Number of sides makes no difference.BootCamp wrote:Jim,
Can this glitch be minimized by using less sides in the polygon?You have found the infamous WM2D curved polygon glitch.
BC

Moderator: scott
Yes, Techstuf's wheel did prove to be a hoax. However, on the positive side, I think it did help motivate some people to become mobilists who, otherwise, might not have. There's a silver lining in every cloud. The more individuals working on the solution to the Bessler mystery, the sooner we can expect a solution to be forthcoming.His wheel's alleged performance is contained in many previous threads discussions. A fraud by all accounts.
My mistake. Should've read it more closely. The paddle wheel (the flywheel) was geared to the elevator. As you say it must have had a one-way rachet drive to stop it reversing.Jon J Hutton wrote:As best I can remember the toy was about two feet high and about one foot square. It consisted of a spiral ramp that I think made about 3 1/2 turns from the top to the bottom, at the bottom of the ramp was a paddle wheel.
This was connected through some gears to an elevator that went to the top. At the top was a hopper. In this hopper was placed about 10 marbles. There was a trip door on the hopper that would only let out one marble at a time. I think that it would release so that only one marble was going down the ramp at a time. Anyway, he tripped the gate and one marble rolled down the ramp, it took maybe 3 to 5 seconds to get to the bottom. It hit the paddlewheel and spun it causing the elevator to move up a little, this released another marble which repeated the process, this time the first marble was on the elevator and was moved up toward the hopper.
I think there was about 5 marbles on the elevator at a time. Anyway once he started the toy running, it continued to run. He said that you had to have all the marbles in the hopper to start, once the first few marbles had hit the paddle wheel, it spun continuously. We were at their house for about three or four hours, and I spent most of my time watching the toy run. One time I touched the paddle wheel and it stopped. My uncle came over and scolded me for touching it, he then moved all the marbles to the hopper and started it again. It was still running when we left.
They do not work for a while, but "as long as the water flows"reminds me of those self-pumping waterfalls I've seen woodcut prints of in old books. You know, the kind where the water falls from a higher elevation, hits a water wheel that drives a pump (usually an Archimedean screw), and is then lifted back from its final lower elevation to its higher, starting elevation. Such a device can, indeed, appear to be operating continuously for a while, but only so long as the amount of water dropping down is slightly greater than the amount that has to be lifted back up again.