The Electrostatic Pendulum Experiment from Patrick Cornille
An enhanced version : The ELPEX V2.0
Tests and design by Jean-Louis Naudin and André Tuszel
created on 10/12/97 - JLN Labs - last update on 11/26/97
Notes from Jean-Louis Naudin : This experiment has been conducted by André Tuszel and myself (on 11/09/97) and the main purpose of this test is to improve the force generated by the original Patrick Cornille's Pendulum electrostatic experiment.
The device has been built as indicated in the drawing above, using two 700 gr steel balls (hollow). The main cupola is made with thin aluminium and the base of the cupola is made with Styrofoam (20mm thick) and insulated from the steel ball.
We have used a Wimshurst electrostatic generator ( 250 Kv in dry air, but in this case the estimated voltage was about 70kV ( 75% humidity level in my lab.... ))
The Wimshurst generator has been connected to the Elpex device with non insulated wires, in the ELPEX V2.0 the path of the wire is very important, we have noticed that the wire must not interact with the main E-Field generated by the Cupola/Sphere apparatus. Thus the wire path must be connected as shown in the diagram.
When an electrostatic pulse was generated, the Elpex V2.0 started quickly to move from left to right.
After ten synchronized pulses ( made with the spark gap lever of the Wimshurst generator ), the Elpex deviation was up to 39 mm wide with a period of 2 sec.
The direction of the force was the same as indicated by Patrick Cornille. If the phase of the pulse generated was inversed, the oscillation stopped quickly. Thus this confirm that a thrust was generated only in one direction.
After this first experiment we have tried :
Today, it seems that this configuration give us the best deviation of the device.
Download the complete VIDEO DEMONSTRATION of the ELPEX V2.0 Experiment in Real Video file, ( if you don't have the RealPlayer 5.0, you may download it freely at : http://www.real.com/50/index.htm )
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