@conradelektro

Thanks i greatly appreciate your help but i will choose the kelvin drop machine because i think its easy to build and its cost no money.

I watch this m.youtube.com/watch?v=r5rHcC3_Dwk it was really great. The parts are mostly trash yet it worked.

I had great trouble building the drop machine.

The droplets start to fly all over (are bent away from a straight downward path) and make everything wet, which short circuits the charges.

It is also tricky to get nice drops, either too few or a water jet.

The Wimshurst machine is not very difficult to build. Use acrylic disks and aluminium foil for the sectors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimshurst_machine

http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/wimshurst.html

Study this site http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/electrostatic.html before building anything.

http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/bohnenberger.html quite nice!

http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/electro/electro6.html easy!

http://makeprojects.com/Project/Simple+Van+de+Graaff+Generator/2072/1#.UMtv4ne7kax about the same!

http://mark.rehorst.com/Van_de_Graaff/ very nice!

Greetings, Conrad

Quote from: Neo-X on December 14, 2012, 11:56:11 AM
whimshurst... but more
generally speaking you have
two options: triboelectric
effect or electrostatic
induction.

--End of Quote--

What is the easiest to build?

The Bonetti is sometimes referred to as a sectorless Wimshurst. The Wimshurst machine is an induction machine but uses brushes that must physically contact the conductive sectors in order to work. It is also limited in voltage because of the sharp edges of the foil or metal sheet sectors; they blow off charge before the machine develops a really really  high voltage. The Bonetti, with essentially the same design, uses no sectors and no contact brushes but rather uses corona combs to deposit and collect charge from the non-conducting surface of the disks. It can reach much higher voltages than a Wimshurst of the same size disks and can make more current too. The advantage of the Wimshurst machine is that it is "self starting" whereas the Bonetti , as you can see in my video, needs a tiny bit of charge... from my fingers or other source.... to begin the induction process.

They are both induction machines. Simple triboelectric machines are easy to build too but are not nearly as much fun as a powerful induction machine. The Moore's Dirod that I show is probably the most complicated of the machines in my "stable" but it is also my favorite, even though it can only make 65 kV on a gry day. That's plenty for ordinary static demonstrations. When you get into the 300kV range like my Bonettis, you are starting to get dangerous. I would not want to take a 300kV spark, with 400 picoFarads behind it, to my body.

The electrophorus that Conrad shows is the very simplest static machine that is practical for use. His design using HV diodes is really cool, I have not seen one like that before. Usually they just have the plates and no wiring, good for single cycles only, but can make incredible HV on just the one cycle.

The Van De Graaf is actually a good place to start and does not require anything more than an electric motor (or a hand crank) and some ingenuity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj5T0zRALKc

My VDG videos start with this one made from garbage, and continue on to larger ones using Chinese stainless steel soupbowls and later, hub-caps for top and bottom capacities. They all use plain ordinary rubber bands for belts... the larger ones use large rubber bands !

Since the world will end anyway in a few days I disclose some more electrophorus circuits. I could have made trillions selling this technology, but god told me to give it away for free at this late hour. If you send money, send gold, because it will survive December 21st.

(You should believe what is stated below but not necessarily what is stated above this line!)

It is possible to create some sort of alternating current with an electrophorus and one can connect multiple electrophoruses. See the circuits and the photo below.

I know, it has nothing to do with a Joule Thief, but it works in case you want to create high tension with very simple means.

Greetings, Conrad