The Lifters successful replications
Experimenters Log Book
Created on October 10th, 2001 - JLN Labs - Last update October 4, 2006
All informations in this page are published free and are intended for private/educational purposes and not for commercial applications

Note from Jean-Louis Naudin : I shall be very glad to publish all successful Lifters replications in my web site so, don't hesitate to send me the photos, the diagrams and the videos of your experiments.

Bonjour Mr Naudin !

Après quelques essais s'étant terminés en cendres (^^'), je tiens à vous faire part de mon expérience réussie du lifter V2, que de joies de le voir s'envoler ! J'ai utilisé un vieux moniteur 19" dont la THT délivre ~26kV, du carré de balsa de 2x2mm et de l'alu de cuisine 11µ, sur la seconde vidéo il a cependant un petit problème du a une chute qui a percé la jupe, comme je le dis dans le commentaire je vais remédier à ça dès que j'aurai le temps. Je prépare aussi les plan d'un lifter bien plus grand .  

A bientôt,

Lilian Faveau.  

PS : Désolé pour la qualité déplorable des vidéos elles ont été prises avec mon téléphone portable (format 3gp).

Click on the picture above to see the VIDEO (3gp format) 1.5 Mo

Dear Jean-Louis Naudin,

I have successfully lifted your Lifter v2.0 . I have followed your instructions for the required materials for the construction. The only thing I have changed is the height of the vertical upper 2mm x 2mm balsa wood sticks to a height of 50mm to keep sparks from jumping to the negative side of the aluminum foil. I have found wrapping the aluminum foil completely around the upper horizontal frame was a must for me for successful lifting. I did not watch this closely with my other lifters that would not lift. I hope you can please enter the photos I have sent you for successfully lifting your v2.0. Thank you for your wonderful web site and information. Your lifter was a challenge and is interesting. I have been interested in your work and am following it closely. Last November 16, 2005 students was successful contacting the ISS (International Space Station) with help form our local Ham Radio Operators. This was a first for the students of the Middle School. I will be also taking this information to our local school to have your Lifter project duplicated by students for their up coming Student Science Fair for year 2007 under strict supervision. I am sure which ever student is successful will be a 1st prize winner.

Below are specifications of my successful (named) TRYLifter I.
Total Weight: 10.3 grams
Aluminum foil: Diamond Aluminum Foil
Thickness: 6.96m Household foil
Vertical height: 105 mm
Width: 400 mm
Wire used: Thin coated electric clock motor
Wood: Balsa wood 2 mm x 2 mm purchased from RC Store St. Louis, MO.
Power supply: 23 inch color Television
Power Output: 28 KV.
Total Cost of project without Power Supply. US $2.40.

Good Luck with your experiments. I will continue to work on other Lifter projects now that I have been successful with this one. I will also later send a movie of my work when I can get my camera repaired. I will be sending three photos in seperate emails to you.

Sincerely
Richard Lionberger (KBØWCY)
1440 S. Hwy. 19
Hermann, Missouri USA

Hello again Jean,

heres a lifter with directionl controll. the 2 rear triangles move , the front one tilts down and up for forward and reverse thrust the back one piviots left and right for turning. it appears to work very well. iam still looking for a ps to put onboard , nothing yet.

cheers

Dear Mr. Naudin, I've made a new experience in testing the antigravity lifter in 24-8-2006.

I and my friend made the HV power supply with our specific design that is very strong, (I think it is about 50000 Volt!!!) so we had some difficalties to isolating it. soon I'll send you the images and the film of our experience. Goob bye. Tehran, Iran.

--
Sincerely Yours,
VAHID SAMADINIA

Your website has been very helpful in constructing my first flying lifter.

The prototype was a square construction that wouldn't fly, and my power supply was and is an old CRT monitor, but finally I constructed a flying basic triangle lifter. I had a great deal of lift on one side as compared to the other, so I put in a balsa wood rail for the lifter to move up.   Regardless, you've done a great job with the web site, and thank you!  

Kingston, Pennsylvania, United States of America  

Russell Bregman

Hello jean,

here's another lifter that has great lifter power , able to lift a cockpit with 3 small batteries a micro cercit with flashing lights and some more cargo ,so far 34.2 grams. also is or has their ben any progress on the [2end gen of lifter materials?]  ive pulled some bismuth from some old fuses i had laying around , going to run some voltage test with it.

cheers

Bonjour Jean-Louis

J'avais envoyé l'année passée une photo d'un lifter que j'avais intégré dans un projet artistique. Ce mail c'est peut-être perdu, aussi je vous le renvoie.
J'y repense parceque je suis en ce moment avec intérêt  l'évolution du GFS-UAV sur votre site.

J'ai créé un pentagramme de 1 m d'arêtes, que j'ai alimenté avec du 26KV d'un vieux moniteur PC.  L'ensemble a été intégré dans une sculpture associant pentagrammes, runes et magie.

Cinq pierres dressées comportant des runes celtiques ont été disposées en pentagramme, un laser vert, reflété par de petits miroirs collés sur la pierre, dessinent un autre pentagramme quasi invisible en lumière du jour, et le lifter, attaché par de fins fils en polyamide aux sommets des cinq pierres, flotte au-dessus d'elles, dessinant le troisième pentacle. Un cercle de sel "magique" tout autour ainsi que des éclats de pierre au sol dissuadent le spectateur de trop s'approcher.

J'avais créé un lifter pentacle identique de taille double (en collant les baguettes de balsa d'un mètre bout à bout), qui volait, mais comme pour la sculpture, il ne démarre pas du sol, mais d'une position pendue entre les pierres, la distorsion créée par son propre poids l'empêchait de décoller (arcs électriques). Une version plus costaude (baguettes de diamètre double) était malheureusement trop lourde pour décoller.

Bizarrement, lorsque je mets la tension, le lifter décolle doucement et oscille fortement, comme s'il était trop lourd. Mais dès qu'un arc se produit, au cours des oscillations, par exemple, alors le lifter décolle vraiment jusqu'à tendre ses fils de retenue. En créant cet arc artificiellement (en approchant entre eux les fins fils d'alimentation à l'aide d'un manche de brosse), on peut ainsi faire démarrer correctement le lifter à volonté.

Jean-Louis Piette
Bruxelles

Bonjour M Naudin,  

Avec un ami nous avons réalisé l'expérience du basic lifter avec succès. Voici quelques photos ci-jointes. C'est une technologie vraiment intéressante, même si je m'interroge toujours sur son potentiel: A quand une exploitation commerciale ? En tout cas c'est une bonne chose que les expériences continuent.  

Cordialement,
Joseph Marchand Matthieu Barrios France, Lille

hi jean,

thanks for the reply, i have had great success with  my first test fights.  you r right ,weight is a factor i figured that out after cutting my first lifter in half. i have some stills and a vid for u. its prob my tenth lifter. 16 by 16 inches weighs in at 9 grams and flys lijke a dreem. i have ben useing thin strips of bass wood and pine for the frames, seems to be ok. ill keep u posted on my new experments with different designs.  cheers and yehaa  

ps the monitor only puts out 29 kv max

Hi JNaudin my name is Xie Xuejun.

I'm in Fuzhou Fujian China.I have done some experiment about Lifter.I used a long spring to measure the force of the single part of lifter.I got a conclusion that 1.6cm was the best length between the positive and the negtive.the length of the aluminum foil has little effect on lifter,but the weight of the aluminum foil does.So the the aluminum is better in 1-2cm.I found the aerofoil lifter has a better efficiency(I compared the efficiency by current).I tried to run lifter in vacuum.I found that when the air was taking out the lifter was going down too,when the air was very rare it made a glow discharg and lifter didn't move.Here is some of my experiment pic.My last pic is a strange phenomenon that whet I put a line above runing lifter the line will float.

Hello,

I gained interest in the lifter craft back in 2002. At that time my dad and I built several lifters of different designs. We used an old TV for the power source. We are located in Seattle Washington. I just now stumbled into this section of successful lifter crafts world wide and wanted to make sure I put in my tid bit. I have attached two videos of my lifter 1 and lifter 2. Initially with my lifter 1, I was having problems getting it off the ground, with a light rebuild I had it up off the ground but sometimes it would loose stability as seen in the video. At this point I decided I would build a 3 cell lifter to create more lift vs. weight. My hypothesis held true and the 3 cell lifter craft with more surface area did provide a lot more thrust. As seen in the second video the craft was very sturdy. I have not attempted any more lifters since 2002, but hope to get some more time working with them in the future.

I am just starting collage now and will be majoring in Aerospace Engineering.

Taylor Abrahamson

Bonjour Mr Naudin,

Je vous fais part de quelques uns de mes lifters dont le dernier en date :

un trois étages qui marche a merveille avec un dégagement d'ozone très impressionnant !
on peut même sentir le courant d'air à 2.5m avec un doigt humide

J'ai trouvé intéressant de vous envoyer des captures de vidéo montrant les mouvements d'air grace a de la fumée (encens) (images a 72ms d'écart contrastées avec logiciel approprié)

je serais heureux de voir ces photos dans le logbook des créateurs de lifters !

merci d'avance

Michael Martignac

Dear Sir

Please be so kind as to include my first successful lifter 1 flight in your website/worldwide logbook, only after the 4 attempt and trying out 2 different monitors.

Kind Regards
W Sene

I have finally completed and installed my lifter in the Gravity Discovery Centre in Australia.
Some considerations for this public display were:
  HV protection is provided by an acrylic surround (the most expensive part at over AUD$1000).
  Interactivity provided by firstly a "Soft landing" rotary control to control the pulse width modulated 24V to the HV supply. Secondly with a "Crash landing" button (red, of course) in which there is a loud spark as the 30kV supply is short-circuited and the lifter drops 18 inches suddenly. The supply doesn't like being shorted so there is a 17K dropping resistor and a 570pF 40kV doorknob that provides the energy for the spark. Kids love this button.
  Colour is provided by the argon tubes which are the HV supports and alter brightness as the current draw changes. There are three spot lights of red, green and purple to give reflections of the foil of the lifter. These were made from arrays of 8 x 5000 MCD LEDs each.
  Educational information is provided by an accompanying poster or by the tour guides.
  Reliability.  Light toy kite string was used instead of thread at a small weight penalty.  A lot of care was taken with the hot gluing (and 2 spare lifters were made). The impact point at the feet was also reinforced with hot glue. On earlier lifters I needed to put some tape on the HV feed wires to prevent them getting agitated. On this one, I left the enamel coating on the feed wires and the problem was much better so hopefully wire fatigue will be delayed.
  RF interference is a potential problem.  Particularly since there is a multidetector cosmic ray recorder on the other side of the rear brick wall.  Leaving the enamel on the feed wires seems to have reduced the RF and I also have about 10 turns of inductance on the feedwires wound around the argon tubes.
  Ozone will be produced and there is a 6 inch gap between the roof of the enclosure and the wall where this will escape. The mildly darkened theater that it is in is large with perhaps a 40 ft ceiling and is air conditioned. 
  Mains safety. I have an external switchbox which has a fuse and a microwave oven mains RF filter.

I know of only one other lifter on public display in a "Robot museum" if I recall.  I would be interested to know of any others.

Two lifters. One is the display lifter in a science museum. The second is an 80 kV lifter lifting its own weight of 4g and showing the 4 inch sparks when the voltage is turned up.  

A further lifter for your consideration. This one lifts more than its own weight.  Lifter weighs 4.13g, load is 4.50g. Voltage is 80kV+ from a small TV flyback and 5 stage multiplier. It will spark 4.5 inches  (11cm) between the wire and skirt if the voltage is turned up.  

Peter (Tesla Downunder)
More details on my site  http://tesladownunder.iinet.net.au/Lifters.htm

This is my first lifter and it works quite well.

Some blue glow around foil and the wire is visible in dark room. It's built from straws, aluminum foil, and thin strands from multistrand wire. I glued straws with hot glue and foil with superglue. Power supply was car ignition coil with simple 555 driver and cascade from
an old television. Voltage is perhaps 10-30 kilovolts.

Hi, Mr. Naudin,

We are school laboratory technicians from Hong Kong. We're so glad to share our first 3 successful replications (1)Cross Shape  (2)Spade Shape, which is not a rigid model and (3) the most common triangular shape with you and all others who are interested.

The phenomenon B-B Effect is really something and why on earth for so many decades no one can account for it's relationship with gravity ?

Thanks again !

ShingYi Chan & Winston
PLKYLS

Good morning mr Naudin,

I'm glad to inform you that at the Planetarium "Citta' di Lecco" in Lecco, Italy (50Km north of Milan) we successfully realized a lifter. We would be glad to be included in your logbook.

We have took some pictures of the lifter and the high-voltage source, and even a small video.

Description of the experiment: the lifter is made of 4mm plastic tubes and wood sticks. It has a 20cm wide triangular shape, the metallic sheet is 3cm high and the wire is 3cm distant. It's powered with a 25kV source. The author of the experiment is Erasmo Bardelli, the President of the "Deepspace" Astrophile Group.

We are going to have a public display of the experiment on july 7th, 2006, part of my conference about future ways of interstellar travel and energy production.

With kind regards,
Alessio Sangalli

Bonsoir monsieur Naudin.

j'ai fait décoller sans difficulté mon premier lifter (basique). j'ai vraiment constaté le mouvement d'air descendant sous l' "appareil".j'avais déjà senti celui-ci à proximité du câble tht dans mon boulot de dépanneur tv .merci pour cette voie ouverte à de nombreux essais. Je vous envoie  2 photos du proto.Je vais aménager tout ça , j'avais hâte de faire les essais!
je vais commencer par une alim tht variable pour calmer les ardeurs de l'engin et passer à l'échelon supérieur !
Bravo pour ce projet qui demeure "intrigant", certains effets n'étant pas complètement expliqués.

Au travail maintenant et merci   de votre réponse si rapide.

Gérard Bruneau

Hi,Mr. Naudin.

We are high school students from Taiwan(in Asia) After seeing your website, we began the research of Lifter inTaiwan.

Now we have accomplished some experiments and we are going to attend the High School Science Exhibition in Taipei(well,our conutry)... I  appreciate your help and want to share our video about Lifter with you. this is our Lifter

Website http://www.wretch.cc/blog/twlifter and this is the video http://web.hs.ntnu.edu.tw/~s310509/lifter.WMV

Thanks for your reading....

Fabrice DAVID
Laboratoire de Recherches Associatives
95131 FRANCONVILLE
le 26 mars 2006

Cher ami,

    Je vous prie de trouver ci-joint des photos d’une réplication du lifter dans les locaux du LRA, pour votre logbook.

Au plaisir d’en discuter avec vous de vive voix.

Amicalement,
FD.

Hello Sir,its me again,

     My full name is Mahmud Abdul Ghaffar from University Technology of Malaysia ( UTM ). Finally with your advise i was success to built my own lifter for my final year project. Actually sir my first model is to heavy but by using of  your advise i have downsize my lifter and also 100% use light weight drinking straws. This is an interesting experiment. Here i send to you my project picture.....  

Thank you very much sir..  

Mahmud Abdul Ghaffar From: University Technology of Malaysia ( UTM ), Malaysia

Nous sommes quatres étudiants ingénieurs du CESI d'arras, et nous avons pour un projet de recherche scientifique, réalisé un rapport concernant les lifters. Nous avons pour cela, réalisé plusieurs lifters. Un a bien décollé, et plusieurs fois de suite. Vous avez ci joint deux vidéos prouvant cette réussite. Sur la première, on le voit décoller tout simplement, sur la seconde, il décolle également et on voit quelquechose en dessous de lui qui n'est autre qu'une cigarette, permettant de voir dans quel sens se dirigeait la fumée lors du vol de celui ci. On ne le voit pas sur la vidéo, mais lors du test, la fumée se dissipait vers le bas.        Merci pour vos explications et pour votre enthousiasme.  

Merci encore pour vos félicitations. J'ai mis une photo de notre lifter en pièce jointe en format jpg cette fois. Sur la photo, il est possible de voir en fond d'écran notre moniteur. Le tout était posé sur des tables, l'écran sur une table, et le lifter attaché à une seconde table. On avait coincé le cable d'alim positif entre les tables afin de pouvoir le mettre en hauteur.  

Sincèrement.

Richard DELEYE, Jean-François CASE, Julien DEFRANCE, et Gaëtan DUMETZ
PS: Nous comptons renouveler l'expérience mais avec d'autres types de Lifters. (V2.0 et V3.0 par exemple)

Monsieur Naudin bonjour.

Je vous envoie ce mail pour vous montrer le lifter que mon groupe et moi avons crée pour notre  T.P.E  (Travaux personnel encadré)

 Nous avons également le projet de réaliser le lifter dessiné sur la photo en fichier joint .Ce lifter seras dirigé par quatre lifter auxiliaires et verticaux qui seront placés au quatre coins. Il pourra ainsi se diriger à plat et dans toute les dimensions. Il sera alimenté par 2 moniteurs pour le vol et un moniteur qui alimenteras au choix un ou deux lifter directionnelle grâce a un système d’interrupteur. Je vous enverrai bien sur toutes les vidéos si nous réalisons ce lifter. Je vous félicite pour tout les travaux que vous faite sur le Lifter car grâce à vous cette technologie progresse.

Nous avons passer l'oral pour notre T.P.E aujourd'hui. Le Jury a été impressionné par le lifter !

Cordialement,   Etienne Basso

Bonjour,

Voilà quelques photos de ma première expérience avec le basic lifter. La qualité n'est pas excellente (prises avec un téléphone) mais dès la semaine prochaine j'en reprendrai avec un appareil photo numérique.

Votre nouveau projet semble vraiment intéressant, j'espère qu'il va aboutir prochainement ! Cependant, au-delà des difficultés techniques de réalisation d'un modèle suffisament grand pour supporter sa propre source d'énergie, comment contez-vous gérer la stabilité de l'engin ? Je veux dire, allez vous le radiocommander directement un peu a la manière du Mk-III ou comptez-vous utiliser un système intermédiaire "d'aide au pilotage" type asservissement pour assurer une certaine stabilité ? Ce n'est que mon maigre avis de taupin amateur de modèles radiocommandés, mais les lifters sont plutôt vifs et la maîtrise directe de l'engin risque d'être ardue...

Quoi qu'il en soit, encore bravo pour vos recherches qui sont originales et novatrices !

Respectueusement,

G. Kauffmann

Greetings Mr. Naudin,

After seeing the lifter project on your website, I readily accepted the challenge of constructing one. The first lifter, that I made, was quite a heavy one. After I introduced the concept to my professor Stevce Arsoski, he encouraged me to make another one and supplied me with much needed balsa wood as suggested in your instructions. My friend Dino Laktasic assisted me in construction of the second lifter. That was the lifter that is shown on the photographies. Its first “levitation” was successfully achieved just few days ago in my school “Tehnicka skola Sisak” using the high voltage supply (25kV) from an old monitor. Both lifters I made at my home and they were quite simple to make. It’s fun and an interesting experiment to make.

I noticed that the edges of the aluminum foil have to be round, otherwise the lifter may not fly and there could be unnecessary discharging between the electrodes. The discharges would prevent the lifter from levitating.

I plan to conduct few experiments with two of my colleagues (Tomislav Gombac and Dino Laktasic).

Jurica Kundrata
Tehnicka skola Sisak (Technical school Sisak)
Croatia

Lifter replications Log Book : Next Page

Return to the Lifters Builders page