Electrostatic motors are now common in MEMS applications, but researchers at the University of Wisconsin and spinoff C-Motive Technologies have brought macroscale electrostatic motors back.

For [Nathann]’s Hackaday Prize entry, he’s building electrostatic actuators on the cheap, and not just tiny ones, either. He’s building ‘human’ scale electrostatic devices. The reason ...

An electrostatic loudspeaker uses a thin plastic diaphragm residing between two perforated metal sheets (the grids or stator plates). The audio signal is applied to the grids out of phase.