WHAT IS IT USED FOR? (c)1997 William J. Beaty http://amasci.com/emotor/emotor.html What's this Pop Bottle motor good for? Well, it's mostly useful as a physics demonstration, to show that "static electricity" isn't feeble and useless. If you have an electrostatic generator, this motor gives you another use for it. It is a little-known fact that there is a tiny charge flowing between the sky and the surface of the earth. This sort of motor has been run directly from the sky-current. A tall antenna is insulated from the earth and is used to intercept the vertical current and develop a high voltage to drive the motor. This charge flow is pumped by thunderstorms all over the world, so you might say that electrostatic motors can directly harness the power of thunderstorms. One researcher (Dr. Oleg Jefimenko) attained 1/16 horsepower output using a "Poggendorf" electrostatic motor, a type which uses a plastic cylinder surrounded by knife-edge electrodes. He runs his e-motors with a fine wire lifted by a weather balloon. Compared to normal motors, electrostatic motors are extremely light in weight and use inexpensive materials. A normal motor requires iron cores and heavy copper wire, while an electrostatic motor can use thin lightweight plastic and incredibly thin metal coatings. This should be very useful when people start living fulltime in space. Lifting a heavy iron motor into orbit is costly in terms of fuel and spacecraft maintenance, it is far cheaper to lift a thin plastic motor. Electrostatic motors are much weaker than iron/copper motors because they cannot be used with *really* high voltage. An iron/copper motor is based upon electric current, and it can be used with high current in order to get high power output. It gets hot, but thicker wire and cooling fans take care of that. Electrostatic motors are different, they are based on voltage, and if you turn the voltage up on an electrostatic motor, you don't get increased motor power, you just get big sparks. The air between the metal plates turns conductive, and the sparks short out the power supply. However, if you place this sort of motor in a vacuum, normal sparks become impossible. (Sparks are air which has turned into plasma, and without air, there is no plasma and no sparks.) You then can turn the voltage up hundreds or thousands of times higher, which gives you much MUCH higher power output. Where's a source of inexpensive vacuum? Space, obviously! Zero-cost vacuum, and the high cost of lifting heavy materials into orbit, make electrostatic motors a good choice for applications in space. You may have heard about the recent invention of "Micromotors", microscopic motors built of silicon and constructed on the surface of integrated circuit chips. Most of these motors are electrostatic motors, because it's easy to lay down a two-dimensional electrode pattern on silicon, while it's nearly impossible to wind a 3D coil magnet. Your basic silicon micromotor contains a whirling conductive paddle which is surrounded by metal electrode plates. The plates are electrified in sequence by an external power supply circuit, and the paddle follows the moving voltage wave. Where your large pop-bottle motor uses 10,000 volts, the micromotors typically use 100v or less. Your body is run by muscles which can lengthen and contract. Muscles are a class of motor called a "linear motor" (the opposite of a "rotary" motor.) Muscles move when long molecules are slid across each other by sequential chemical bonding, and this chemical bonding is (guess!) electrostatic. Your muscles are electrostatic motors. Your body is a robot which runs entirely with linear electrostatic stepper motors. Ever hear of Nanotechnology? This is the study of objects and patterns which are the size of atoms. One goal of nanotechnology is to build machines which are the size of molecules, and these machines will require rotary motors and linear motors. These motors will be electrostatic. Actually, these motors already exist. Certain bacteria are able to swim because they have wiggling cilia as "propellers." A few years ago it was discovered that some bacteria cilia does not wiggle, instead it spins. Among these is the E. Coli bacteria in your intestines. The spinning cilia is powered by a molecule-sized rotary electrostatic motor! If nature can build these motors, then Nanotechnology will eventually do the same (or maybe instead we will learn to harness the bacteria genetics, and GROW our molecular electrostatic motors as desired.) In light of all of the above, don't you begin to get the idea that electrostatic motors are normal and sensible, while coil/magnet motors are the odd and strange ones? ((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billbeskimo.com amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits science projects, tesla, weird science Seattle, WA 206-762-3818 freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L