I guess I should describe what I built in detail.
know what a Wimshurst machine is ?, for anyone that does not...
Wimshurst machine - Wikipedia
only I put steel segments on it and had the brushes configured so that you would get one polarity on one entire disk and the other polarity on the other disk
I had 2 drive setups, one where the disks were at the same speed (same belt for the entire system), and one where the disks were close to the same speed (separate drive motors)
it did not act the same between the 2 modes, but I can't remember what the change was (this test was more than 20 years ago)
I built some hardware to tell what this thing was doing,
I mapped out the device with magnetic permeability readings
I got a sphere around it that was somewhere between 2 to 10 times the size of the device (depending on how long it was running and how fast) there was a disk at that extended from the spinning disks to connect with the sphere and a shaft that lined up with the spinning shafts that also connected to the sphere.
think 2 toroids that were crushed into a sphere shape
digital and analog watches would tick off the time, but they would do it seemingly random with about not quite 2 seconds. example: they might hold one second on the clock for 2 seconds and then click off them with in about 1/4 second after
but when you pulled it out it would be no change to the identical watch that was never inside the field
many things that depended on timing to work (like LCD displays) would not work at all, but some designs did. so I just ended up using the volt meters that did not have issues.
oddly some of the devices that initially did not work, started working after an extended time in this field.
the field it made persisted after the device was shut off.
2 examples here.
I ran it in an otherwise empty room, then I shut it off and, and then removed all my hardware.
15 min. later a compass would spin in circles in the middle of the room (including if I set it on the floor so that I was not moving it with my hands at all). went back something like 30 min. later and the compass did not spin anymore, but it acted totally demagnetized as it did not point anywhere and the needle went anywhere I spun it. the next day the compass worked just fine in that room.
other example is that I ran it for a while. my roommates did not like the field it made, so I took it away to another building (1/8 mile away with many obstructions) while out there my cordless phone rang in my pocket. I answered and it was a very clear connection. now normally I would have not got even half way there. so I played with it. as long as my phone was inside the field of the device (now not running) the call was clear, the moment I got it out of the field I lost the clarity, could easily map out the sphere field with it.
more tests showed that the field followed the device and a copy of the field stayed where the device was running. and they appeared to be linked enough so that my cordless phone connection could use it at some sort of gateway. (the base of the cordless phone was about 15 foot outside of the field where the device had been running)
when running it would move a lead weight on a spring that was outside its field and past electric and magnetic shielding.
I tried a large magnetic field with the field lines parallel to the spin axle with no noticeable effect
it flipped polarity about every 1.5 seconds pretty much no matter how fast or slow I ran it, I also tried to force the voltage to be just one polarity on one disk, and it just flipped with the DC bias I gave it (I think my DC bias was about 75KV, way more than the device made, and that was about 35KV)
the magnetic fields it made were large, like it could erase a compass quite easy.
and I think without the steel segments it would not have done most of what it did.
the magnetic patterns in the segments changed as it ran (I mapped them when it was off as mapping it with it running was not that possible), and the effects also changed with the changing patterns
I think I already mentioned the other things it did.
by the way, I still have it. and have a remote testing site if I am ever going to run it again.
but not sure what more I can learn from it.