Gentlemen, an update from the lab, Tests using smoke reveal the following:
1. With the Borbas device free to rotate, smoke is relatively unaffected in proximity to the device. It is hard to tell however exactly what is going on as the smoke is also being stirred around by the device motion.
2. With the device locked and unable to rotate, things get more interesting. There is a slight general movement of the smoke opposite the direction of which the device would want to rotate, were it free to do so. But the velocity of the smoke is very small; the volume of movement is very large however, extending several inches from the device in all directions, less so above and below it. Now, if the column of rising smoke is allowed to touch the stator corona wire, things are very clear to see: upon touching the corona wire, the smoke instantly makes a 90 degree turn and goes straight towards the balls, and at a much higher speed. It doesn't stop at the balls either, it goes right past them and then immediately behind them spreads out and joins the rest of the slowly moving air.
3. Outside of a thin polyethylene bag, there is still air flow. Image charges? It isn't high speed, but certainly is enough to contribute to thrusting action.
4. Removing the balls from the rotor wires and covering them with silicone resin reduced motion of the device (now set up free to rotate again) by about 1/2. Turning the corona wires in the opposite direction reversed the thrust. Making the corona wires point exactly radially outwards reduced the thrust to zero. Putting the corona wires back into their original (pointing towards the rotor) configuration but covered with silicone resin again gave zero thrust. It is my belief that given these results, the Borbas device is clearly conventional.
5. Per Horace's suggestion, I powered the device with AC. The results, were to say the least, disappointing. No thrust was observed using any of the configurations given above, save one. With rotor electrodes having a more flattened surface and corona wires very pointed, there was a slight motion, but I determined this to be again corona wind....insulating the pointed electrodes killed the effect. These results remained the same at 60cps, 400cps, 1500cps, 5000cps and 8000cps.
Thoughts? --Kyle
