Source of energy, Testatika

[TinselKoala]

Elena you are 100 percent right.

So there is one conclusion remaining to be drawn with respect to the Testatika: it is a hoax. And I say this, being personally acquainted with several people who have actually visited Methernitha back in the Baumann days and actually held the small one in hand, while it was working, or so they tell me.

The resemblance to conventional electrostatic induction machines is the Big Red Herring of the Testatika story. As you point out, Baumann had claimed that one disk is "earth" and the other "cloud"... but in a Wimshurst or Bonetti or Dirod device, it is the lateral halves of the machine that are "ground" and "cloud" or positive and negatively charged. Only this type of machine can use the "curling around" style of pickups and sprayers, because as you point out, a machine that had oppositely charged discs front and back would be instantly shorted out by these wrap-around structures which are critical for Bonetti and Wimshurst and Dirod and other machines of the type. The small single disc machine is obviously not working as a Dirod (an analog to the Wimshurst with but a single "disk" made up of the rods -- DIsk-ROD).

And it is clear, by examining all the small sharp points and edges on the "real" Testatika, that it could never itself store or generate the high voltages needed for electrostatic induction to operate.

Whatever the Testatika might really be, it is most definitely NOT an electrostatic induction machine like Wimshurst, Bonetti, Dirod etc.

You might be amused by some of my electrostatic explorations. Here is my Moore's Dirod in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxEpSX2Hd54
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpemKuf6X_c

[Dave45]

Should have been called eddy current collector, there is a coil in the center of the wheel.

[sm0ky2]

What must first be considered is that machines of this type have no official mode of operation. By simply relocating the pickups and cross-members one can change the location and/or polarities of such charges. While, traditionally, the machines take on a bi-lateral configuration, this can be split into 4, 6, 8 or any such division of the disk surfaces, or completely isolated onto the surfaces of one disk, while the other cycles through +/- across its' surface. (Pidgeon Machine). With a sufficient sink, one can draw a countably infinite amount of ionic plasma as a function of your ability to draw it off. What to do with it afterwards is anyone's imagination, but do not underestimate the potential of electrostatic machines. It is possible to draw so much that it destroys the very metals of the machine that collects it.

[sm0ky2]

ok so,.. about a day and a half into owning a fully functional "ion generator", I noticed certain phases the machine would enter into...
most impressing was the phase in which load current from the driving battery dropped, while RPM increased with the operating disk.
this seems to occur at specific capacitance values (Voss-type machine).

an extensive effort on my part was made to influence this phase to occur.
after removing as much friction as possible, balancing the inductors (trimming down to equal size, etc)
  and tweaking the capacitors to a more favorable state for this phase to occur.
what I have concluded is,.  (I hope I don't sound silly in my old age, as I have adamantly argued the opposite side of this discussion in the past)
Testatika DOES in fact drive itself....
not through the logical approach of looping some power back into the motor...
but through the attraction of positive and negative charges, and neutralizing them at a point in which the momentum of the disk carries it along.

this crude drawing is my attempt to compare a purely magnetic system, to that of an electrostatic machine.
I feel this may help some of you understand how this plastic disk with metal pieces glued to it, can actually perpetuate....

[sm0ky2]

I feel it is important to note at this point in my research (as many of you old timers may already know)
The ML-converter is NOT based on a Whimshurst Machine.
Whimshurst machines are designed to operate at a slow and constant RPM, relying on the surface area and charge density to create a potential.

Testatika is based on a Pidgeon Machine (which I have personally very little info on).
   What I have found that closest matches the descriptions made by Mr. Pidgeon
Is the Voss Machine (otherwise known as a Toepler/Holtz machine).
In Both the Voss and Pidgeon machine, the ability to accumulate charge is a factor of the rpm of the disk.
the faster it spins, the more charge can be attained.

This is a functionally important difference.  (that and the fact that only 1 disk need to spin, reducing friction by 300%)