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Kelvin Electrostatic Generator



Greetings;

I have a student that is trying to get a Kelvin generator to work. He
has followed all of the directions that we could find and still no
voltage out.

Does anyone have any experience with this device?

We are using 1 lb coffee cans mounted on a sheet of plywood and insulated
from the board with 1.5 cm thick plastic blocks. THe cans are mounted
to the plastic blocks with epoxy. The water is isolated from the cans
and is controled individually by screw clamps on rubber tubing coming
from a 'T' fitting going to the cold water supply.

We have tried to pre-charge the system with a Van de Graaff generator.
While the VDG is connected, we notice the expected spray of the water
stream caused by the e-field. Once the VDG is removed, everything
returns to the same ground potential.

I have checked the possibility of a conductive path between two or more
of the cans and can not find one.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.



petel@tenet.edu

Pete Lohstreter "The first rule of intelligent
North Garland High School tinkering is to save all the parts."
Physics Department Aldo Leopold
2109 Buckingham
Garland, TX 75042