Earlier machines in this class were developed by Wilhelm Holtz (1865 and 1867), August Toepler (1865), J. Robert Voss (1880), and others.

An imbalance of charges is induced, amplified, and collected by two pairs of brushes or metal combs with points placed near the surfaces of each disc.

The positive feedback increases the accumulating charges exponentially until the dielectric breakdown voltage of the air is reached and an electric spark jumps across the gap.

A typical Wimshurst machine can produce sparks that are about a third of the disc's diameter in length and several tens of microamperes.

They were also occasionally used to generate high voltage to power the first-generation Crookes X-ray tubes during the first two decades of the 20th century, although Holtz machines and induction coils were more commonly used.

For example, if a disc is rotating clockwise when viewed from the front, the neutralizer bar must be angled from top left to bottom right.

As the charged sector (moving red square) rotates to the position of the brush on the rear neutralizer bar ([Y] down arrow tip) it induces a polarization of charge on the neutralizer bar ([Y-Y1] upper horizontal black line) attracting negative (green) charge to the sector immediately opposite it ([Y] upper square becoming green) and positive (red) charge on the sector across the disc 180 degrees away ([Y1] upper square becoming red).

Obviously, the bigger the voltage across the poles, the greater the degree of polarization and the faster the machine charges up.