"new" speaker idea

"major university"?? Why then do you have trouble naming it ?:-)

_I_ don't have any problem pointing out that I am a graduate of MIT ;-)

You are a jerk of the infinite order. Don't go away mad, just go away.

...Jim Thompson

I'd like to know how you aquired 8 years of education in mathematics and physics, but seemed to have missed all the basics in English grammar and spelling...

If I understand correctly, you have a concentric arrangement of center electrode, insulation, ionised gas, insulating balloon skin and outer electrode.

The assumption is that by applying a potential difference between inner and outer electrode, you will apply a force to the individual charged atoms.

This will create a pressure gradient which will affect the pressure at the skin and thus cause the balloon to shrink or expand.

Is this summary correct?

From my rudimentary understanding of physics, this looks OK in theory.

I have the suspicion that you may have to 'refresh' your ionised gas on a regular basis.

The outer electrode does not need to be in contact with the balloon.

You may want to add the plasticity of the balloon material to the list of your problems. The balloons I know would expand much faster than they contract.

Kind regards,

Iwo

And the fact is that I never said this s*it would work and thats why I asked. The problem is that to many of you think you are experts on everything and don't know s*it. It might be the case that there will be to much leakage current with any materials and any insulation. It might be the case it would require to high of a voltage to operate. It might be the case that any known gas will escape the elastic material. But the fact of the matter is that none of you really have a clue. You just know specific instances where it won't work and use that as an argument against it not working at all. You do this because your a dumbass and, I suppose, maybe its your ego involved. Instead of given facts you give speculation and treat it as fact. Show me some real facts and maybe I'll listen... hell that is what I asked for and not the bs you and your buddies poop out your mouths(and not all that have posted like as immature as you and your buddies(and I know you will say I'm the immature one but _go ahead)).

What you guys(those that I'm bitching at) don't realize is that there are two aspects to a problem. The first is a theoretical basis. If the problem is not theoretically feesible then there is no point in continuing. The next part is the practical aspects. The problem here, and as a so called engineer, you should realize that if it works theoretically then it works practically. Its just a matter of finding the right method to implement it. Now maybe other reasons why it becomes impractical but if it works theoretically then it works. It doesn't matter if you think it won't work because you are not a f****ng expert.... so stop trying to act like one. There are only a few people in this NG who deserve the title expert and fortunately you are not one of them.

Now, if you have some practical experience with similar problematic areas of this idea then its fine to state them... but just because it didn't work for you in some instance doesn't mean it won't work for anyone else. You really need to get over your big fat ass ego as one day it might end up getting you hurt.(and no, thats not a threat)

Instead of saying s*it like "It won't work", if you want to say something then atleast say something that is useful. Like "AFAIK there exists no insulating material that could keep y your charged gas from becoming uncharged in a few milliseconds" or something like that. Instead you bullshit because you really don't know the answer but think you must know everything and so you have to say something.

Anyways, enough of your bs... get a life. If you don't have any constructive criticsm then don't say anything at all. I guess though you never were taught that?

You're right. It just doesn't add up.

Gawd, where to begin THIS time?

Electrons are NOT a "charged gas," unless you are talking about some hypothetical collection of free electrons in space. Electrons don't behave in any way as a "gas" in normal conduction. The only place I can think of where you come across electrons actually out wandering around in space all by their lonesome, in everyday life, would be, say, the electron beam in a CRT. Note that what is within that CRT otherwise is a pretty darn good vacuum (and one has to wonder why THAT is), and that said beam is very carefully controlled both electrostatically and electromagnetically to get it to do anything useful. What do you think happens within such a device if you turn off those controlling fields? Do you think this has any relevance to what you are (supposedly) thinking about here? Can you imagine a container full of such charged particles (not necessarily electrons, but any charged atomic-sized particles you like, such that you might think of it as a "gas") where the pressure is anything approaching an atmosphere? Can you describe how this collection of particles would appear, or how it would behave?

You might be well advised to do the same. After reading said book, it would also be a VERY good idea to get some practical experience in the field to give you a more...well, shall we say "visceral" understanding of what it is you're talking about here? Be sure to wear your safety glasses and have a box of Band-Aids handy for your owies, too...

Bob M.

I believe the word you're grasping for here is "you're," a contraction of "you are." Also, the phrase is "COULDN'T care less" - if one COULD care less about something, this implies that they care about it to some degree.

"Their." You're welcome. And I am afraid the rest of us have no responsibility for your chosen method of learning.

No, this started out with some very patient and polite suggestions that you possibly didn't understand the situation nearly well enougn, given that you did not see the flaws in your original suggestion. At that point, YOU are one who started screaming that others were calling you "stupid," and slinging other similar (but often mis-spelled) insults around. This is not exactly the sort of behavior that one might expect will get you a lot of helpful answers in response to your questions.

You have been at the very least pointed to several aspects of your idea where, with a bit more thought, study, and/or experience in the field, you would also see that there IS no "way around it." Things simply do not behave the way you seem to think they behave. (Hint: a lot of the difficulty centers around your assumption of a "charged gas" at atmospheric pressures. Don't just whine that you're being picked on about that, actually go DO THE MATH and see what results you get.)

Wrong. What you fail to understand is that you have asked a question about what, to many of the people in the forums to which you've addressed it, are some very fundamental concepts, things that they have a great deal of not only "book learning" but also direct experience in. If you ask an aeronautical engineer about an idea you've had for constructing an 800-foot-long aircraft out of concrete, with 3-foot wings and powered by an old VW bug engine, this is not a matter of that idea "simply not being completely thought out yet" - to that person experienced in the field, it is simply an absurdity, something that is obvously an impossibility on the face of it, and your receiving a response of "it's impossible, go study some more!" should not be entirely unexpected. Do you think something at least a LITTLE like that just MIGHT have happened here? Is there at least a POSSIBILITY that this would be the case? (If not, you are claiming that you are CERTAIN your idea is possible and will work - but if so, you should be able to show why this is so in the face of the criticism you have already heard. That you have not been able to do this suggests that you are, in fact, NOT capable of demonstrating this.)

Again, you missed (by a wide margin, apparently) what others definitely understood as a joke.

Bob M.

I think you guys may have missed a later missive from Mr. Slaughter where these "eight years" were explained. Turns out he's apparently got a bachelor's in math and along the way did three years of undergrad physics. Must've been one of those programs where basic grammar/communications skills weren't stressed. When WILL the colleges figure out that those of us who are looking to hire new engineers would REALLY like them to be able to express themselves coherently?

Anyway - the bottom line is that he's got a math degree and apparently zero real-world experience. As if that wasn't obvious enough at this point...

Bob M.

Charged Gas University, of course. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Ohh! Oooh! Was it the Polytechnical Institute for Pluralizing with Apostrophe's?

Well, if you didn't think they think they are experts, why bother asking them??????????

increase the mass of the diaphram and you lose responsiveness in the loudspeaker. use an ineslastic coating and everything stops working.

I'm picturing something like an ion wind that's stopped blowing. I guess that'd be a dilute charged gas... it seems to me that the ions might be very reactive (chemically) and I can't see what they add to the setup

We have an apostrophe police department ... and they ticket for a missing apostrophe as well.

Well...a DC bias can be used to *repel*, and might be useful to center the ballon around the sphere. Also, that bias will have the imposed AC audio signal to vary that force for moving the ballon surface in and out to generate sound like any planar electrostatic speaker does. So...the basic concept appears to have merit - the devil is in the details for possible practicality.

Hello All,

There is such a lot of noise in this thread that I may be repeating something already mentioned - if so then I'm sorry for wasting even more bandwidth.

The OP could learn a good deal about how to really do it by checking out

Michael Kellett

Depends what you mean by 'works'. Ionised air streaming from a charged needle is not hot.