Chris Knight wrote:Radomir,
Your initial assumption was that an apparatus would require an in-vacuum proof-of-concept test (completely reasonable since that is what we have been talking about). Looking back at an earlier post:
quote wrote:"Brown worked on a number of apparatuses, and they all share a common denominator. They are like the bloodlines we have been discussing. One apparatus won't necessarily do the same thing as another - for example, a generator and a cell phone both put out energy, but they serve entirely different functions and are modified to maximize a certain electromagnetic effect."
There are numerous iterations in which air pressure, vacuum, ion wind, and so on, are of no consequence whatsoever. i.e. there's more than one way to hoe a field. Most of the work we're involved in is proprietary to Qualight, but if one wanted to build a tri-arcuate disc, I suspect one could build a full-on proof of concept for, say $20-40k. If one wanted.
The cost would depend entirely on if you were to build it yourself, or buy.
Power supplies are cheap. If you build them yourself even cheaper. I bought a pair of lab grade +/- 50KV / 1mA supplies 20 years ago for about $2,000 each. Those were pretty small units - about 5" x 5" x 14", so I'll bet you could get a decent supply easily enough. Waveshaping would increase the complexity, but not further than someone with some EE background could build. I'd probably go to 500KV / 1mA minimum.
For the disc, you'd want to use a material that didn't suffer as much from out-gassing such as stainless steel, but you could also use aluminum to save cost, and you'd have it spun in one large piece.
I have to admit, I don't remember the rotating-drum patent, but the vertical and horizontal thrust use two different but similar structural appurtenances. Vertical thrust I'd start with a design from Project Winterhaven, which I put at
http://www.qualight.com/kinetics/winter.htm (I see my image links aren't working - I'll fix that).
The most expensive part would be a vacuum chamber - if you were a decent machinist, etc. you could build a sizable vacuum chamber at reduced cost, but that would be a bit complex for most people - you'd need special welding equipment and a machinist shop. Stainless steel, glass and ceramic construction inside. All-metal seals with copper gaskets, and say, a titanium alloy or stainless steel wall construction.
Also, note that one pump won't get you down past 10E-6. From Wikpedia:
quote wrote:Several types of pumps may be used in sequence or in parallel. In a typical pumpdown sequence, a positive displacement pump would be used to remove most of the gas from a chamber, starting from atmosphere (760 Torr, 101 kPa) to 25 Torr (3 kPa). Then a sorption pump would be used to bring the pressure down to 10-4 Torr (10 mPa). A cryopump or turbomolecular pump would be used to bring the pressure further down to 10-8 Torr. An additional ion pump can be started below 10-6 Torr to remove gases which are not adequately handled by a cryopump or turbo pump, such as helium or hydrogen.
I would scour military surplus yards, Army-Navy surplus stores, Ebay, etc. and if that didn't come up with anything, I'd go to my local university physics department and see what they have.
In my mind, it comes down to how much passion would a person be willing to put into a project like that rather than the money. We are easily talking possibly about a multi-year project with significant financial input and intellectual learning for the potential of little to no return aside from knowledge. Plus, the machinery, tools, supplies, and vacuum chamber would have to be stored somewhere where you had enough room to work. Coupled with day to day living and distractions, I don't know many people offhand who are that dedicated.