Stepping Down a Wimshurst

[gauschor]

Trying to get usable power from a Wimshurst is an interesting thought. What I've read until now is that no one gets usable power out of it, not even for an LED most websites claim. Considering how painful it is, when you get stroke by it this almost seems unrealistic.

I've built now a Toepler Influence Machine instead of a Wimshurst, powered by handcraft of course The advantage of Toepler is, you must spin only 1 disc, which eases up a lot of headache in construction. I had 16-32 segments and a disc of 50cm diameter. So, the result is... I've been able to light an LED - if I may say so. To be honest, the LED flickers on very very low brightness - but it "works". I put the LED in between the spark gap: one leg connected to the first electrode and the other leg about some millimeters away from the second electrode, therefore the frequency of the discharge sparks is higher. Otherwise if I directly connect both LED-legs with the electrodes the LED goes dark again. So a spark gap obviously is necessary.

Now also interesting is that: I built a Teslacoil and since one conductor of the both electrodes of the Toepler machine is quite long, I used it to create multiple windings for a Teslacoil (the primary windings only) before the conductor reaches the spark gap. If I now touch with one leg of the LED the top/peak of the Tesla Coil (as you know, the coil is not connected to anything) I get the same flickering of the LED (maybe a little darker) as when putting the LED directly in between the spark gap.

I am still not sure if I made something wrong or if the Teslacoil gets its power via some way I did not recognize ... well but that said, it's interesting to experiment with such things.

[darkspeed]

gauschor, the led is a diode and you have placed it in the path of a high frequency ( between caps ) high voltage source.

It is most likley dead and just arcing internally.. Try a T-2 neon bulb http://www.normanlamps.com/images/4-T2.jpg this will give you much better results

[gauschor]

Hmmm... thought about that too, that there could only be a discharge in the diode itself. Hard to tell for sure, since the casing is not very transparent. The diode is not dead though, it still works on normal battery input.
Thanks for the hint with the T2, that would definitely show better results I guess.

[Foggy-Notion]

Yeah I've heard stories where people with a coil, connected to nothing,
get shocked by it, repeatedly, over and over.  It is getting inducted by
probably radio waves and the lines in their shop.  And indeed could be
used as an inducted collector of no-pay electricity, from the wires in
your wall, without "stealing" their juice at all, regardless of what their
pie hole tries to flap at you.

However you should probably be more concerned with the fact that your
body is absorbing these magnetic waves from the wall at 60mhz all day
long, and this is proven to be bad for you many ways, such studies are
suppressed of course.

[sparks]

     What if we put an ammeter around the spark gap.  There seems to be considerable current flow in a spark gap and the ammeter is designed to convert current flow into voltage without intrusion into the loop circuit.  Least the old ones that you didnt have to put a battery in.  Just an annular ring of laminated steel and carbon.