This picture was taken after all of the testing had been done. The device in the meantime had become bent on one side, visible here.
The pvc frame rocks on its pivots as force is generated by high voltage to the rings. The magnet sitting in the lower position would normally be opposite the other one on the other side of the copper sheet. As lift is generated, the frame moves, but is dampened in its oscillations by the dragging force of copper through a magnetic field. That "stills" it, so a reading of its angle of deflection (vs voltage) can be read. (Only one of the magnets are in place in this picture).
The reading is taken by the laser dot on a wall about fifty feet away. The distance provides for an expanded scale (more accurate readings). As you can hopefully see, the mirror rotates with the frame, deflecting the laser beam accordingly.
I would like to point out that this contraption was built as an initial version. I usually figure on running something a second time with everything improved and rebuilt. In this case, I observed such little amount of force that it became very clear to me that mere ion wind is not enough to lift a craft of any serious importance.
It was pretty educational though, and cleared up some misconceptions, and also made it clear to me that the people who make (or made) those silly claims were operating on theory and what they thought would make sense, or were told, not from real world observation. i.e. It always wants to move toward the smaller ring, whatever the polarity.
Tests were made with different gaps between the rings at one centimeter gradiants, between one centimeter apart and their maximum (something like 11 cm or so).
