Capacitive coupling calculations

Hi,

I'm doing a school project which involves capacitive coupling. I believe I have gotten really far, but I need some help with the calculations.
I have scavenged the power circuit driver of a plasma ball. And I have made capacitive plates using aluminiumfoil.
I am getting a voltage that is around 2500V at 26kHz. My capacitive plates are 30 cm apart and they both have a surface of around 0.09m². This should give me a capacitance of 2.655 pF. At the other end I have a rectifying bridge (4x IN4007). Which gives me 70 V at 0.04 Amps. This is what my setup looks like:
**broken link removed**
Sorry, I have an arm ache so my paint skills aren't really impressive

1 Weird thing is that it isn't a closed circuit, but it does seem to work because of the high frequencies. Another is that the current seems to change before and after the capacitor. My driver is using about 6W of power from the wall. the circuit transforms this to 2500V which should give me about 2mA of current. How come I get 40mA after the capacitor? Does the diode transform some of the voltage into current, and are my diodes actually fast enough to rectify the 26kHz???

I have calculated that the reactance of the capacitors is about 2.2MΩ. Wouldn't I need a resistance to actually get some power going, but just with the diodes I actually get a reading of 70V. I am also able to power LED's (which does include a resistor ofcourse) with this. I was wondering how this can work?

So could someone explain to me what is going on? I think it might have something to do with the electric field (F= (q*q)/(4Πεr²)). But how can I figure out the charges on each plate? And could this be the solution? Help would be nice

All help is welcome, I am still willing to put some time into this.

Sorry, your attachment appears to have expired. Try the 'Add an Image' button, it's reliable and straightforward.

At the voltages you describe, there is a certain amount of coronal effect. This could cause unexpected current draw, even if not much. I have not worked with this kind of setup, so I could be wrong.

I hope this works...

Shouldn't there be a glow with an coronal effect? I can't see any of it. And the current also seems to be fairly stable...

Your diagram is visible.

Wireless power transfer is a popular project, although your method is different from most who try to do it via coils of wire.

Coronal effect in the home lab is usually small-scale. The ionizing effect tends to disperse into the air rather than being concentrated visibly as a spark or plasma stream. A sharp wire end may provide a visible display.

What you have achieved is remarkable. You may want to try a few tests, to determine which principles of energy transfer are at work here. There could be more than one involved, including electric field, magnetic field, electromagnetic (photons), hi-kHz static charge, coronal, etc. (The magnetic field might come from your power supply rather than the capacitor plate.)

I am certainly not an expert on the subject. There are several readers who may reply yet.