Testing for false positives on my DIY Mach Effect device (DMED) is important because it is possible there is some other phenomenon causing this apparent Mach Effect force. By reversing all the configuration constraints it will become obvious because the force will switch with the problem should it exist. The plots in the previous blog used a stack with the large mass having positive polarity. To eliminate polarity and direction, I switched to a stack with negative polarity on the large mass end and rotated the stack 180 degrees. (Later I’ll show the result of doing only the rotation.)

Figure 10. Fifty point average response for DMED with ~0.5s, 616 kHz drive. The stack has negative polarity on the large mass end, which is also facing west and measured on the west end with laser pointing north . Error bars represent +/- 1.0 sigma.

Figure 10 shows the results for this example, still measuring on the west end with laser pointing north. Response, in blue, is the average of 50 runs and the drive voltage is in red. As before, when first energized, the response drops, this time to -40 mV. This is not thrust, it is mainly caused by crosstalk in the PicoScope which is now corrected.(This effect is confirmed in Figure 11). When the PzC expands the stack center of mass shifts very slightly toward the PzC causing the stack to rebalance very slightly toward the large mass end. Since I’m now measuring on the large mass end, that causes the photo detector output to drop very slightly. That effect is true but the major portion of the change was due the crosstalk. The opposite happens when the power is turned off and the PzC collapses to its original dimension. The crosstalk does not minimize what happened between those two events when the stack is vibrating at 616 kHz. The response went down from -40mV to -58 mV between 1.4 s and 2.0 s. That -18 mV toward the large mass is real thrust because the stack immediately begins oscillating. The thrust is less than in Figure 8 and the sigma’s are larger. There is considerable variation from one test to next and each stack has a different response curve; however, the forces always remain consistent regardless of the change. One of my goals for the future is to reduce this variation.

Figure 11. Fifty point average response for DMED with ~13 VDC drive. The stack has negative polarity on the large mass end, which is also facing west and measured on the west end with laser pointing north .

In order to confirm that the PzC expansion does not cause thrust, the previous test was run again with the signal generator de-energized. Figure 11 is the averaged result of 50 runs showing the -40 mV change for the duration of the drive with DC voltage only. After the drive de-energizes the stack is barely moving for the remaining ~4.0 seconds. The oscillation is now less than 1.0 mV p-p and when compared with the 27 mV p-p oscillation of Figure 10, the crosstalk problem, the PzC expansion and collapse is not causing significant thrust (With the crosstalk corrected these tests will be rerun later.) Later I’ll show that the force is toward the small mass when the device can operate close to the PzC resonance.

This continues to suggesting that the Mach Effect is actually driving the stack or there is some other unknown something causing the stack to swing so consistently. As before  let me know other error modes or suggestions that come to mind. Until next time, thanks for viewing. – Larry