PV Scientific Instruments

Working Models of Scientific Instruments used in
Great Discoveries in
Electricity, Magnetism, Wireless, and Atomic Physics

—Educational fun for your classroom, laboratory, museum, private collection,
film, video, or theatre event!

Welcome to PV Scientific Instruments, your resource for scientific instruments, information, and educational programs relating to the early history of electricity, magnetism, wireless, and atomic physics.

Here at PV Scientific Instruments we custom-build historically accurate reproductions of scientific instruments used by early inventors to develop an understanding of the scientific fundamentals and technical principles on which current technologies are based. We can help you reproduce an 18th-century "electrician's" workshop, a 19th-century natural philosopher's laboratory, an early 20th-century physics lab, or Grandpa's thrilling crystal radio experience.

Our reproductions of classical and electromagnetic devices include Wimshurst machines Leyden jars Lodge syntonic oscillators Franklin's bells corona motors electroscopes induction coils Crookes tubes and Geissler tubes.

For radio hobbyists, we offer crystal radio sets regenerative radios, and radio kits that are exceptional because they include antique and vintage parts and employ the best original circuits of the 1920s and 1930s for a truly historical and enjoyable experience.

For those on a quest for knowledge, we offer a choice selection of reprints of classic books and articles on topics related to the construction and use of early electrical instruments, reprints of contemporary papers on the work of Nikola Tesla, and used and rare books of interest to electrical engineers and experimenters, physicists, and astronomers.

Ask us about our lectures and demonstrations that bring scientific history to life. We offer spectacular static-electrical demonstrations, thundering Tesla coil demonstrations, and enlightening vacuum discharge tube demonstrations. Our ASRT-approved lecture-demonstration on the scientific history of x-ray introduces people to the pioneers and martyrs of x-ray technology and the real history of how x-ray came to be discovered and developed.

For more information about our products or services, please call us at 607 387-6752 .

We serve people all around the globe!

Our clients have included:
The Franklin Institute Smithsonian Institution Chicago Museum of Science and Industry Strasenburgh Planetarium San Francisco Maritime National Museum The Tech Museum of Innovation of San Jose Columbus Center of Science and Industry (COSI) BC Hydro Power House at Stave Falls, British Columbia American Radio Museum Edison Exploratorium, Schenectady, NY Cornell University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of California at Santa Cruz University of Michigan City University of New York Graduate Center National University of Singapore RAI Uno and RAI II Television Networks of Italy Birmingham Children's Theatre American Society of Radiologic Technologists Tinker Air Force Base and many other institutions, as well as numerous collectors, experimenters, and enthusiasts.

Single Triode Regenerative Radio Receiver and Kit

I am a very pleased customer. The equipment we got from you has been continuously working in our museum for 6 years. Of all the electronic equipment in our museum, it has been the least trouble, due to its quality. —Richard Everett, San Francisco Maritime Museum

See some of our working reproductions of classical scientific instruments in action in the PBS documentary, Tesla: Master of Lightning, Emmy Award winner Robert Uth's thrilling documentary about the life and work of the great Nikola Tesla, available at Barnes and Noble and PBS Online. For this documentary, we reproduced scientific instruments used by Heinrich Hertz, Sir William Crookes, Heinrich Geissler, Heinrich Ruhmkorf, Hermann von Helmholtz, and, of course, the great Nikola Tesla himself.

To find out what the Financial Times of London had to say about us, click here .