Powered by a wound up spring?

[justsomeone]

It was thought by some that Bessler powered his one directional wheel with a wound up spring. How would this be possible if the axle turned with the wheel? Thanks [/i]

[jim_mich]

Simple. See attached drawing.

Mount a coil spring (green) inside a housing (black) that is free to swing like a pendulum around the wheel axis inside the wheel. Belt drive (pink) the uncoiling spring tension from a large pulley on the spring to a small pulley attached to the axle inside the wheel.

The spring tension torque must be less than the torque caused by the weight of the spring and its housing when out horizontal from the wheel axis, else it will swing up and over the top.

The drive pulley needs to reduce the spring rotation so as to provide many rotations of the wheel to just a few rotations of the spring.

[FunWithGravity2]

We have all seen that a well balanced wheel with a simple mech can achieve a great degree of rotation when allowed to rotate from TDC. Everyonn is searching for that extra 1% +-, so i assume that a simple "pusher" style escapement could be contrived to give many of the failed attempts here that exta push.

I think that a wheel like this could be set up to run like a "hit&miss" engine and when not under load would only be firing the "pusher" every several rotations, we have seen from some of my old videos that an OBB mech can cause 20 Plus rotations from a simple (small effort)offset when then left to freewheel.

If the wheel had numerous wound up mechs designed to drive each a separate OB mech until it was their turn then i can imagine such a device running for a very long time. the device at 1oclock would operate for days before the device at 2oclock would take over, and so on.

JMHO
Crazy D

[getterdone]

Ya, but then after the sale, any king who bought the wheel, would have had him killed in a very bad way.

The wheel was real, no doubt in my mind.

[barksalot]

If what Bessler said is true then what Jim is proposing could not be how it was done because nothing was hanging from the axle all parts were supposed to revolve around with the wheel.

Am I remembering correctly?

Mike

[Fletcher]

Bessler said that the weights gained force from their own swinging/motion.

He also said that nothing hung from the axle & all turned with the wheel.

Jim_mich is merely suggesting a method that a wound up spring prime mover could work inside a wheel much as a kinetic self winding watch works.

IIRC Wagner suggested that a spring wound wheel would be intrinsic motion but of course that introduces PE which would not likely fit Bessler's description of "true PM" that he also claimed applied to his wheels.

So, if the motion of weights themselves produced a force then a few possibilities arise.

1. Gravity - but this is conservative.

2. Inertia.

3. Something else from the environment.

N.B. Bessler also said that some of his machines were without weights - this can be taken literally or can be figurative, because any structures within a wheel, whilst not being independent "weights", would still have mass.

4. Structures in motion within the wheel produce a force ?!

[jim_mich]

Jim_mich is merely suggesting a method that a wound up spring prime mover could work inside a wheel much as a kinetic self winding watch works.

Yes.

The question asked was how such a wheel could be turned using a wound up spring. And indeed it could. But there seems to be quite a lot of evidence that suggests that it was not wound up, such as constant speed. A wheel rotated as per my drawing would keep speeding up. Then if a load was applied it would keep slowing down as the spring wound down. And of course there are limits to how long such a wheel could turn until it wound down.

[broslad]

Any thorghts on this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bdkd2DGzxE&feature=plcp

[jim_mich]

Someone put a lot of time and effort into it. The same concept has been tried many times in the past. The result is always that the torque force required of the wheel to push the weights up the ramps always balances against the gravity force produced as the weights fall back down. And friction brings the wheel to a halt.

[broslad]

Thanks, it was a nice model tho

[Tarsier79]

Agreed, it is a beautiful model, low friction and a nice supposedly OB path. This build should be filmed with a plexiglass wall, so you can see the side view, but it still shows to me the ultimate proof gravity only OOB wheels cannot self sustain.

[getterdone]

Agreed, it is very nice build. I wish I had his talent as a builder

[justsomeone]

You are too modest Greendoor. You are a very good builder. We have seen some of your work.

[Rafael Ti]

This is at least an "evaluation version". He can change or tune almost everything. My suggestions;
First; 4 weights is not enouhg, think 8 is a minimum. I started my wheel with 16 or 18.
Two; weights, friction. The linear bearings He used are good for CNC stuff, but here the best are traditional ball bearings. Also I can't see proper weights. I would make 50 lb each to allow weight to friction ratio be better.
Three; guides on falling side. That decreases the torque. He could use kind of ratchet or lock mechanism to keep weights out of the centre on falling side.
Four; 3-point support for rollers/weights. It should be 4-point here to make friction lower.
What else? The shape of guides... is a key.
So.. as for me this vid proves nothing.
Best.

[Tarsier79]

It proves nothing because you don't actually understand the forces involved.

1. You can calculate this, or any other mechanism with as many weights as you like, I like to calculate torque with 360 weights, 1 every degree. This also gives me the same end torque if I calculate 1 weight moving through 360 degrees. (this torque just happens to be 0 if you calculate correctly)

2. Linear bearings: fair enough, but done properly can produce a fairly low friction mech. At the end of the video the device rocks back and forth, showing its resting point....

3. "Three; guides on falling side." Correct, this does decrease torque, or it can increase it, depending on the angle the weight moves. Yes a latch will give you best torque at 3:00 (CW moving). Ultimately, weights ability to fall gives its torque and available power. Since the weight moves the same vertical distance up and down in one revolution of the wheel, the resultant potential energy through one cycle is 0.

4. Friction on roller supports. Perhaps friction could be reduced slightly with different support, but his mechanism appears rigid enough, and to run smoothly enough. Friction is not the problem, it is lack of this mechanism, or any other gravity mechanism to give an excess of power.

"What else? The shape of guides... is a key." This is another common misconception. In any weight based mechanism, leverage is determined by the vertical movement of weight, and using this, you can disregard the horizontal component. A weights ability to do work is its Potential energy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_potential

PE or U = Mass x Gravity x Height. There is no horizontal component in potential energy, because there does'nt need to be. Any "path" with a horizontal component of any shape in a perfect world, will produce the same total Kinetic Energy as a weight falling straight down.

That is why this mechanism perfectly demonstrates the inability of gravity to provide us with a self sustaining wheel!