American Museum of Radio and Electricity - Wimshurst machine demonstration

[JNA43868]

Are the brushes conected to the electrodes?

[rbmaserang]

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS FREE ENERGY !!!!!!!! it all comes from somewhere and goes somewhere, geez.

[gatekeepa32]

for a sec there i thought that was mr. wimshurst himself!!

[thelth88]

hey there, have you seen any models of this device that have magnets added on? that way it could run it's self and that would be free energy.

[coldarc]

the positive and negative charge explenation doesn´t make eny more sense to me

than static electricity by means of friction. why don´t they just call it electrons

aligning with electric field induction. as far as i understand the two discs have

both electric fields the metal plates are just for switching. the inductive part aligns electrons into an electric field that opposes the other field with more electrons

on one disc than it is on the other, so the static field balance between them.

[sn1pe352]

@coldarc amen 

[GratefulJWB]

Not the 17th and 18th century, but the latter part of the 19th century. The Wimshurst machine was invented around 1883.  One of its uses was to power early x-ray tubes.

[bobperet]

I do not believe your description of the Wimshurst generator is correct. It is an influence machine, not a friction machine. The cross bars do not rub off electrons, they allow charge to move from one pad to the opposing.  As a negatively charged pad passes a pad on the other disk, it influences a positive charge on the side closest to it. This charge is collected by the combs. The leyden jars are not necessary if you have a sphere large enough to collect charge on the end of the rods.

[vossmachine]

Check out vossmachine go to bottom to see huge wimshurst set up!!