Hi All,
So, how does this work? If I put a design and a few photos and maybe a video, and the wheel turns out to be a runner, do I get to keep the IP rights to what I created or do I run the risk of someone patenting what I've designed even though this forum is a prior record of the idea being mine?
How does this work?
Moderator: scott
re: How does this work?
The forum is public domain. You must patent within 1 year of disclosure to the public. If you want to patent it would not be a good idea to disclose anything.
You can keep everything open source though and still be remembered as the person that solved Bessler's wheel.
Trying to get a patent or even getting one could end up being a big headache for nothing.
Most inventors see little if anything from their inventions.
You can keep everything open source though and still be remembered as the person that solved Bessler's wheel.
Trying to get a patent or even getting one could end up being a big headache for nothing.
Most inventors see little if anything from their inventions.
Vic Hays
Ambassador MFG LLC
Ambassador MFG LLC
re: How does this work?
Welcome to the forum, FatSpidr.
Patent laws depend on where you live. In the U.S. only the inventor may patent an invention. You could post your idea here but if you want to patent it you would need to file an application within a year of posting; but you will have lost all forign pateent rights to file because most other countries have laws that forbid a patent after the idea is public because their laws give patents to the first one to file.
The prefered method would be to file a Provisional Patent Application (PPA) before disclosing your idea on the forum. This will allow you to file a Regular Patent Application (RPA) withing a year and use the PPA as a reference. But filing any application takes a lot of time and effort which is useless if the idea doesn't work. And what if after building it you make a small change and the change makes it works but you didn't include that small change in the PPA?
Getting a workable design is really the first step. Men have been trying to make a working wheel for thousands of years. History says that Bessler probably found a solution 300 years ago after many years of searching and many failed attempts. The chance of finding a working solution on your first few attempts are very very slim.
So posting an idea is up to you. Some people post their ideas and some keep their most promising ideas quiet. The whole thing is irrelevant until someone re-discovers a working wheel.
Patent laws depend on where you live. In the U.S. only the inventor may patent an invention. You could post your idea here but if you want to patent it you would need to file an application within a year of posting; but you will have lost all forign pateent rights to file because most other countries have laws that forbid a patent after the idea is public because their laws give patents to the first one to file.
The prefered method would be to file a Provisional Patent Application (PPA) before disclosing your idea on the forum. This will allow you to file a Regular Patent Application (RPA) withing a year and use the PPA as a reference. But filing any application takes a lot of time and effort which is useless if the idea doesn't work. And what if after building it you make a small change and the change makes it works but you didn't include that small change in the PPA?
Getting a workable design is really the first step. Men have been trying to make a working wheel for thousands of years. History says that Bessler probably found a solution 300 years ago after many years of searching and many failed attempts. The chance of finding a working solution on your first few attempts are very very slim.
So posting an idea is up to you. Some people post their ideas and some keep their most promising ideas quiet. The whole thing is irrelevant until someone re-discovers a working wheel.
re: How does this work?
How would you be able to keep a design open source? Couldn't anyone just follow up and patent your design? Is there a good method to make something open source?
Also, isn't there a guy on here, I think his name's rlortie, who will build your design for a cut to ensure that it's a runner?
If it's a runner, and if I'm able to keep the design open source, I'll be happy with Branson's $25 million. All he'll have to do is pop a couple of hundred thousand truck sized units on the top of the glaciers in Greenland and use them to run dry ice machines to suck the CO2 out of the air.
I tried running it through WM, but some of the parts are supposed to go through the other parts and attach to other parts. So, I can't make the collision work sometimes and not work when I don't want it to. The real world components are arranged so that they pass through each other. It'll have to be prototyped at least once in the real world to show that it's a runner.
Also, isn't there a guy on here, I think his name's rlortie, who will build your design for a cut to ensure that it's a runner?
If it's a runner, and if I'm able to keep the design open source, I'll be happy with Branson's $25 million. All he'll have to do is pop a couple of hundred thousand truck sized units on the top of the glaciers in Greenland and use them to run dry ice machines to suck the CO2 out of the air.
I tried running it through WM, but some of the parts are supposed to go through the other parts and attach to other parts. So, I can't make the collision work sometimes and not work when I don't want it to. The real world components are arranged so that they pass through each other. It'll have to be prototyped at least once in the real world to show that it's a runner.
re: How does this work?
WM can have some parts collide and others not collide. Also you can have connection points turn on and off based on the conditions. Most anything that can happen in the real world can be simulated in WM as long as the movement is only in two dimensions.fatspidr wrote:I tried running it through WM, but some of the parts are supposed to go through the other parts and attach to other parts. So, I can't make the collision work sometimes and not work when I don't want it to. The real world components are arranged so that they pass through each other.
So how would this solve the CO2 problem. You would need to maintain the cold temperature of the dry ice else it would melt back into the atmosphere. You could make more money by using a hundred thousand machines to produce and sell electricity or just sell the machines to millions of people.fatspidr wrote:... to run dry ice machines to suck the CO2 out of the air.
There's no way that Ralph can "ensure" that a wheel design is a runner! The design will either work or not work. All Ralph can do is build and test models which he thinks have merit. The design would need to be extraordinary in order to work.fatspidr wrote:Also, isn't there a guy on here, I think his name's rlortie, who will build your design for a cut to ensure that it's a runner?
You seem to misunderstand how patents and intellectual properties work. I've said it before and I'll say it again. You have two choices; to patent or to not patent. If you don't patent then you may create a shark type feeding frenzy where the "big boys" end up controlling everything like they do with oil; which is not what you wanted when you tried to "open source" your idea. If you patent then you get to control how the wheel gets built and sold. If you don't patent then the "big boys" will step in and patent every little design improvement and the only thing that stays free will be your original first design. If you write a very good "method patent" that covers the concept method of why the wheel works (like the Wright Bros. did with flying) then you can maintain control over your idea because it would be near impossible to build a wheel without infringing on you original concept. This keeps the "big boys" from monopolizing the industry. You could sell "licenses to build" for say $10 a wheel to any that ask and the "big boys" would be on a same level as everyone else. They would not be able to use any of their improved designs without your permission. You in turn can make an aggreement that they must share their improvements as a condition to using the original patented concept.
The very first manufactures of working wheels needs a little protection to prevent "copy cats" from stealing their designs. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to open a totally new market. After the market has been established, the startup manufacturer would like to make his money back before a bunch of "knock offs" enter the marketplace. A patent helps to manage competition. Business is risky enough. A little patent protection makes it less risky for the manufacturer.
re: How does this work?
Thanks for the advice Jim. The reason I suggested Ralph is that I'm not the best welder, machinist or handyman. I've made most of the components of the wheel already, and I've attached them to the wheel to see how much of an out of balance state the wheel's in during different configurations. It truly appears to be able to work. I've checked out most of the drawings that have been submitted to this site and nothing looks like what I've designed, so at least I'm not running down an obviously well beaten path.
Spending time trying to figure out how to make WM2D do what I want will probably take more than the time it will to actually make the remaining components, so I guess I'll spend that time whipping them up.
I guess the best way is to make my own runner, put together a solid method/concept/description that covers the main principle and go from there. I should have either a principle that works or doesn't work by the end of the weekend. Time to head out to the garage.
As for the CO2, well, I look at it like this. There are snow making machines out there that throw piles of snow onto ski hills, even though the temperature is slightly above freezing. What they're counting on is that they can make snow faster than it can melt.
With a dry ice machine, the idea is to make the dry ice, and pile it up faster than the ambient temperature can melt a block of dry ice. If the pile gets big enough, only the blocks of dry ice on the exposed exterior meet the ambient air and begin to evaporate. All that has to be done is to make blocks faster than the rate of evaporation. That saves a lot of $$ by forgoing the need to sequester the CO2 in caverns or other places. The downside is that it's a never ending process of making new dry ice faster than the old dry ice evaporates.
Popping them on top of uninhabited Greenland would be a good place, for several reason. The evaporating dry ice would create conditions that aren't safe for humans, as the evaporated CO2 would tend to stick closer to the ground. But, on the bright side, the temperature difference in the centre of Greenland is close enough to the freezing point of CO2 that it would take less energy to create each block in the pile.
Of course, with an actual operating wheel, lots of the CO2 wouldn't even need to be captured. The thing is, what's currently in the atmosphere may take a while to settle down, even with a complete halting of man-made CO2 production. One of my other ideas uses CO2 capture and H2 from electrolysis, running it through a few catalytic and energy inducing steps to produce liquid alcohols. But I don't want to put the cart before the horse. First things first...build a runner.
Spending time trying to figure out how to make WM2D do what I want will probably take more than the time it will to actually make the remaining components, so I guess I'll spend that time whipping them up.
I guess the best way is to make my own runner, put together a solid method/concept/description that covers the main principle and go from there. I should have either a principle that works or doesn't work by the end of the weekend. Time to head out to the garage.
As for the CO2, well, I look at it like this. There are snow making machines out there that throw piles of snow onto ski hills, even though the temperature is slightly above freezing. What they're counting on is that they can make snow faster than it can melt.
With a dry ice machine, the idea is to make the dry ice, and pile it up faster than the ambient temperature can melt a block of dry ice. If the pile gets big enough, only the blocks of dry ice on the exposed exterior meet the ambient air and begin to evaporate. All that has to be done is to make blocks faster than the rate of evaporation. That saves a lot of $$ by forgoing the need to sequester the CO2 in caverns or other places. The downside is that it's a never ending process of making new dry ice faster than the old dry ice evaporates.
Popping them on top of uninhabited Greenland would be a good place, for several reason. The evaporating dry ice would create conditions that aren't safe for humans, as the evaporated CO2 would tend to stick closer to the ground. But, on the bright side, the temperature difference in the centre of Greenland is close enough to the freezing point of CO2 that it would take less energy to create each block in the pile.
Of course, with an actual operating wheel, lots of the CO2 wouldn't even need to be captured. The thing is, what's currently in the atmosphere may take a while to settle down, even with a complete halting of man-made CO2 production. One of my other ideas uses CO2 capture and H2 from electrolysis, running it through a few catalytic and energy inducing steps to produce liquid alcohols. But I don't want to put the cart before the horse. First things first...build a runner.
re: How does this work?
fatspidr,
Jim is correct in stating that I do not ensure a running wheel. To date, it is obvious that I have sent just as many rejection letters as designs received. We still do not have an operating gravity wheel.
Yes I work on a contingency basis, but I only build what I think is a viable idea and that the inventor assures me they are not capable of taking on the task themselves. Either lack of mechanical aptitude or resources will make my decision.
And in the future just refer to me as Ralph!
Jim is correct in stating that I do not ensure a running wheel. To date, it is obvious that I have sent just as many rejection letters as designs received. We still do not have an operating gravity wheel.
Yes I work on a contingency basis, but I only build what I think is a viable idea and that the inventor assures me they are not capable of taking on the task themselves. Either lack of mechanical aptitude or resources will make my decision.
And in the future just refer to me as Ralph!
re: How does this work?
Hi Ralph,
I guess I should clear up what I meant. I figured that if there were a working principle, well described, that you would be able to turn the design into running prototype. If the principle didn't work, then the prototype wouldn't work.
I'm giving it a good try, I think I have all the parts I need. Just a bit of grinding, a little welding, a bit of fabrication and I'll know once and for all if this is a runner. One thing though...I bought some steel springs and they appear to be too strong. Can springs be weakened by heating them? I don't want to ruin a batch of springs trying to find out.
If it is a runner, the first thing I'm going to do is scale it up a bit, fit it into an old stagecoach type carriage and drive it the nearest oil refinery...that'd be cool.
I guess I should clear up what I meant. I figured that if there were a working principle, well described, that you would be able to turn the design into running prototype. If the principle didn't work, then the prototype wouldn't work.
I'm giving it a good try, I think I have all the parts I need. Just a bit of grinding, a little welding, a bit of fabrication and I'll know once and for all if this is a runner. One thing though...I bought some steel springs and they appear to be too strong. Can springs be weakened by heating them? I don't want to ruin a batch of springs trying to find out.
If it is a runner, the first thing I'm going to do is scale it up a bit, fit it into an old stagecoach type carriage and drive it the nearest oil refinery...that'd be cool.
re: How does this work?
fatspidr,
It is good to see that the forum has gained another member with empirical values, and resources to fabricate their own ideas.
I will offer any assistance available. Yes you can weaken springs by heating them. Critical point is to do your best to heat them evenly the full length. Get one spot to hot or hotter than the rest and you will end up with a weak link. This holds true either compression or tension springs.
If they are tension, put them under stress while heating until the desired measurement is achieved. for compression simply heat while under load.
Back in the fifty's when I was into custom street rods, we would lower the coil spring suspension in our cars by simply heating them with a torch using a rose bud tip. When the car dropped to the desired hight you simply remove the torch.
Ralph
It is good to see that the forum has gained another member with empirical values, and resources to fabricate their own ideas.
I will offer any assistance available. Yes you can weaken springs by heating them. Critical point is to do your best to heat them evenly the full length. Get one spot to hot or hotter than the rest and you will end up with a weak link. This holds true either compression or tension springs.
If they are tension, put them under stress while heating until the desired measurement is achieved. for compression simply heat while under load.
Back in the fifty's when I was into custom street rods, we would lower the coil spring suspension in our cars by simply heating them with a torch using a rose bud tip. When the car dropped to the desired hight you simply remove the torch.
Ralph
re: How does this work?
I'm surprised that you didn't ruin the tempering of the spring Ralph because I always believed that to "soften" a metal you would need to heat it.Back in the fifty's when I was into custom street rods, we would lower the coil spring suspension in our cars by simply heating them with a torch using a rose bud tip. When the car dropped to the desired hight you simply remove the torch.
Graham
re: How does this work?
graham,
Heating and let cool gradual to ambient temperature is called annealing.
It toughens the metal yet making it less brittle. Anneal means the same as temper. That is why I stated to have the springs under desired stress while applying the heat.
Heating and cooling of metal by various methods give different characteristics. for example to case harden something you heat it in ground up bones. It will take on carbon in the process. Let it cool slowly and then reheat to a cherry red. Then immediately dowse in water.
If interested in learning more I suggest a Book "Hardening & Tempering also containing Annealing and forging of steel by Joseph V. Woodworth. available from Lindsay Publications Inc.
Ralph
Heating and let cool gradual to ambient temperature is called annealing.
It toughens the metal yet making it less brittle. Anneal means the same as temper. That is why I stated to have the springs under desired stress while applying the heat.
Heating and cooling of metal by various methods give different characteristics. for example to case harden something you heat it in ground up bones. It will take on carbon in the process. Let it cool slowly and then reheat to a cherry red. Then immediately dowse in water.
If interested in learning more I suggest a Book "Hardening & Tempering also containing Annealing and forging of steel by Joseph V. Woodworth. available from Lindsay Publications Inc.
Ralph
re: How does this work?
Well, I have most of the pieces assembled. The wheel itself has to be strengthened a bit, since I started out using that 1/4 inch plywood from brazil. It's cheap stuff, but it doesn't hold latching mechanisms very well.
I'm hoping that by tomorrow afternoon, I'll have a new wheel backing, a stronger rim and all the latching mechanisms in place. Then I can do a static test at all the angles again to see if I want to build the latching release cams.
Like I said, I'm not the best mechanic/welder/handyman around. You should see some of the welds. I never used a flux core wire feed welder before, and it sure can burn through galvanized conduit pretty quickly if you don't know what you're doing. Needless to say, the 16th weld ended up a bit better than the first, but I'm not going for pretty.
My 7 year old nephew is an interesting kid. He's a thinker for sure, wants to be an inventor when he grows up...don't know if that's a curse or a blessing, based on the efforts and experiences shown on this board.
Anyway, I told him that I was working on an invention in the garage. He practically flew off the couch and didn't even bother putting his jacket on. He raced me to the garage door.
When I told him what it was supposed to do, he said that a friend of his made one just like it last year for his science fair. (did I tell you the kid has a bit of an imagination).
Then he looked at the work in progress and said "Well, I don't know. I think if you put it on Ebay, you might get a few dollars for it."
Then he looked at things a little longer and said, "Dave, I think you should probably think about painting some flames on it so it'll look better".
Then he looked down at the stand. I have a big truck battery sitting on one of the boards of the stand. It's just there because it was in the way when it was on the work bench. "Dave, you can't fool me. You're just gonna use that battery to make it spin."
I'm thinking of giving the kid the nickname "Leipzig".
I'll have pics and drawings of the thing here on the weekend if it doesn't work to show what may have gone wrong. Otherwise, I don't know what I'll do. For sure, I'll have to take Jig dancing lessons.
I'm hoping that by tomorrow afternoon, I'll have a new wheel backing, a stronger rim and all the latching mechanisms in place. Then I can do a static test at all the angles again to see if I want to build the latching release cams.
Like I said, I'm not the best mechanic/welder/handyman around. You should see some of the welds. I never used a flux core wire feed welder before, and it sure can burn through galvanized conduit pretty quickly if you don't know what you're doing. Needless to say, the 16th weld ended up a bit better than the first, but I'm not going for pretty.
My 7 year old nephew is an interesting kid. He's a thinker for sure, wants to be an inventor when he grows up...don't know if that's a curse or a blessing, based on the efforts and experiences shown on this board.
Anyway, I told him that I was working on an invention in the garage. He practically flew off the couch and didn't even bother putting his jacket on. He raced me to the garage door.
When I told him what it was supposed to do, he said that a friend of his made one just like it last year for his science fair. (did I tell you the kid has a bit of an imagination).
Then he looked at the work in progress and said "Well, I don't know. I think if you put it on Ebay, you might get a few dollars for it."
Then he looked at things a little longer and said, "Dave, I think you should probably think about painting some flames on it so it'll look better".
Then he looked down at the stand. I have a big truck battery sitting on one of the boards of the stand. It's just there because it was in the way when it was on the work bench. "Dave, you can't fool me. You're just gonna use that battery to make it spin."
I'm thinking of giving the kid the nickname "Leipzig".
I'll have pics and drawings of the thing here on the weekend if it doesn't work to show what may have gone wrong. Otherwise, I don't know what I'll do. For sure, I'll have to take Jig dancing lessons.
re: How does this work?
This is probably the first time in my life that I wish I was unemployed so I could spend more time finishing this wheel. I said there would be some pics and drawings by the weekend, but work and life got in the way of those plans. I might have enough time to finish up what I want to finish, so I'm giving myself an extension till next weekend.
Who here is a wizard with WM2D?
Who here is a wizard with WM2D?
re: How does this work?
Thanks for the update. We all know the realities of life get in the way of what we really want to do ;)
Re: re: How does this work?
Many 'wizards' out here. What do you want to know about WM2D?fatspidr wrote: Who here is a wizard with WM2D?
Cheers,
Rainer