The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago Had a Wimshurst machine with glass disks about six (6) foot in diameter and a 12 inch spark gap.. They kept it chained up and would demonstrate it by request, once a day. Like your's but on steroids. They also had a transformer and capacitor set up with alternating current producing 1 million volt lighting. It would split pieces of railroad tie and made deafening thunder. I do not know if they still have these on display. Haven't been to Chicago in 30 years. Spent many a day cutting school at Science and Industry.
In 1968 our physics teacher and our yr12 highschool class built one of these. The teacher had this on the big desk in the lab and he fired up the motor and the lights dimmed. We should have seen danger but you don't at age 17. Anyway, the first demo was with the terminals about 4" apart and he got a good thick spark. Time to crank the terminals out to 8". The motor was screaming and suddenly, instead of jumping across the terminals, the left terminal jumped onto his left hand and the other onto his right. This was "back to the future stuff". It all happened so fast but the teacher, Maggots we called him, was shaking and screaming. It was like Dracula's lab. One of the students raced over and unplugged the drive motor. Maggots then fell down between the desk and the blackboard. There was this smoking and sizzling from behind the desk. At this point another teacher rushed into the room and we got maggots from behind the desk and lay him on the floor. He was smoking. All the hair on his arms and chest was smouldering. The current had flowed up the arms and across his chest. What to do? Give mouth to mouth to maggots? No takers. He then opened his eyes and said, "see boys, it will jump 8". He was in hospital for 2 days but now he was a legend, with the other teachers too. It's my favourite memory of school.
First great work, second I believe you have one point wrong; the skin effect only applies at high frequency, the probes you point to connect directly to the Layden Jars-therefore DC. To increase spark, you could create bigger jars, reduce jar width, increase plate area, also increasing the ball size would increase storage (as spheres act like a capacitor to high voltage). I would be polishing all metal conductors to prevent ionic losses- remove sharp edges and so on. Those washes at the top of the jars-bad idea-very lossy. Loved your video; thanks for sharing!.
I'm so impressed by this machine and its creator, along with the technical comments below, even though I don't understand a thing you're all talking about!! (%\) Thank God for your technical minds!!!!
What can it do? Why, anything lightning can do. Which is quite a bit. According to Mark Twain - "The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." You don't suppose that you could... sort of...
On a massive scale I believe it could create an abundance of nitrogen in the air. In turn that nitrogen helps things to grow on earth. Now I am wondering if this could be adapted over individual lawns and gardens to help them grow.
If Tesla was right and we live in an electric universe, then those stills at the end kinda make me think Planet & Sun. Fascinating. Thanks for posting.
Amazing stuff there Mr Teslonian!!! Now how do you regulate the voltage to be useful at 120 volts, and why build a machine that makes that much energy when your audience would be better suited to build a smaller one that could power their homes??? Wouldn't that be more practical and useful??? Ingenious stuff for sure, now all we need is a version that could power your home!!!!
What would the discharge look like if it was through different gasses? If it was through a stream of Argon or Helium gas. would the discharge change colour or direction? It always amazes me it does not take the shortest route but ionises a jagged path? Why is this? Is air made up of varying ratios of gasses? Maybe air is not as thoroughly mixed together as we think but has pockets of oxygen and nitrogen?
I have not heard any reasonable explanation of why lightning is jagged, but we see the same patterns on earth when looking above at rivers, of course trees, roots.
2.5" refer tubing gives excellent results but b sure to use the "red" fiberglass board from transformers instead of the wood which draws and holds moisture ( all of which can b had cheaply at the local junkyard), also tempered glass table tops from cheap walmart backyard tables work excellent for your stator
If I was you, I would connect a Piece of neon sign.. it would light really nice! and the discharge will be much more even... really nice work young man....
If you put a funnel pointed at the spark, and run a conducting wire straight up, you have a DIY spark-gap AM radio station. You speak into the funnel while it's sparking, and the sound waves will heterodyne on the radio wave you are producing with that generator.
.....iteresti g about static travelling along surface only , it makes sense . Very high frequency across also travels along surface of conductors also. Litz wire found in plates of induction heater stoves are litz wire. I have a feeling the litz wouldn't improve things much for static situation .
You could search old high frequency tube mill parts. The old ones with the oscillator tube used some really big capacitors. Most now use mosfets instead of the tube.
for an interesting effect try putting some rare earth magnets in the area of the spark gap, or drive a resonant circuit like a Tesla coil backwards step down and charge battery, etc...
You are correct about the electricity moving over the surface of the rod you are using. However, if you were to use stranded copper wire instead of the material you're using, you would have a far better conductor than a solid wire of the same diameter. because the multiple strands will have far more surface aria than a solid wire. as each strand will allow the electricity to move over it. That's one of the first things you learn in any basic electrical training course .
since static runs trough the surface wouldn't it be better off using copper pipes instead of wires? with pipes you got the service areas on the outside and inside of the pipe.
No two arcs are the same. It's almost like a natural oscilloscope between the two terminals - each instance of visible electricity exhibiting characteristics of the particular charge that impelled it. I'm a little out of my element here, but I'm willing to guess that the more precise or consistent the generation, the more predictable the waveform of the spark should be?
Just an idea and current technology should support this. Try using a metal 3D printer and making a copper spiral. If properly spaced this should maximize the surface area for the transfer to the capacitor bank. In addition to this you could also add additional capacitors in series or parallel (or both) to test the effectiveness in generation of your current and voltage.
how about using a 0gauge soft core wire splitted and taped around the rods in that way you will have a surface area inside and around each core of the splitted wire?
Gauss' Law is used to find the electric field strength when the charge is evenly distributed on or within an object such as a sphere, cylinder, or flat plane. Gauss law is the first step in understanding all four parts of Maxwell's equation. The next one I would read is Faraday's law, This will answer your question and help you understand the science better. The short answer is the edge of the tube were it rolls from inside to outside will create a point of loss and constantly leak charge as plasma, all sharp edges and points or ridges will create a point of loss.
Enjoying you vids wondering if you could not use plastic drain pipe with alarm tape wrapped around it, its not silver but its not bad either. With the feeder you have could also brighten up the surface layer then spray it down with lanolin. The old radio guys used to use silver because silver oxide has almost the same skin effect properties.
You need to get in touch with the slow mo guys or someone else that has access to high quality, high speed cameras yo really capture the glory of this! I been with a high resolution and high frame rate, every spark would be beautiful! I'd love to see that! Just the quick flashes you caught ate great but being able to watch the entire thing, stretched out into minutes for each spark, I could watch it for days... every spark would different and unique... this needs to happen!
+MrTeslonian I'm sure each one is unique so being able to watch these sparks form and the entirety of their existence would just be stellar! High speed camera tech is moving really fast, I'm sure you can find someone with access to one that would capture this good enough, I'd guess to really get exceptional footage you'd need an exception camera, but access to them is greater now than ever!
I guess you now know how Mr Tesla must have felt. Just a question,would it be possible to make a 2 million volt spark or higher? Also,how do you know this particular one is a million volts?
why hasn't anybody recreated the time machine chair from the movie... honestly that spinning disk is the basic means of the chairs electromagnetic field that allows the chair to levitate
That would do nothing and solve a problem that does not exist. Insulting the inside of a pipe from what? The electron flow is on the surface. Radio and microwave techs call it 'skinning'.
Pap Yota True. That is RF E/M field traveling down the guide. I would think that HV electron flow would skin the inside like the outside. But there may be a magnetic field or counter eddy currents generated blocking it. If it does work then you have effectively (cheaply) doubled your current flow capacity. Don't know. Drop a rare earth magnet down a copper pipe and see that counter currents and their generated magnetism causes the magnet to fall slow.
Good idea, In the end I built new discs made out of 1/4" and 1/2" Plexiglas. These were much less susceptible to temperature and had a higher kappa creating a more powerful machine. The next one is bigger and will take some time to build because it's cost is 4 times the smaller unit's, the one in the video cost $1,200 to make this one is going to be closer to 5 or 6 thousand by completion.
Ive noticed that the majority of the plates are made with aluminum foil or thin plates.Would it be feasible to use copper sheets or plates ,and silver coated wire to carry the charge to the capacitor bank? Im new to this machine and theory of air electric static charge.Any info is greatly welcome.Awesome homebuilt machine..
MrTeslonian, Do go to 1.00 inch solid stock, but flute it. 16 cuts lengthwise .25 inches into the surface should increase your surface area sufficiently. -Doc
After watching the video I became curious to know if changing the environment around the spark points, perhaps a vacuum, would the spark shape be more consistent, e.g. straighter?
Yes in a vacuum the spark acts very different in that in has nothing to inhibit it's trajectory or interact with electromagnetically based on there either positive or negative charge.
I love watching your videos. I don't know what this one was all about but it was still interesting. My questions is with all the tinkering you do...has your household benefited from any of it? Have you put any thing into a practical application? I really like your vids about ram pumps and trumpes. I can imagine all kinds of practical uses with this.
+MrTeslonian yes you are right. dealing with the perpendicular projection of the electric field, the rifiling would not work. I wonder though if there is not some possible work around that would limit the necessity of larger and larger rods.
Christopher Szymberski Stranded wire like a HV power line is able to provide surface area with limited loss. Carbon nano tubes hold a promising ability to carry charge based on they have more surface then internal volume.
+MrTeslonian Please may l ask, what is the precise mathematical definition of the relationship with surface area in this case? And what is the maximum effective surface area?
Is the spark using water and dust particles to jump across? just wondering. The charge needs the rod to travel through. So doesn't the spark need something as well?
Has anyone ever tried building these caps with various crystals as the dielectric? I believe stefen from ou said that the original was built with something like quartz crystals inside the caps but I may be mistaken. Also Bushman from lockheed said he did experiments showing crystals being conductive at higher voltages.
maybe use glass plate for capacitors? Could try putting foil on the face of a mirror. The reflective film against the glass is painted on it's back. I think the reflective material is probably a conductive metal.
The Royal Institution of Great Britain in London used to have on display a really huge Whimshurst machine. Is this the one built in 1885 and now at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry?
Thank you - my question was meant to be is the one in Chicago the one that was built in the UK in 1885, and previously housed at the Royal Institution? I remember seeing it there in the entrance hall about 18 years ago.
Not sure why, but the video was very difficult to watch. Red and Green colors, reflections, etc. Hard to tell what was going on. Vid quality was set on 1080p. I tried lower settings but no luck. ?
I'm trying to get it fixed, if you would try watching the video again and in the lower left corner of the screen see if it shows a 3D symbol in red? If it does click on it and change it to 2D then try and watch the film again this should get rid of the fuzzy red split, if you would let me know if that helps?
Stumbled upon your cool video again and see that I was hear last year and commented. If a larger rod is required, I suggested flat metal. Now I'm thinking why not use a pipe, if all you need is surface area. Instead of copper rod, why not copper pipe?
MrTeslonian - what camera (FPS) did you film the spark with to get the stills of the spark so clear and clean (at manifestation and connection)? If it is not a high speed (slow motion camera) - have you tried filming the spark with a Slow Motion camera? I am trying to film the spark on my Lord kelvin's Thunderstorm experiment. I get the spark on camera - but I am trying to get video / picture stills of the spark from manifestation through dissipation. Any suggestions without spending 1K on a camera?
Wonderful machine...super great job in design and development...i think the plexi-glass warp can be fixed...with dielectric holders...had you made the circumference a bit larger in plexi..then has room to add stabilizers in on the peripheral. Hey, but that's not what i came here to mention...can you find a "fused quartz" circular rod....or even natural quartz of with "length"...3"-6" to 9"....buddy you have no idea "how far" and how nice the spark would look riding on the surface of quartz. I think natural quartz is best...but sure would like to see fused quartz tube used too. Whatever your gap is now....it can be that plus almost the length of quartz....i don't know the exact distance...but it would be intense seeing that flame ride longer and bluer against quartz. Keep up the good work...love it.
didn't ben franklin make this wit a glass disc? it was smaller than the one you built but considering how heavy glass is and you were musing how to put a flywheel into the works maybe glass could work
Instead of using a larger tube for the conductors, use stranded wires, loosely separated. Don't waste so much space. The hollow tubes and pipes waste far too much space. Fine strand 4AWG works very well when flattened out.
This will teach you about a key law that governs the dispersal of electrons on a surface ruclips.net/video/vxasQBBlWmk/видео.html Please watch this 36 section course Lec 01: What holds our world together? | 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism, Spring 2002 (Walter Lewin) from what I feel was the greatest teach someone could have, don't give up stay through the full course and it will teach you more about electricity than all your standard electrician classes will ever get close to! ruclips.net/video/Lx64cq0HeXY/видео.html link to section one enjoy!
Charles Medlock, High voltage follows the path of least resistance which is not always a straight line. If fact it seems to never be a straight line. High voltage does weird spooky stuff.
Just be careful with it. Historically, gifted inventors and physicists have been killed by high voltage machinery. Tesla nearly died of electrocution, and one of his assistants did die when an x-ray tube exploded. A dutch physicist killed his technician with a 6 foot wimhurst machine made of glass. The output was in the tens of millions of volts, if not higher. The x-ray tube exploded because Tesla ran too much power through it.
I have been snapped from the residuals trapped in the dielectric hard enough to black me out and put my neck and shoulder out for some time ( even after fully discharging the very large sections of plexi act's like a plasma battery and will slowly leak out it's charge into the capacitor bank). The Marx generator bank this was hooked to in the end, will no doubt kill if someone was to get to close. I don't play around or have company because of the safety issues of the machines in and around my place
I built a smaller wimshurst machine and when my spart gap gets too large it begins to arc between the comb and the sectors. Any idea why? Cool vid by the way.
If the charge runs on the surface why don't you use copper pipe instead of grounding rod? It would probably be much cheaper. even if you had to fill it with something like - Saltwater or brass coated "B.Bs"
The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago Had a Wimshurst machine with glass disks about six (6) foot in diameter and a 12 inch spark gap.. They kept it chained up and would demonstrate it by request, once a day. Like your's but on steroids.
They also had a transformer and capacitor set up with alternating current producing 1 million volt lighting. It would split pieces of railroad tie and made deafening thunder.
I do not know if they still have these on display. Haven't been to Chicago in 30 years. Spent many a day cutting school at Science and Industry.
use fine strand wire..carries multiple surface area charge.
4/0 strand welding cable should do the trick.
The first part I need to build my 1960 H.G. Wells time machine!
Anyone in your neighborhood trying to listen to a AM radio probably hates your guts right about now!
im very new to this stuff! how does the electrostatic generator effect am frequencies?
The Human race needs you...You are the Wonderman from Atlantis...All the best...Rio
In 1968 our physics teacher and our yr12 highschool class built one of these. The teacher had this on the big desk in the lab and he fired up the motor and the lights dimmed. We should have seen danger but you don't at age 17. Anyway, the first demo was with the terminals about 4" apart and he got a good thick spark. Time to crank the terminals out to 8". The motor was screaming and suddenly, instead of jumping across the terminals, the left terminal jumped onto his left hand and the other onto his right. This was "back to the future stuff". It all happened so fast but the teacher, Maggots we called him, was shaking and screaming. It was like Dracula's lab. One of the students raced over and unplugged the drive motor. Maggots then fell down between the desk and the blackboard. There was this smoking and sizzling from behind the desk. At this point another teacher rushed into the room and we got maggots from behind the desk and lay him on the floor. He was smoking. All the hair on his arms and chest was smouldering. The current had flowed up the arms and across his chest. What to do? Give mouth to mouth to maggots? No takers. He then opened his eyes and said, "see boys, it will jump 8". He was in hospital for 2 days but now he was a legend, with the other teachers too. It's my favourite memory of school.
Could you place a cup full of fine si sand between the shock path. See if it fuses the sand grains together
First great work, second I believe you have one point wrong; the skin effect only applies at high frequency, the probes you point to connect directly to the Layden Jars-therefore DC.
To increase spark, you could create bigger jars, reduce jar width, increase plate area, also increasing the ball size would increase storage (as spheres act like a capacitor to high voltage).
I would be polishing all metal conductors to prevent ionic losses- remove sharp edges and so on. Those washes at the top of the jars-bad idea-very lossy.
Loved your video; thanks for sharing!.
I'm so impressed by this machine and its creator, along with the technical comments below, even though I don't understand a thing you're all talking about!! (%\)
Thank God for your technical minds!!!!
it's nice getting to binge all the videos at once. great work!
i just looked at the rest of your videos, brilliant man.
Black pvc is colored with carbon making it semi-conductive. May want to switch to white for the caps,
What can it do? Why, anything lightning can do. Which is quite a bit. According to Mark Twain - "The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." You don't suppose that you could... sort of...
On a massive scale I believe it could create an abundance of nitrogen in the air. In turn that nitrogen helps things to grow on earth. Now I am wondering if this could be adapted over individual lawns and gardens to help them grow.
Air is already 70% nitrogen.
Static electricity is awesome.
If Tesla was right and we live in an electric universe, then those stills at the end kinda make me think Planet & Sun.
Fascinating.
Thanks for posting.
Interesting observation in that you relate the sun as a cathode and the earth or planets as anodes.
Amazing stuff there Mr Teslonian!!! Now how do you regulate the voltage to be useful at 120 volts, and why build a machine that makes that much energy when your audience would be better suited to build a smaller one that could power their homes??? Wouldn't that be more practical and useful??? Ingenious stuff for sure, now all we need is a version that could power your home!!!!
Cool. In freeze frame you can see (for lack of a better term) "leader" sparks reaching out, before the main discharge.
What would the discharge look like if it was through different gasses? If it was through a stream of Argon or Helium gas. would the discharge change colour or direction? It always amazes me it does not take the shortest route but ionises a jagged path? Why is this? Is air made up of varying ratios of gasses? Maybe air is not as thoroughly mixed together as we think but has pockets of oxygen and nitrogen?
I have not heard any reasonable explanation of why lightning is jagged, but we see the same patterns on earth when looking above at rivers, of course trees, roots.
It's weird how well watching Sparks demonstrate rolling shutter
2.5" refer tubing gives excellent results but b sure to use the "red" fiberglass board from transformers instead of the wood which draws and holds moisture ( all of which can b had cheaply at the local junkyard), also tempered glass table tops from cheap walmart backyard tables work excellent for your stator
What do you get when you zap someone with a Wimshurst machine?
A Wimshurst scream.
What would the current amps be if you stepped down the voltage to 18 volts using a cars ignition coil or a transformer?
If I was you, I would connect a Piece of neon sign.. it would light really nice! and the discharge will be much more even... really nice work young man....
Good idea, you know calling a 40 year old young makes you really old;) Thank's for watching.
Would like to see how you constructed the Caps
If you put a funnel pointed at the spark, and run a conducting wire straight up, you have a DIY spark-gap AM radio station. You speak into the funnel while it's sparking, and the sound waves will heterodyne on the radio wave you are producing with that generator.
.....iteresti g about static travelling along surface only , it makes sense . Very high frequency across also travels along surface of conductors also. Litz wire found in plates of induction heater stoves are litz wire. I have a feeling the litz wouldn't improve things much for static situation .
@MrTeslonian
were you able to use this to generate usable electric? Did you try mixing it with an alternator to multiply efficiency?
You could search old high frequency tube mill parts. The old ones with the oscillator tube used some really big capacitors. Most now use mosfets instead of the tube.
I've seen rubber band static discharge machines that throw one heck of a spark.
for an interesting effect try putting some rare earth magnets in the area of the spark gap, or drive a resonant circuit like a Tesla coil backwards step down and charge battery, etc...
Putting a magnet there would just bend the sparks.
You are correct about the electricity moving over the surface of the rod you are using. However, if you were to use stranded copper wire instead of the material you're using, you would have a far better conductor than a solid wire of the same diameter. because the multiple strands will have far more surface aria than a solid wire. as each strand will allow the electricity to move over it. That's one of the first things you learn in any basic electrical training course .
since static runs trough the surface wouldn't it be better off using copper pipes instead of wires? with pipes you got the service areas on the outside and inside of the pipe.
No two arcs are the same. It's almost like a natural oscilloscope between the two terminals - each instance of visible electricity exhibiting characteristics of the particular charge that impelled it.
I'm a little out of my element here, but I'm willing to guess that the more precise or consistent the generation, the more predictable the waveform of the spark should be?
Just an idea and current technology should support this. Try using a metal 3D printer and making a copper spiral. If properly spaced this should maximize the surface area for the transfer to the capacitor bank. In addition to this you could also add additional capacitors in series or parallel (or both) to test the effectiveness in generation of your current and voltage.
Can you use acrylic resin or something like that to fuse the Plexiglass disks together?
how about using a 0gauge soft core wire splitted and taped around the rods in that way you will have a surface area inside and around each core of the splitted wire?
how do you know that electricity 'flows' on the inside or outside of a conductor?
amazing video for the home inventors
what happens if you use tube for your conductor, will you get a charge on the inside surface of the tube as well as the outside ?
Gauss' Law is used to find the electric field strength when the charge is evenly distributed on or within an object such as a sphere, cylinder, or flat plane. Gauss law is the first step in understanding all four parts of Maxwell's equation. The next one I would read is Faraday's law, This will answer your question and help you understand the science better. The short answer is the edge of the tube were it rolls from inside to outside will create a point of loss and constantly leak charge as plasma, all sharp edges and points or ridges will create a point of loss.
Thanks
Enjoying you vids wondering if you could not use plastic drain pipe with alarm tape wrapped around it, its not silver but its not bad either. With the feeder you have could also brighten up the surface layer then spray it down with lanolin. The old radio guys used to use silver because silver oxide has almost the same skin effect properties.
The pulleys are also known as "sheaves" but pronounced shivs...on cranes for picking weight
You need to get in touch with the slow mo guys or someone else that has access to high quality, high speed cameras yo really capture the glory of this!
I been with a high resolution and high frame rate, every spark would be beautiful!
I'd love to see that!
Just the quick flashes you caught ate great but being able to watch the entire thing, stretched out into minutes for each spark, I could watch it for days... every spark would different and unique...
this needs to happen!
Well said, I would also stare at those films for days, much like looking at the hundreds of stills I captured. Thank you.
+MrTeslonian I'm sure each one is unique so being able to watch these sparks form and the entirety of their existence would just be stellar!
High speed camera tech is moving really fast, I'm sure you can find someone with access to one that would capture this good enough, I'd guess to really get exceptional footage you'd need an exception camera, but access to them is greater now than ever!
If you powered it with a creek or stream you could make a bad ass electric fence!!
Could you use some sort of crinkled aluminum foil as a conductor to get a large surface area?
I guess you now know how Mr Tesla must have felt.
Just a question,would it be possible to make a 2 million volt
spark or higher?
Also,how do you know this particular one is a million volts?
thanks so much for your vids I've learned so much
what if you use a tube instead of a rod? potentially double your surface area with out increasing the actual size
Time travel. You're almost there.
why hasn't anybody recreated the time machine chair from the movie... honestly that spinning disk is the basic means of the chairs electromagnetic field that allows the chair to levitate
Awesome work man
can you use bigger corona balls to make it more efficient? has anyone tried cones instead of balls to to pinpoint the energy?
What about using copper tubing for the discharge rods? You'd get nearly double the surface area without having to increase diameter.
I believe that might spark internally to the tube and reduce the overall charge.
Fill them with some sort of insulator?
That would do nothing and solve a problem that does not exist. Insulting the inside of a pipe from what? The electron flow is on the surface. Radio and microwave techs call it 'skinning'.
Ever work with RF wave guides? The signal runs on the inside of a hollow transmission device.
Pap Yota True. That is RF E/M field traveling down the guide. I would think that HV electron flow would skin the inside like the outside. But there may be a magnetic field or counter eddy currents generated blocking it. If it does work then you have effectively (cheaply) doubled your current flow capacity. Don't know.
Drop a rare earth magnet down a copper pipe and see that counter currents and their generated magnetism causes the magnet to fall slow.
nice project MrTeslonian, i would think stationary fingers attached to the frame could be used to keep the discs properly aligned.
again, nice work.
Good idea, In the end I built new discs made out of 1/4" and 1/2" Plexiglas. These were much less susceptible to temperature and had a higher kappa creating a more powerful machine. The next one is bigger and will take some time to build because it's cost is 4 times the smaller unit's, the one in the video cost $1,200 to make this one is going to be closer to 5 or 6 thousand by completion.
Incredible, thank you!
Ive noticed that the majority of the plates are made with aluminum foil or thin plates.Would it be feasible to use copper sheets or plates ,and silver coated wire to carry the charge to the capacitor bank? Im new to this machine and theory of air electric static charge.Any info is greatly welcome.Awesome homebuilt machine..
MrTeslonian, Do go to 1.00 inch solid stock, but flute it. 16 cuts lengthwise .25 inches into the surface should increase your surface area sufficiently. -Doc
After watching the video I became curious to know if changing the environment around the spark points, perhaps a vacuum, would the spark shape be more consistent, e.g. straighter?
Yes in a vacuum the spark acts very different in that in has nothing to inhibit it's trajectory or interact with electromagnetically based on there either positive or negative charge.
And that shows as what, plasma cloud or undulating smoky stream?
I love watching your videos. I don't know what this one was all about but it was still interesting.
My questions is with all the tinkering you do...has your household benefited from any of it? Have you put any thing into a practical application?
I really like your vids about ram pumps and trumpes. I can imagine all kinds of practical uses with this.
Wouldn't a large area surface conductor just lose charge into the air?
what about rifling the outside of the rod, to create more surface area?
Once again Guass law comes into play, the surface must be smooth and without any ridge or edge or there will be loss.
+MrTeslonian
yes you are right. dealing with the perpendicular projection of the electric field, the rifiling would not work. I wonder though if there is not some possible work around that would limit the necessity of larger and larger rods.
Christopher Szymberski Stranded wire like a HV power line is able to provide surface area with limited loss. Carbon nano tubes hold a promising ability to carry charge based on they have more surface then internal volume.
+MrTeslonian Please may l ask, what is the precise mathematical definition of the relationship with surface area in this case? And what is the maximum effective surface area?
So exactly how far back in time can this machine take me?
Is the spark using water and dust particles to jump across? just wondering. The charge needs the rod to travel through. So doesn't the spark need something as well?
wrap the rods with copper wire.will that help hold the charge
what about hooking up an Electrostatic motor to run the Wimshhurst Machine
would polishing corrosion off rods help?
It looks like a smaller version from the one in Frankenstiens lab....interesting tho ...What is separating the wheel...(the plexi)?
Has anyone ever tried building these caps with various crystals as the dielectric? I believe stefen from ou said that the original was built with something like quartz crystals inside the caps but I may be mistaken. Also Bushman from lockheed said he did experiments showing crystals being conductive at higher voltages.
Distilled water has a potential kappa of 70 were as glass may be as high as 7 kappa and pvc is around only 2.5-5 kappa
maybe use glass plate for capacitors? Could try putting foil on the face of a mirror. The reflective film against the glass is painted on it's back. I think the reflective material is probably a conductive metal.
Why can't you use multi-strand copper cable?
The Royal Institution of Great Britain in London used to have on display a really huge Whimshurst machine. Is this the one built in 1885 and now at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry?
Are you asking if the one from Chicago is the one from the UK? Or if the one in the video is from 1885?
Thank you - my question was meant to be is the one in Chicago the one that was built in the UK in 1885, and previously housed at the Royal Institution? I remember seeing it there in the entrance hall about 18 years ago.
alochrome That I don't know!
just clean the surface with a scotch brite pad then polish metal 4 × more conducting activities
How much could it contribute to running an electric motor that turns it?
Not sure why, but the video was very difficult to watch. Red and Green colors, reflections, etc. Hard to tell what was going on. Vid quality was set on 1080p. I tried lower settings but no luck. ?
I'm trying to get it fixed, if you would try watching the video again and in the lower left corner of the screen see if it shows a 3D symbol in red? If it does click on it and change it to 2D then try and watch the film again this should get rid of the fuzzy red split, if you would let me know if that helps?
Have you tried using Lexan i.e. polycarbonate instead of plexiglass?
How can surface static charge end up in a regular isolated conductor? Does it travel over isolator?
Very cool!
Stumbled upon your cool video again and see that I was hear last year and commented. If a larger rod is required, I suggested flat metal. Now I'm thinking why not use a pipe, if all you need is surface area. Instead of copper rod, why not copper pipe?
And what are you going to power with this generator?
I luv what your doing
What about epoxy the two plates together?
Perhaps because they need to rotate in opposite directions?
If you did that you would probably have a time machine! It almost looks like one now.
Can you spline it to increase the surface area?
I suggest you demo the machine first and then by oral explanation what your machine is all about. I think this will make whole video more interesting.
Copper tube instead of rods?
Hey have you considered incorporating a flywheel into this?
Good idea!
MrTeslonian - what camera (FPS) did you film the spark with to get the stills of the spark so clear and clean (at manifestation and connection)? If it is not a high speed (slow motion camera) - have you tried filming the spark with a Slow Motion camera? I am trying to film the spark on my Lord kelvin's Thunderstorm experiment. I get the spark on camera - but I am trying to get video / picture stills of the spark from manifestation through dissipation. Any suggestions without spending 1K on a camera?
60 frames a second sony camcorder.
Thanks!
try using some top rail off of fence for your rods
Wonderful machine...super great job in design and development...i think the plexi-glass warp can be fixed...with dielectric holders...had you made the circumference a bit larger in plexi..then has room to add stabilizers in on the peripheral. Hey, but that's not what i came here to mention...can you find a "fused quartz" circular rod....or even natural quartz of with "length"...3"-6" to 9"....buddy you have no idea "how far" and how nice the spark would look riding on the surface of quartz. I think natural quartz is best...but sure would like to see fused quartz tube used too. Whatever your gap is now....it can be that plus almost the length of quartz....i don't know the exact distance...but it would be intense seeing that flame ride longer and bluer against quartz. Keep up the good work...love it.
that's spark what is it made of superheated plasma
I know it's 4 years later, but a higher shutter speed on the camera would have been helpful.
you sound like Jack Black, cool machine
tubing no? rod is not needed . Have you ever tried using foil, like a copper foil wrapped on pic? Love the what looks like oil cup pics at the end!
didn't ben franklin make this wit a glass disc? it was smaller than the one you built but considering how heavy glass is and you were musing how to put a flywheel into the works maybe glass could work
I wanted glass but the local window glass shops were not equipped for drilling glass, so I went with Plexiglas.
Why not just use spacers and/or clips to keep the two half's together how you want them with non-conductive material???
THIS IS COOL JUST LIKE TESTASTIKA,THE SWISS MITHARAH GENERATOR
Instead of using a larger tube for the conductors, use stranded wires, loosely separated. Don't waste so much space. The hollow tubes and pipes waste far too much space. Fine strand 4AWG works very well when flattened out.
This will teach you about a key law that governs the dispersal of electrons on a surface ruclips.net/video/vxasQBBlWmk/видео.html
Please watch this 36 section course Lec 01: What holds our world together? | 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism, Spring 2002 (Walter Lewin) from what I feel was the greatest teach someone could have, don't give up stay through the full course and it will teach you more about electricity than all your standard electrician classes will ever get close to! ruclips.net/video/Lx64cq0HeXY/видео.html link to section one enjoy!
Why doesn't the electric travel in a straight line? The shortest distance between two points, is a straight line.
Charles Medlock, High voltage follows the path of least resistance which is not always a straight line. If fact it seems to never be a straight line. High voltage does weird spooky stuff.
Just be careful with it. Historically, gifted inventors and physicists have been killed by high voltage machinery. Tesla nearly died of electrocution, and one of his assistants did die when an x-ray tube exploded. A dutch physicist killed his technician with a 6 foot wimhurst machine made of glass. The output was in the tens of millions of volts, if not higher. The x-ray tube exploded because Tesla ran too much power through it.
I have been snapped from the residuals trapped in the dielectric hard enough to black me out and put my neck and shoulder out for some time ( even after fully discharging the very large sections of plexi act's like a plasma battery and will slowly leak out it's charge into the capacitor bank). The Marx generator bank this was hooked to in the end, will no doubt kill if someone was to get to close. I don't play around or have company because of the safety issues of the machines in and around my place
plastic water pipe with aluminium cover then?
I built a smaller wimshurst machine and when my spart gap gets too large it begins to arc between the comb and the sectors. Any idea why? Cool vid by the way.
If the charge runs on the surface why don't you use copper pipe instead of grounding rod? It would probably be much cheaper. even if you had to fill it with something like - Saltwater or brass coated "B.Bs"