rimstar.org  Wimshurst Machine (27cm discs)

Related links:
[Testatika Experiments]
[30kV DC Power Supply]

 
Web rimstar.org

This very nice Wimshurst machine with 27cm diameter discs was purchased on ebay. My main purpose in buying it was to modify it for doing testatika experiments. It's a shame since it's such a fun Wimshurst machine to play with and is very robustly built. It worked right out of the box on the first try!

The mug is for size reference.
The crank screws into place. Hopefully it'll be easy to replace with a motor shaft.
The collector's combs surprised me by how far away they are from the disc surfaces.
Here you can see one of the neutralizer brushes which actually does brush against the sectors.
The main reason I picked this Wimhurst machine was because of the large diameter black disc bosses used for attaching the discs to the shaft. They will make it easy to replace the disc with other ones due to their size and the fact that the disc is only screwed on to the boss (i.e. they're not glued.) As a side note you can see the twisted pulley belt on this side which is what makes this disc turn the opposite direction of the other disc (the Wright brothers did this to make their propellers counterrotate.)
The wiring of the Leydon jar electrodes to the terminals

See the following page of a fun experiment using two sectors of the Wimshurst machine and a coil wrapped around the pulley as an RF LC resonant circuit.

As stated above, my reason for buying this Wimshurst machine was to modify it for trying to make a testatika so after trying it for the first time, I then took it apart...

rimstar.org

If you have any suggestions of information to add, advice, corrections, ..., please send email to Steven Dufresne: