How to build a Lifter v2.0 demonstrator by Jean-Louis Naudin

How to build a Lifter v2.0 demonstrator
by Jean-Louis Naudin
Cliquez ici pour la version Française
Created November 25, 2002 - JLN Labs - last update April 28, 2003
Toutes les informations et schémas sont publiés gratuitement ( freeware ) et sont destinés à un usage personnel et non commercial
All informations and diagrams are published freely (freeware) and are intended for a private use and a non commercial use.

This tutorial explains you how to build yourself a 40cm wide Lifter v2.0 for your demonstrations and your experiments.

- A light weight balsa wood board ( 15/10 mm thick ). You will find balsa wood board in any RC Hobby shops,
- a kitchen aluminum sheet ( 12 µm thick ),
- a thin copper wire ( 1/10 mm diameter ) extracted from a simple multiple wires power grid cord,
- a tube of cyanoacrylate universal glue,
- a hobby knife ( a cutter with a sharp and brand new blade ),
- a stripper ( Conrad Ref: 0229 458-30 ),
- a 50 cm ruler,
- a wooden plate ( 50x50 cm at least ) as your working surface,
- scotch tape,
- a paper pen.

1-A) Preparing the working surface : On the wooden plate, draw a 40 cm side equilateral triangle with a smaller 20 cm side equilateral triangle embedded in the middle as shown in the photo below. Protect each triangle intersection by putting an adhesive tape on your working surface, this will avoid that the cyanoacrylate glue the balsa wood of your Lifter on the wooden plate ( the working area ).

1-B) Cutting the balsa sticks : Cut with the stripper or with the cutter, the 2 mm wide balsa stricks :

- 6 sticks ( 90 mm lentgh and 2 mm wide ),
- 6 sticks ( 400 mm lentgh and 2 mm wide ),
- 6 sticks ( 200 mm lentgh and 2 mm wide ).

1-C) Put the three 400 mm sticks and the three 400 mm sticks on the drawing of the wood plate as shown in the photo below. Be carefull, the stricks are placed on there smallest edge. Glue there intersection with cyanoacrylate. Wait 1 minute, then with the blade of the cutter unstick very carefully the triangular frame from the working area .

1-D) Put away the triangular frame. Handle with care, this is a very fragile structure... Then, build a second triangular fram as explained in 1-C), and put away your new triangular frame so has to clean up your working area .

2-A) Draw on your working area rectangular 400x40 mm in the horizontal direction with three 90 mm vertical lines showing the vertical sticks of your Lifter ( see the drawing below ). This shows the front view of your Lifter in red. Protect each intersections by putting an adhesive tape on your working surface.

2-B) Place carefully and maintain vertically the two triangular frames ( Handle with care, these ares a very fragile structures ) as shown in the photo below, then glue all the 90 mm sticks on each intersections.

2-C) The main frame of your Lifter v2.0 is finished, now, you may place it horizontally on your working area.

3-A) Cut ( with the cutter and the ruler ) 6 rectangles in a kitcheen aluminum sheet ( 12µm thick ) at the dimensions indicated below :

3-B) Glue the aluminum sheets with the cyanoacrylate glue as shown in the photo below :

CAUTION : The aluminum sheet must exceed about 5 mm the upper edge of rectangular frame.

3-C) Pull down and stick the upper edge of the aluminum plate on the balsa wood stick. This creates the leading edge of your Lifter.

3-E) The aluminum plate of your Lifter is now finished, you need only to mount the thin copper wire on the vertical sticks. The wires are fixed on the vertical sticks with cyanoacrylate glue.

The Lifter v2.0 is finished, the +30kV is connected to the wires through a thin copper wire ( 1/10 mm ) on its left side as show on the photo above. On the opposite side, the aluminum plate is connected to the 0V ( or the ground ) with a small aluminum tape. Your HV power supply must be able to deliver about 500 µA at about 30KV. I recommend you to protect your power supply with a 470 kOhms (2W) resistor in serie with the HV output. The Lifter1 is maintained on the surface base with 3 thin nylon threads to avoid that it escapes to the ceiling...

Notes : If you want to get a lighter Lifter, you may remove the bottom triangular frame, this will improve the upward thrust and it flight enveloppe.

BE CAREFUL, USE EXTREME CAUTION !!!, this device uses High Voltage, ALWAYS switch off the input and discharge the output to the ground through 10k/2W resistor before touching it. These plans are not intended for the inexperienced. User of this document should be very carefull and experienced in High-Voltage electronics to try anything out ! If you do it the risk of any results is just yours. I take no responsibility of anything that might happen.