Re: Wimshurst machines (fwd)

[Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 08:58:56 -0200
From: Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz <acmq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Wimshurst machines (fwd)

High Voltage list wrote:

> From: Finn Hammer <f-h@xxxx>

> http://home5.inet.tele.dk/f-hammer/TRANSWIM.JPG
>
> All pulleys, except the one in the front of the machine, with the crank
> handle (not shown), are idlers.

A clever method to avoid the crossed cord touching itself is to
mount the crank axle slightly inclinated to a side:
http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/meijtr6.jpg
This is a "triplex Wimshurst machine", with two Wimshurst machines
at small distance running in opposite directions. A very powerful
machine.

Two different systems were used by Holtz, in the 1860's. The
same system used in the big machine can be seen in the
"Holtz machine of the second kind", that is essentially a
sectorless Wimshurst machine with output at the neutralizers:
http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/lef590.jpg
A more complicated system was used in the sectorless Wimshurst
machine made by Holtz in 1869, well before Wimshurst (1883):
http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/Wim69.jpg
The two disks are mounted in tubes, one inside the other. The
small pulley in the drive axle is an idler.

Complicated systems with gears were also used, as this, by Piggott
(1911): http://www.coe.ufrj.br/~acmq/piggott3.jpg

Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz