Hi,
Can I use a spark plug to pulse the
current from my wimshurst machine?
 
I know it is only in the miliamps but it is
like 20,000volts worth, can I pulse it and
run it through an ignition coil backwards
like a step down transformer?

Well, I'm sure I can, and can get a useful 12 volts
out of the other end but, what's the best way to
pulse it?

Any ideas,
1920s mechanical means or RadioShack Gadget
 
I've heard capactitors might step it down too?
but will caps increase current with each step
down of voltage, the way transformers do?

I've forgotten alot.
I use to run a board called "electric~junta"
years ago using the name Johnny Cool Pants,
but they shut me down, good to see that more
people are in it now, ...Damn the torpedos.





.

Hi @Foggy-Notion,
Sure you can use a spark plug; it's just a small spark gap. It does have a lot of sharp edges so you might as well use the existing spark gap and adjust it to however small you want.

Regarding the current a Wimshurst machine, it's microamps, not milliamps.

I haven't stepped down my Wimshurst machine but I have stepped down my small Van de Graaff machine:
 http://rimstar.org/sdenergy/testa/testatika_magnets_hv_to_dc.htm

There's another topic here at overunity.com that starts out asking the same thing as you and with some discussion. Probably best to just go there:
 http://www.overunity.com/index.php?topic=7669.0
-Steve
http://rimstar.org   http://wsminfo.org

"Micro-amps"?  They ran x-ray machines with that?
Well anyway I've heard a Wimshurst can expediate plant growth.
(Was on a suppressed patent over at Rex Research)
Gotta be good for something,

I was trying to be lazy and build a poor man's Testatika.
Guess I'll have to rethink this.

Awww man, you guys think I'm kidding huh?
Seriously, does anyone know a good cheap way to pulse High Voltage DC?

Thanks

If what you need is HV and high frequency, the Don Smith people are in this field, and some
are using the power supplies used for neon advertising set ups.

I just ran it and for 31 cm diameter disks, 32 sectors, 1 cm wide sectors, ... the output current should be 17 microamps. Change it to 62 cm diameter and the output current is 37 microamps.

Ok and this is the output (to) the layden jars?
Or is that the actual power of the jumping spark?
Cool links, Thank you, paul, speed and steve.

Most likely, the continous current to layden jar capacitors. This is sourced
at like 10KV->40KVdc static electric. I think you can find spark current
in other documents.

:S:MarkSCoffman

Thanks Mark, and everyone else.
It sounds like there is a bit more juice when it leaps in a spark.
I wonder if I some how step it down to 700 volts and then
send each pulse to a 36awg electromagnet, if I could get
some kind of use out of it.  Solenoid launcher for my
perpetual bowling ball machine? (I'm an artist)
...otherwise I'd just go M.E.G.
Cool, I can smell the ozoned air when I operate Wimshurst.


.

I just ran it and for 31 cm diameter disks, 32 sectors, 1 cm wide sectors, ... the output current should be 17 microamps. Change it to 62 cm diameter and the output current is 37 microamps.

Ok and this is the output (to) the layden jars?
Or is that the actual power of the jumping spark?
Cool links, Thank you, paul, speed and steve.

Here's the question I asked and the reply I got from Dr. Antonio Carlos M.
de Queiroz, the owner of the webpage:
 http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/wimshurst.html

On Fri, Jan 01, 2010 at 02:38:52PM +0000, Steven Dufresne wrote:
> Hello Dr. de Queiroz,
> On reading your webpage:
>   http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/wimshurst.html
> and running your program I'm wondering exactly what the output current
> represents. Is it the current during the maximum length spark or is it the
> current from the collectors going into the Leyden jars during charging or
> something else?

"It's the current that charges the Leyden jars, or the short-circuit
current of the machine. The current is limited by the maximum electric
field at the disk surfaces at the calculated value.
You can measure the current by connecting a microamperimeter between
one of the terminals and the neutralizers, while leaving the other
terminal disconnected. Disconnect the Leyden jars and don't make sparks
during the measurement, or the meter may be destroyed."

-Steve
http://rimstar.org   http://wsminfo.org

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Yeah Dr. Antonio has a great page doesn't he?
From waht he says, it sounds like the spark pulse
is much more current than the layden charging curent.
I can get such a spark once a second or so with ease.

Well looking at Franklin's Static motor...
http://www.rexresearch.com/elstatix/jef_fig1.gif

It just doesn't look like it would be very powerful,
however it also looks like the reason for that is the
design, (not one coil or electromagnet involved)

If I did have an electromagnet reaction device and a
flywheel, I could get some real use out of it maybe.

I've read that fine wire (#39 awg) electromagnets have
a powerful violent repelling reaction with just 600 volts
with current in the miliamps.

And it is my understanding that when you step down voltage you incrase amperage 1:1  Thus every time you cut the voltage in half, you double the amperage.  So if a wimshurt is putting out say, 300,000 volts when the spark makes that leap into the great unknown for reason of over crowding at the copper ball and pub, if I cut that voltage in half repeatedly, and double the current each time I do, eventually I should have 585 volts after 9 divisions by 2, thus doubled my amperage x9

But the ampers in the actual spark jump could be much higher than that of the layden charging current.  A bigger wheel with bigger sectors and bigger jars would also increase power as Antonio said in so many words, but even now this little thing can send a grown man accross the room if shocked, and that is our built-in automatic bio magnet repelling us from that shock, or the braiin's electric charge to our leg muscles saying Wooooe!  meaning our brain has a lot of electrical current, (or) our muscles are an over unity device, in the matter that their reaction to electricity is more powerful than the electricity itself, er? straying from the subject...

...if this little wheel is powerful enough to make a 200lb man jump,
than I'm sure it can make two opposing HV electromagnets Jump.


As you see here...
http://www.sparkmuseum.com/FRICTION.HTM
some of these induction machines are rather simple and if you could
line up ten big plastic wheels or even 50 "Free AOL" junk mail CDs
(I saved them all) you could spin them all with a small motor.

But wheels the size of this beauty...
http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/Titlepage/Static_Electricity.html
would surely produce some juice.

Here's another little gem for forgotten electrostatic gizmos.
http://physics.unl.edu/history/histinstr/electrostatics.html

Some of these things could even help in other applications.