Source of energy, Testatika

[Dave45]

The testatika has a high voltage coil in the center of the rotating wheel

[gauschor]

Definitely such a coil is used. I've not searched yet for the specific phrase "high voltage coil" / ignition coil / spark coil, as I always had the usual transformer logic in my head. After using a quick search I can see on the image below that it looks slightly different, but still applies to usual way a transformer works.
I am just amazed, that I stepped on a picture which looks exactly like the 2 cylinders of the Testatika...

Now the question still is, how can one transform the high voltage back? ... I could only get "power" from the electrostatic potential, by discharging them against the other pole. But the spark impulses are way too low to generate enough amperage when sending it through a transformer.
Also the charge only seems to be on the surface instead of "within the wire". Don't know, but maybe the Methernita found a way to "integrate" the surface charge directly into the wire via some magical magnet construction (as seen on the Testatika) and thereby they received a power, which was almost like one from a battery.

[TinselKoala]

If there are voltages over 1 kV anywhere in a Testatika I would be completely amazed. I doubt seriously if the spacings and materials used could stand off more than a couple of hundred volts, really. Certainly it is impossible for a machine with metal parts in close juxtaposition like the Testatikas to have truly high voltages on or near the disks, like 20 kV of an automotive ignition coil or the hundreds of kV of a Wimshurst or Bonetti machine.

Not only that, but I have it on good authority that the smallest Testatika can be held in the hands while working to power a load. I've talked to someone who visited Methernitha many years ago when Baumann was still doing demonstrations and he saw this done with the smallest machine. No extreme high voltages, like in a static machine, are possible if this is true.

[gauschor]

I've read the PDF now (I will read parts of it again...), which was quite insightful.

What was new for me, was the fact, the small machine had no crank at all to turn the wheel by hand. All Wimshurst devices have such a crank/coupling to the main rotor. Needless to say that this causes a lot of friction. Too much. It kills any attempt to get the rotor self-run. In fact I was also annoyed in my own experiments by this matter and wished the disc could run without the crank. And now I've read in this PDF, that the small device does indeed run without any coupling. It rotates freely. Marinov just needed to push the rotor 1-3 times with his finger and then it would continue by itself.
I think it makes sense to agree with his observation that the disc of the small machine rotates by electrostatic power only (generated by itself). Therefore one needs good bearings, as the Coulomb forces are quite weak.

I am still unsure if and how to produce charges without any direct contact by combs and with a single disc only. This is the most challenging task.

Besides it makes me unsure that even in this PDF Marinov wrote that Baumann mentioned a crystal in the small machine. I really do hope it is not something to get the perpetuum mobile run and that it's only for limiting the revolutions of the rotor (because the rotor would rotate faster and faster from his claims). What kind of crystal anyways? A pyrit or a diode? Like used in Detektor radios?

[TinselKoala]

One of the improvements that I made in my Bonetti machines is always to use motors that do not have any cogging or much frictional resistance when coasting or unpowered. This has allowed me to see that these machines, like the Bonetti, can indeed be run "backwards" like an electrostatic motor. That is, if the disks are properly free to rotate and the pickups and neutral structures are properly positioned, the machine will indeed turn when it is supplied with HV (hundreds of kV, real high voltage not the stuff you get from "high voltage coils") it will turn and motor along just fine.... but in the opposite direction from when it is acting as a generator. I have run one Bonetti from the output of another of similar design and disk size.

The "Dirod" is essentially a single-disk Wimshurst warped into a drum instead of a disk, with fewer sharp edges and carbon fiber brushes for self starting and power take-off. It too will run as a motor if it's supplied with enough voltage at its output terminals.

ETA: It is a contact machine though, using carbon fiber filaments for the brushes, but I think it could be made to work like a noncontact Bonetti with a little redesign.

But I forget sometimes. Most people consider 20 or 30 kV to be "high voltage", and it is, of course, and it's about as high as you can get with conventional coils in a small package, like an auto ignition coil or a flyback transformer. Of course you can get much higher with big Tesla coils.
However, when you are talking electrostatics, 30 kV is peanuts, barely able to raise a hair or make a little spark. Things don't really really get interesting until 100 kV or so, and 300 kV is nice for a desktop Wimshurst or Bonetti, and my best Bonetti with 300 mm diameter disks will do 600 kV on a dry day, and yes that is a measured value. You don't do 600 kV in any ordinary kind of coil, not even one that could fit into the "elephant".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpemKuf6X_c