sense since the whole test apparatus is a capacitor and once it's charged current won't flow, you need current for ion wind.

>>1656944
>The displacement currents cause the gravitational field of the dielectric to become coherent
As I learned displacement current isn't even a real thing, it just represents the electric field in a capacitor. You just get a generic capacitor, now it doesn't sound so cool.

>>1657497
Just because you learned something doesn't make it true. There's a big difference between a capacitor made with a material dielectric and a vacuum dielectric.

I love how the retards always use ioncraft designs to test elecrogravity. When that design was purely made to use ion wind.
Or this retard >>1657416 not only uses an ioncraft but deliberately uses the katode (-) because it creates an electron wind and makes it much more efficient in a low pressure atmosphere.
Or this one is some special retard https://youtu.be/006d36WWyaQ?t=205 (3:25). Puts a piece of paper over it and thinks it should eliminate ion winds and confirm it uses anti gravity. He's too retarded to realize the paper doesn't cover the sides and that it's enough for it to work. These are flat earth tier retards.

>>1658119
>I love how the retards always use ioncraft designs to test elecrogravity. When that design was purely made to use ion wind.
Except they weren't if you actually read what Biefeld and Brown wrote.

https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA416740

>The order of magnitude of the net force on the asymmetric capacitor is estimated assuming two different mechanisms of charge conduction between its electrodes: ballistic ionic wind and ionic drift. The calculations indicate that ionic wind is at least 3 orders of magnitude too small to explain the magnitude of the observed force on the capacitor.

>>1658279
Sounds like they simply are retards and did wrong calculations or something. How I know they are retards? Because they could easily confirm it's not ion wind or gasses if they made the capacitor into a closed system (just a plastic box) where air can't go in or out. Even a weak vacuum would work that you could simply create with a vacuum (the one you clean carpets). If the ion wind is 1000 smaller than needed then the vacuum should have no effect on it. But if it's ion wind then it should have significant effect.
>The next series of experiments should determine whether the effect occurs in vacuum
And where are these experiments? Somehow no one bothers to make them, strange. How does no one bother to make the most important experiments?
>>1658271
>Except they weren't if you actually read what Biefeld and Brown wrote.
So why were the asymmetrical capacitors created then if not to use ion wind?
>The principle of ionic wind propulsion with corona-generated charged particles has been known from the earliest days of the discovery of electricity with references dating back to 1709 in a book titled Physico-Mechanical Experiments on Various Subjects by Francis Hauksbee.
The principle is pretty old.

>>1658338
If you bothered to read the link instead of just the green text you'd see it mentions that.

>So why were the asymmetrical capacitors created then if not to use ion wind?
Read the rest of this thread you lazy retard.

>>1658355
>If you bothered to read the link
Which I did. Then you should post the actual link
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a416740.pdf
>>1658355
>Read the rest of this thread
There's nothing in this thread. Why not just answer it or link the posts?

>>1658363
see:
>>1656870

>>1658378
>By using air as a dielectric they could still get electrogravitic thrust, but the lack of its efficiency would be compensated by the added thrust from ion wind, which was known about decades before them.
Which literally says it was designed to use ion wind.

>>1658279
>https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA416740
>https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a416740.pdf
Read the vacuum testing part. It's meh. Their vacuum wasn't so great, no pictures of anything just text, no numerical results or comparisons with non-vacuum testing... You just have to believe their testing wasn't shit.

>>1656870
>Idiots who try testing a lifter in a vacuum don't understand that they're using the worst possible dielectric for the effect; vacuum.
The whole point is to eliminate ion wind as an error in the force measurement, that's not idiotic.
And when it has been shown not to work in a vacuum, it seems far more likely that Biefeld and Brown were simply just wrong.

>>1658402
>>1658396
Most tests have a problem with using flat DC instead of pulsed and have no dielectric except for vacuum, when the denser the dielectric is, the better the effect. Everyone in the scientific community who tests it either fucks it up because they want it to be wrong, or out of simple ignorance of the source material.

Biefeld and Brown's work was successful, but because most of the vacuum tubes, lead acid batteries and other components they needed to make something fly were so heavy it was deemed impractical and abandoned. As technology caught up to it, everything they did was either forgotten, misinterpreted, ignored or buried because of the socio-economic fuckery it would cause if a silent all-electric propulsion system were as energy efficient as a rocket.

>>1658279
>ionic wind is at least 3 orders of magnitude too small to explain the magnitude of the observed force
But did they assume you need collisions of ions and neutral atoms?
Did they take into account that the action-reaction forces of just the ions could provide thrust?
The biggest forces on the ion are around the (+) electrode, the force on the ion is much weaker on the (-) electrode. It just needs to gently graze the electrode and keep its momentum while hardly affecting the electrode. And once the ion takes an electron off the (-) electrode it stops being affected by the electric field and can keep going.

>>1658414
It's theoretically so easy, just a generic capacitor, why did no one test it at home? You don't even need a pulsing power source. You only need to test the behavior when charging, discharging. Don't even need a vacuum. Just hang it and test if it moves at all in air. A generic symmetrical capacitor will hardly cause ion winds.

>>1658414
This is total bullshit and you know it. The same bullshit that said Philo T. Farnsworth was operating a net positive Fusion reactor. Lot of this stuff is just regurgitated from the book Lost Science.

>>1658402
>And when it has been shown not to work in a vacuum, it seems far more likely that Biefeld and Brown were simply just wrong.
The thing is they are using a design made to use ion winds and air.
The original design is a high capacity capacitor that heavy relies on the dielectric material.
Yeah they use vacuum to remove the effect of ion winds but they also use the vacuum as the dielectric.

>>1658279
>ionic wind is at least 3 orders of magnitude too small to explain the magnitude of the observed force
But did they assume you need collisions of ions and neutral atoms?
Did they take into account that the action-reaction forces of just the ions could provide thrust?
The biggest forces on the ion are around the (+) electrode, the force on the ion is much weaker on the (-) electrode. It just needs to gently graze the electrode and keep its momentum while hardly affecting the electrode. And once the ion takes an electron off the (-) electrode it stops being affected by the electric field and can keep going.

>>1658414
It's theoretically so easy, just a generic capacitor, why did no one test it at home? You don't even need a pulsing power source. You only need to test the behavior when charging, discharging. Don't even need a vacuum. Just hang it and test if it moves at all in air. A generic symmetrical capacitor will hardly cause ion winds.

>>1658440
see
>>1652151
>>1656817

>You don't even need a pulsing power source
The greater the change in voltage over time, the stronger the effect is.

>A generic symmetrical capacitor will hardly cause ion winds.
It'll hardly cause any thrust at all either. The asymmetry is important.

>>1658565
>It'll hardly cause any thrust at all either. The asymmetry is important.
Any source that it's important for the electrogravity and not purely to create ion wind?
His Gravitor is just a block designed as a series of generic capacitors.

>https://web.archive.org/web/20030213022358/http://www.soteria.com/brown/docs/egravity/control.htm
>we succeeded in observing the gravitational variations produced by the moon and sun and much smaller variations produced by the different planets
>The total time or duration of the impulse varies with such cosmic conditions as the relative position and distance of the moon, sun and so forth
>DURATION OF THE IMPULSE with electrical conditions maintained is independent of all of the foregoing factors. It is governed solely by external gravitational conditions, positions of the moon, sun, etc.
>By merely tracing a succession of values over a period of time a fairly intelligible record of the paths and the relative gravitational effects of the moon, sun, etc., may be obtained.
It's hard to believe they could measure something so small. Even then it doesn't mean at all the device affected gravity. If you can measure such small forces then they will affect your measurements in general. You have a device that has mass so it's automatically affected by gravity and gravity changes.
>>1658565
>It'll hardly cause any thrust at all either.
But in the thread it says that using good dielectric made it very effective.That he switched to air only because the device was heavy and couldn't fly else. For his heavy devices with good dielectrics (that were apparently so great and effective) he uses a symmetric capacitor block (pic).
>The asymmetry is important.
Let me guess, this was only used for the air vehicles and "somehow" it boosted thrust significantly. And it also worked in their 10Torr "vacuum" (which wasn't even close to be called vacuum) while it shouldn't work since vacuum is a shit dielectric, right?

>>1651168
Ignoring the problem of thrust-to-weight ratio, I think you can only get thrust in the first place with a completed circuit: electrons flow up from the ground while ionised air atoms flow down from the foil. This creates a net impulse while retaining neutral charge, but requires one or more wires for the current to travel from the ground back to the ionocraft. It's easy to do when your HV generator is on the ground, and I'm not sure to what extent it requires a conductive ground beneath it (probably not very important at that voltage), so arguably you could drag a wire or two along the ground itself to complete the circuit, so long as it had sufficient insulation and is far enough away from the propulsion foils to ensure it doesn't interfere with the electric field gradient (which isn't a problem with an HV generator on the ground; the wires are at the same potential as the foils).

However I recently saw that video of the successful flight of a fully self-contained electrostatic aircraft, which if I recall correctly used a positive wire held in front of a negative wire, such that the air molecules would be ionised at the first, and accelerate towards the second, where they'd be neutralised by electrons coming the other way. So to convert this concept to a hovering ionocraft you'd simply have one of OP's pic atop the other, which would give you your completed circuit without any need for brushes. The aircraft itself had very large and thin wings (like those solar electric aircraft), so obviously they were pushing the edge of their thrust-to-weight budget, and ditching the wings for a hovering version wouldn't do you any favours in that regard.
All I can think of is optimising your HV generator (perhaps beam power from off-site), use super-thin gold foil, and have carbon fibre structural elements. The generator you posted would almost certainly be far too heavy, mainly because it's all potted in resin and will use ferritic metal magnetic cores.

Hey guys, maxwell's laws here, AMA

>>1658279
>https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA416740
So they apparently tested (condensers) with various dielectrics and also those gravitators.

It also explains how they could notice such small forces as gravity of moon, sun and other planets because they were running the measurements all days for years. Which still absolutely doesn't mean the device works on gravity as they claim.

The biggest problem with the antigravity devices are action-reaction forces ( >>1657454 ). You simply need some sort of exhaust.
Now lets say their devices worked. That means they created some sort of exhaust.
Lets say the exhaust could be radiation. But that still doesn't mean it worked on gravity.
It would move because it created exhaust, just like ion wind works.
It's strange that they claim to have a device that alters gravity but never actually try to measure the gravity around it.

>>1658764
>some sort of exhaust
Well for a year or so this decade scientists were seriously considering the EM drive, which was supposed to work with impulseless thrust. Just saying.
Now in a vacuum they can still arguably emit electrons, and at those voltages they can easily sputter metal ions from the electrodes themselves. Thermionic thrusters when?

Because they never mounted one of these lifters to a sled to measure sideways force in a vacuum means we really don't have the data we want with regards to the supposed antigravity, which I'm highly sceptical of.

Talking about action-reaction. The T-capacitor doesn't have any exhaust >>1656817
But thinking about it, it seems like the original idea with the lined up forces and one sided el field going in a big arc is utter bullshit.
It most probably works with ion winds, again.
Having air on one side and a dielectric on the other probably creates an asymmetric el field like in ioncrafts.

>>1651286
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn_RQanyGOI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7FENAXuHIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e09lGgDM3PA

>>1658884
It's not going the long-way around dumbass, it's going over the "wall" shown with the dotted line.

>>1659436
Yes some go over the wall or push against it. But the experiment shows it pushes up which means some ions are going down.

>>1659464
>ions
You just don't get it, do you?