Ten generations of physical exotic-thrust prototypes built between spring 2024 and today: waterjet-cut electrode stacks, PTFE and Kartit dielectrics, high-voltage lab campaigns, a vacuum chamber, and — in progress — fused-silica containment. Every entry below is grounded in real CAD files, purchase records, and photos. The most important result so far is a well-documented artifact, and that is reported just as loudly as any thrust would have been.
Context framing
Prototype archive: this page documents real builds, purchases, and measurements — not validated propulsion results.
Context includes public patent filings (Hector Serrano’s US6492784B1, the U.S. Navy filings associated with Salvatore Pais) and related replication efforts such as the Becker & Bhatt capacitor-thruster work.
Claims in source materials are treated as hypotheses to test, not as established engineering facts.
Every apparent thrust signal is treated as an instrumentation artifact until it survives orientation flips, shielding, and repeat runs.
Prototype discipline
Prioritize conservation laws and measurable outputs before discussing performance narratives.
Separate patent language from reproducible experimental protocol.
Rotate the device and re-measure: any “thrust” that disappears when the device lies on its side was never thrust.
Track failure cases explicitly so the prototype archive does not drift into overclaiming.
How this line of research got here
2014–2015
The EM Drive rabbit hole opens: Shawyer’s cavity claims and Dr. Mike McCulloch’s quantized-inertia models start the whole line of inquiry.
2021
Correspondence with Dr. McCulloch, who personally introduces the project to IVO Ltd to discuss reproducing their capacitor thrust test.
2023
Magnetron era: asymmetric metal cavities driven by a 1000 W magnetron, with custom heat-resistant and argon-filled glass vessels made for the experiments. No relevant thrust observed. An attempt to reach Salvatore Pais through a podcast interviewer goes unanswered.
2024–2025
SCQ-01 through SCQ-09: the Serrano-patent capacitor line — from the first aluminum electrode pair to potted 200 kV-class builds, mu-metal shielding, and a vacuum chamber.
Apr 2025
Correspondence with Hector Serrano: the patent is confirmed expired, and the corrected no-thrust finding is shared back openly.
Sep–Dec 2025
Exchange with Field Propulsion Technologies (Richard Banduric); a stack of extended-electrodynamics papers arrives and becomes homework.
2026
SCQ-10: fused-silica containment RFQs — the next build waits on quartz.
Magnetron-era relic: a spun-aluminum asymmetric cavity from the 2023 experiments that preceded the SCQ numbering.
Measured outcomes — the honest ledger
Magnetron-driven asymmetric cavities (2023): no relevant thrust observed. Logged and moved on.
Serrano-style capacitor stacks at roughly 20 kV DC: apparent weight reduction of 12–22% on devices from 200 g to over 500 g, and up to ~600 g of apparent thrust — the latter only during voltage breakdowns.
The artifact: the crane-scale dynamometer turned out to be influenced by the electric field itself. With the device turned on its side, the “thrust” vanished. Verdict after eight prototypes: no verified thrust; anything real is at most milli-newtons and remains unresolved.
Standing practice since then: measure in multiple orientations, treat every meter as a suspect, and record null results as results.
The suspect itself: the crane-scale dynamometer whose readings were bent by the electric field.An SC-Q4 unit suspended from the crane scale at the base of a high-voltage test transformer during a lab campaign.
First hardware pass at the Serrano-style asymmetric capacitor: a pair of 20 cm aluminum disc electrodes with printed carrier parts, built to get a real device on the bench instead of arguing with patent prose.
Build & fabrication
Two 20 cm aluminum electrode profiles (A/B) waterjet-cut from DXF drawings; carrier geometry printed from STL models.
Recut in the winter batch after a dimensioning error in one drawing was caught and owned up to.
Outcome: Established the loop every later generation reuses: draw, cut, assemble, weigh, log. No thrust claim — the point was a working build pipeline.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-02
Summer 2024
SCQ-02 · Copper Web Electrodes
Conductor-material experiment: the same electrode topology cut as spoked “web” discs from thin copper sheet, paired with polyimide film dielectrics.
Build & fabrication
Eight A + eight B electrodes cut from a 0.3 mm copper sheet — thin enough that the cutting shop warned about edge quality.
Webs laid over polyimide (kapton) film; surface coatings brushed on by hand during assembly.
Copper web electrodes for SCQ-02 — one bare, one being surface-treated over polyimide film.
Outcome: The copper webs were delicate to handle at this thickness; later generations returned to stiffer aluminum plate for the main electrodes.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-03
Sep–Oct 2024
SCQ-03 · Measured Drawing Set
The “m” (measured) revision: the first fully dimensioned drawing set, so parts could be manufactured and reproduced without guesswork about what was actually built.
Build & fabrication
SCQ3m component drawings (C1A, C1B, C2) at 2:1 scale — 150 × 124 mm plates with section views, 0.5 mm features, and per-region thickness maps from +1 to +6 mm.
PTFE dielectric discs up to 39 cm diameter cut for the stack alongside the aluminum electrode pairs.
Outcome: The measured-drawing discipline stuck: every later generation exists as DXF/DWG/STEP files that go straight to the cutting shop.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-04
Oct–Nov 2024
SCQ-04 · The 20 kV Bench
The generation that produced the headline apparent effect: a bolted electrode stack (lab designation SC-Q4) tested on the bench and at a university high-voltage lab with the help of two PhD students.
Build & fabrication
Aluminum electrode pairs plus PTFE interlayers, two pieces cut per model; V4 drawing set.
Assembled stack weighs about 3 kg on the bench scale; test runs at roughly 20 kV DC.
The SC-Q4 electrode stack on the bench scale — 3012 g before a test run.
Outcome: Apparent weight reduction of 12–22% on devices in the 200–500+ g class — until orientation flips and meter checks reclassified it as an instrumentation artifact (see Measured outcomes above).
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-05
Late 2024 · unbuilt
SCQ-05 · The Missing Number
No CAD files, drawings, purchase records, or photos survive for a standalone SCQ-05. Its plans appear to have been absorbed directly into the SCQ-06 batch build.
Build & fabrication
Documented as a gap on purpose: the archive records what was actually built, not a tidied-up sequence.
Outcome: Kept as-is rather than backfilled — renumbering history would defeat the point of keeping a logbook.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-06
Nov–Dec 2024
SCQ-06 · Scaled Batch Build
Scale-up of the SCQ-04 recipe into a six-unit electrode batch with thicker structural backing, so devices could be compared against each other instead of tested one-off.
Build & fabrication
Six A + six B aluminum electrodes; PTFE interlayers in 0.5 mm and 1 mm thicknesses; V5-series drawings.
4 mm Kartit (Pertinax) board as the structural plate; a follow-up batch added 35 cm and 30 cm PTFE discs.
Sector-cut aluminum electrodes bonded into printed carrier rings during batch assembly.
Outcome: Batch building made side-by-side comparisons possible for the artifact hunt — a prerequisite for trusting any small signal.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-07
Feb–Mar 2025
SCQ-07 · Thin Dural Revision
Weight-reduction pass: electrode geometry recut from 1 mm dural (aluminum alloy) sheet, with cast negative molds for potted assemblies and better magnetic hygiene on the bench.
Build & fabrication
Waterjet run: 4× SCQ7-A, 2× SCQ7-BB, 2× SCQ7-BT from 1 mm dural; a revised “i” geometry followed within a month.
Printed negative molds (SA/SB) for casting; mu-metal mesh added to the test setup for magnetic shielding.
Outcome: Lighter devices sharpened the signal-to-artifact question — the smaller the device mass, the bigger a stray force error looks.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-08
Apr 2025
SCQ-08 · 200 kV Insulation Build
The go-big generation: much thicker insulation targeting operation above 200 kV AC with half-wave rectification, in the hope that any real effect scales with field strength.
Build & fabrication
Four drawing-set revisions in a single month; top and bottom electrode plates cut as separate profiles.
Electrodes potted in thick cast insulation inside printed ring frames; a benchtop vacuum chamber joined the lab the same spring.
A spoked electrode potted in thick cast insulation — the SCQ-08 approach to surviving 200 kV-class fields.
Outcome: The stated bar at the time: enough verified thrust to push a small floating platform. That bar has not been met.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-09
May–Jun 2025
SCQ-09 · Pointed Cathode & Containment
Geometry change: a pointed cathode inside a containment vessel, moving from open electrode stacks toward enclosed, vacuum-capable test volumes.
Build & fabrication
Pointed-cathode and container designed as STEP assemblies.
Acrylic vacuum-chamber parts cut from 5 mm sheet — four 32 cm discs and eight 30/28 cm rings — plus two 27 cm discs from 1 mm aluminum; HV feedthrough cabling added.
Outcome: The enclosed geometry is the platform the SCQ-10 quartz work is designed for: same field, fewer places for artifacts to hide.
Exotic Thrust Prototype Notes · SCQ-10
2026 · in progress
SCQ-10 · Quartz Containment
Moving the HV stress path from polymers to fused silica: RFQ-grade drawings for quartz components that can sit inside the field without tracking, voids, or slow polymer damage.
Build & fabrication
Spec drawings: a 1000 mm diameter × 10 mm quartz disc, or a rectangular quartz tube 70 × 60 × 600 mm with 10 mm walls and rounded corners.
Requirements: at least 3N purity, ground finish, and no visible bubbles, voids, or cracks in the HV stress path.
Outcome: Quotes are in from specialist suppliers; the build is currently gated on cost, with a smaller manually-fused version under consideration.
Provenance & correspondence
The claims this archive tests come from real people, most of whom answered emails. Private exchanges are paraphrased from this lab’s side only.
Hector Serrano — patent US6492784B1
Direct correspondence (2025). The patent is expired and free to build on; the corrected no-thrust finding from this lab was shared back openly. Serrano’s newer spacecraft-field-effect work continues under a separate company.
Dr. Mike McCulloch — quantized inertia
Early guidance and long-running influence; shared his paper on the Becker & Bhatt capacitor result and made the introduction to IVO Ltd (2021).
Richard Banduric — Field Propulsion Technologies
Correspondence (2025). Sent a reading list of extended-electrodynamics papers arguing that conventional electromagnetics is the wrong lens; working through it is ongoing.
Exodus Propulsion — Dr. Charles Buhler
Outreach (2025) describing the experiments with full disclosure of the dynamometer artifact.
Salvatore Pais — U.S. Navy patent filings
Literature only. A 2023 attempt to make contact through a podcast interviewer was forwarded but never answered.
Becker & Bhatt — capacitor thruster experiments
Related replication target: the Serrano line belongs to the same family of asymmetric-capacitor thrust claims.
