Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
My first thought with the howling intake, was that the high voltage lead was finding a new path to ground. There is no voltage without a path to ground. So, either it was doing nothing, or he was running whatever voltage through the filter, through his engine block, and possible through all of the sensors attached to it.
|
Ionizers work by supplying a sharp electrode with somewhere between 10 000 and 20 000 negative volts.
(around 1000 volts per mm of air gap to be jumped to a neutral, relatively positive, rounded electrode. Any higher and you get a hot, high amps/power, spark or plasma, rather than a low power/amp, ion discharge)
The sharp - electrode means there's a much higher charge/electron density vs the +, for the same voltage so you get a flow, through air, of electrons and/or - air ions they impart momentum and charge to, toward the +/neutral electrode.
In his case there was no positive.
But one might well assume that the air rushing past the sharp electrodes/brushes full of electrons would collect some negative charge.
When the electrons are all in the filter's metal grate which is touching the filter paper; what happens..?
Remember that at 10 000+ volts you're into static electricity territory where insulators (even air) don't 'resist' as usual.
Air, as a rule, is slightly positively charged, and electrons don't give a damn about boundary layer,
so there may be some helping air through the filter..?
Now if the filter and/or intake air is damp; is it possible that the high potential difference could cause some H2 and O2 to be formed..???
No one is playing with high speed (ads energy etc)
vapour electrolysis where any H+'s and OH-'s have much less chance of recombining, wasting half your input power...
If there was a short between his -10 000 volts and earth I would guess that the very low amp electrics of the ionizer would burn out before any fuse blew. (fuses require high amps to fuse)
Even if you could avoid 'Earth' and run high volts through sensors; the thing controlling rpm's is a throttle butterfly, mechanically linked to your right foot..