MiniSpark Electrostatic Influence Generator

The minispark electrostatic influence generator does not use coils, sparks or even friction to generate power: instead it uses a disk of capacitor plates and some clever wiring to use the electrostatic force itself to generate power.

This modular expandable electrostatic gereator was designed to be easy, fast and inexpensive to assmble and grow by printing additional disks and body sections. A sparkit disc was used in my test setup but included in the purchase is design and foil cut template to make your own disc.

The only things you will need aside from PLA or PETG is a bit of TPU to print the disk-mount as well as a short length of 10 mm rod to use as the drive shaft, two 26mm OD 10 mm ID bearings for the drive shaft and 24 #10-32 screws ranging from 10 mm in lenght to 20 mm in length.

The plates are connected by making bus bars on the case body with foil tape.

In my environment which is air at STP and 40% humidity, using a single disk from the SparKit wimshurst kit (alternate printable disk included) using a single disk, I can produce current sufficient to create a visually continuous spark at a distance of 7 mm from wire tip to wire tip.

I get visible streamer discharge flow out to a separation of 3-4 cm and corona discharge at any distance beyond that. In my experience, streamer flow distance is spark distance with capacitors attached since the difference between the streamer and the arc is just current density.

Using a 9 nF capacitor bank with a spark gap set at 20 KV, I got a spark frequency of 1/6.8 sec. It works out to 1.32 nF of charging per second or 26.4 uA of current produced per second.

I'm using a SparKit disk in my test design and they claim to get 3 uA using 2 of the same disk. I don't know what their motor speed is. But this design seems to be a large improvment from a power production perspective.

Check out this video to see the design in action and to get a 3d overview of the parts and description of how they fit together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qChYy04ejq0

Everything is prnted in PLA or PETG except for the TPU Shaft Adapter, which needs to be printed fliexble.

The Case needs the slots to be supported at the corners, used just a bit of supports at the corners with paint on supports to save yourself some clean-up effort.