energy producing experiments

[pequaide]

The 12 inch and the 18 inch wheel experiment; a double pulley Atwood’s.

There is a grove on the circumference of the 18 inch wheel that the strings ride in; and the diameter is a little less than what I had thought. The wheel functional diameter is 17.59 inches. Now I did not force numbers (18in/12in) upon the wheel I added suspended mass until the wheel was balanced: it told me what mass to add by making me balance it. Instead of 1.5 times as much mass on the 12 inch wheel it was 1.466.

The wheel also told me that the 12 inch wheel was out of round. The radius would change a little bit at different angles. This was not surprising because the 12 inch wheel is plywood and was made by hand with a jig saw. There is also tape around portions of the 18 (17.59) inch wheel. I did not want to take the tape off because it holds my throwing pins. These out of round factors increase the margin of error: but apparently not by much.

I used an Allen wrench to interrupt two photo gates that were about 27 mm apart and were secured with wood blocks and tape. I made the wheel accelerate for about 170° before the wrench interrupted the gates. The wheel was accelerated by an extra 57 grams placed (suspended on a string) on the 17.59 inch wheel.

So the real experiment changed the three arrangements.

You can place 3 kilogram on both sides of the 12 inch pulley. Became: You can place 1.666 kilogram on both sides of the 12 inch pulley.

You can place 3 kilogram on the left side of the 12 inch pulley and 2 kilograms on the right side of the 18 inch pulley.
Became: You can place 1.66 kilogram on the left side of the 12 inch pulley and 1.136 (2.5 lbs bar bell weights) kilograms on the right side of the 18 inch (17.59) pulley.

You can place 2 kilograms on both sides of the 18 inch pulley. Became: You can place 1.136 kilograms on both sides of the 18 inch pulley.

The time period between the tripping of the first photo gate and the tripping of the second photo gate was .0612 sec, .0600 sec, and .0589 sec respectively for the three arrangements.

All three arrangement were accelerated by the same quantity of extra mass (57 grams) placed on the string dangling from the circumference of the 17.59 inch wheel.

It appears to me that the same quantity of force applied for the same quantity of time will create the same quantity of momentum (linear Newtonian) no matter what the distribution of the mass is in the freely rotating wheel.

Or; it is just as easy to rotate 2 kilograms at 9 inches as it is to rotate 3 kilograms at 6 inches.


Oh: yes: and The Law of Conservation of Energy is false.

[broli]

Interesting results. If it can be confirmed by someone else then both these pages are bullocks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

Edit: To add some more substance to this post I did some deductive reasoning. Some of it might not make sense at all to you, so just consider this as "theoretical prediction".

First to sum up your 3 experimental cases:

1) 1.666 kilogram on both sides of the 12 inch pulley.

2) 1.66 kilogram on the left side of the 12 inch pulley and 1.136 kilograms on the right side of the 17.59 pulley.

3) 1.136 kilograms on both sides of the 17.59 inch pulley.

Out of these I calculate the moment of inertia of each case and include the ratio compared to the first:

1) 479.808 units
2) 591.391 units (x1.232)
3) 702.975 units (x1.465)

Then through some mind bending deduction I can make a prediction for the times of the 2nd and 3rd case using the first as fact.

1) .0612s
2) .0612s x 1.109 = .0678s (experiment: .0600s )
3) .0612s x 1.210 = .0740s (experiment: .0589s)

Again these ratios are found through some reasoning which I will not go into detail about but anyone with a brain can double check it. All I say is notice that the time ratios are the above ratios but square rooted.

This is to give you an idea of what theory predicts. If I would experiment with this I would also make sure the moment of inertia units differ a lot, this is done by using a large radius difference, to get more dramatic results compared to theory.

Edit2: I also got reminded of an old post I made here:

http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewt ... 5426#65426

[pequaide]

I switched the 57 grams drive mass from the 17.59 inch pulley to the 12 inch pulley and allowed it to rotate the wheel the same degrees (170°) keeping my flag and pin in the same positions. The Atwood’s masses were on the 17.59 inch wheel. The pin (Allen wrench) tripped the gates at .0665 sec. After changing time to velocity and then to acceleration it appears that the acceleration was a little higher than .72 that of the 17.59 inch pulley. But the acceleration can continue for half again more degrees because the drive mass is on a 12 inch diameter instead of 17.59 (the same distance dropped would give you half again more rotation). That puts both final velocities roughly right on top of each other.

This is rough experimentation but I had to see what a drive mass working at the smaller radius would do. It is dead on: .68 the acceleration but the flag on the outer wheel can move 255° instead of 170°. The final two momentums will be the same. The time over which the smaller force acts is half again longer: .67 * 1.5 = 1 * 1; Ft = mv

[Fletcher]

I might be missing something ?

What's stopping you guys putting of all this info & experimentation to use in trying to achieve an experiment that gains in Potential Energy, as a move towards a self sustaining device ?

If you are creating Energy [& Energy is the capacity to do work] then your experiments should do some work to prove the Energy creation is real.

1. you guys have the Atwoods drive to set a flywheel turning & accumulating momentum.

2. you can tether a mass to a flywheel & release it so that it gains height whilst completely stopping the flywheel, taking all the flywheels momentum.

3. you have photo gates to measure the velocity of the released mass so that vertical height could be accurately estimated based on data thus calculating Potential Energy of height.

4. you know how much Potential Energy is lost by the Atwoods drive portion of the experiment as the mass drops a given distance.

5. you can add & subtract to find the Potential Energy gain/loss, or substitute the velocities thru the photo gates as an alternative calculation.

Energy is proved to be created when it does excess work so how about putting it all together now as a POP of actual Energy creation using conservative gravity & momentum ?

[FunWithGravity2]

Broli,

Forgive my ignorance, how were you able to make these calculations without knowing the distance of the weights from the center of rotation ? Its interesting to see 2 weights and two pulleys and nothing but open space but aren't these just 2 weights moving on an invisible wheel. As the pulleys rotate the entire sytems moment of inertia is moving in relation to the location of the individual (but attached ) weights.

Just my uneducated opinion but i think the hidden magic that is being assumed currently might have some reasonable answers and we might not need to rewrite anything just yet.

With that said I am a huge fan of your style of experimenting and your mode of thinking pequide. Keep on the path and don't be rushed into moving to quickly as you might miss that single instance that works by trying to speed up the elimination process.


Best of luck.

[Fletcher]

Nah dave, 54 pages isn't exactly rushing it - the clincher is being able stop a flywheel in its tracks via a released tethered mass & increase the velocity of that tethered mass in direct proportions i.e. m1v1 = m2v2.

N.B.1. IIRC it was said very early in this thread that the orders of increase in Energy wasn't say 110%, but upwards of a huge 10 times, if the right math has been used - now this should be easily observable, easily verifiable & easily scaled to minimize percentage friction losses - this is based on the flywheel being completely stopped as per the bola & cylinder discussions & the Nasa satellite yo-yo de-spin devices.

N.B.2. you can't have a completely zero velocity for this simplified substitution formula [m1v1 = m2v2] because both sides of the equation would be zero, so that tells you its probably more to do with accelerations which ultimately leads back to Ke & not momentum.

ATEOTD the tethered mass velocity must be used to increase vertical height [Pe] or to hit something like a lever, a spring, or measure its penetration depth into a ballistic medium.

The same applies to the current variable radius Atwoods discussion - does changing the radius of operation for a balanced system change the penetration depth on impact if the same unbalancing mass is used ? - if it does then there is something to be learned else its just a method to launch a flywheel, IMO.

If I seem to be prodding & short of patience I really would like these discussions & experiments to progress somewhere & lead to some concrete conclusions after all this time.

[greendoor]

Fletcher - I appreciate your frustration and your thoughtful questions. I hope I haven't introduced a diversion, but here is my angle on things:

I've been excited by Pequaide's basic concept - once I finally understood what he was presenting. I'm not much of a hand's on experimenter, but i'm willing to build something once I have a very clear concept in mind. I'm sure Bessler had a very clear concept in mind when he build his wheels - i'm not 100% sure that our best builders are the best thinkers, and vice versa. I'm looking for the simplest proof of principle we can get.

Hence - I started experimenting with balanced weights. My rough maths indicates the maximum Momentum is created when the Ratio of balanced 'Atwoods' to Driver mass is maximised. Ideally - I wanted to build something like a see-saw with 1000 kg on each end, so that 0.5kg mass would slowly accelerate it from balanced position, and we would have some serious momentum to play with launching a similar mass back upwards. I figure that friction losses are going to obscure the truth - so let's build something where everything is maximised, to give it a fair chance.

This is probably "greed is an evil root" type of thinking. The cost and space limitations of building large devices is a problem. I was experiment with just a pair of 20kg plastic water containers - and that was extremely unweildy. But I saw evidence that increasing the balanced mass increases the *whoomph* of the final impact, for the same driver mass falling the same height. Not very scientific - but I saw enough to convince me that pequaide is on the right track.

So it seems that generating increasingly larger amounts of momentum is doable. But the problem is that we need increasingly larger mass - and the final velocity slows down as we increase the mass/inertia and effectively divide the available g-force for Accelerating the system.

We fully understand that although the amount of Momentum can be amplified - the Energy calculation always remains the same. This is because the Velocity is decreased. So with this Atwoods system of amplifying Momentum, we end up with slow velocity, heavy mass. But COM encourages us to think that we can transform P=M1V1 into M2V2 with very little loss. And of course, if increase the Velocity proportionally, we raise the Energy exponentially. The Holy Grail.

So the focus of the 2nd part of this concept is to turn a large amount of momentum into a large amount of energy by transfering momentum from the heavy mass back to the much smaller driver mass. If we do this by a sudden snatch of a tether, or maybe an impact, we have a good chance of converting the momentum into an impulse that should be able to launch mass vertically upwards. Hence the experiments with flywheel trebuchet etc.

The reason i've introduced this 3rd line of thinking about geared up flywheels (e.g. different diameter leverage points on the same wheel) is because I think it can get the job done much cheaper and easier - storing exactly the same amount of momentum in a much lighter flywheel with a faster velocity. I'm thinking this might lead to an experimental idea that even I might be able build.

Since we have to convert the momentum to energy at some point, does it really matter at what point? Using a leverage flywheel just means that we are doing some of the energy conversion earlier on.

I think that when we suddenly apply the momentum of the flywheel to the tether (or whatever launch mechanism we devise) - Momentum is Momentum. I don't think that it will matter if it is a heavy slow wheel, or a light fast wheel. I expect the same Impulse will be delivered to the tether either way, in a very short period of Time.

Sorry for the wordy explanation of my thought process - and i hope it isn't a diversion.

[Fletcher]

Actually greendoor I appreciate the considered answer.

Here's what I think & I'll try to keep it basic.

Yes, you can get much more momentum at the expense of velocity.

But now your big mass is traveling very slowly.

It is the acceleration that the big mass can impart to the small tethered mass that is important IMO.

A slow acceleration, even if it carries on for quite a while [i.e. has follow though], doesn't add up to more usable Energy in the small mass, IMO.

Of course I'd be only to pleased if you guys can prove your case doing some work over & above system frictional losses in a closed rotary system ...

... OR ... gaining Pe of height in a one shot system, which is Ke in waiting.

Peq. has thrown countless bean bags, but now we need to know the amount of Energy used to spin the flywheel to suitable rpm to compare to height gained to go any further with this theory.

[broli]

If I seem to be prodding & short of patience I really would like these discussions & experiments to progress somewhere & lead to some concrete conclusions after all this time.

I think we have already addressed this. But to repeat, I blame lack of common sense, collaboration and a too high "go do it yourself" attitude.

However the last person I blame is peq. Everyone has his capabilities and limits. This is where other should have took over a long time ago.

Where I work team collaboration is the number one priority without it the whole project is doomed. When someone's stuck, he's helped so the project can move along and not fall apart due to a domino effect.
I already suggested to some people to only make some stupid wooden build and send it to someone capable of getting the data out of it and presenting it. Which I could do btw, but no one responded. So I was forced to "do it myself", the result was a crappy build that falls apart by a finger touch that could hardly be called conclusive.

To me it's mind boggling that we are still mostly at where this thread started considering the simplicity of the concept and its major implications.

This is not the only community that's guilty of it. The other "big" ones have the same symptoms. Usually it goes something like this...Someone presents a video of some "working" setup, before it's even investigated you have 10 replicators on the scene. In time not a single one succeeds. *Insert x months of ridicule until a new video is posted".
However god forbid if you propose an investigation of a sane and simple concept.

I lost hope for most of these communities, but not in general. I'm still open to any collaboration attempts.

[Fletcher]

I am also at a loss why no one is building & reporting their findings.

It seems to me that Nick embodied the best combination of Peq's ideas in his own 'bicycle wheel driver & flung mass' build - that at least was commented on & analysed fairly conclusively, but then he did have all the elements in one experimental setup - Wubbly did a fine replication.

[Fletcher]

Greendoor .. perhaps there is a simple test setup for this theory that almost anyone could build.

I know Peq. has objected to springs before but personally I don't see any difference between a spring flinging a control mass & a tether trebuchet arrangement.

The objective is to see if there is any height gain of a lifted mass by using a heavy slow mass flywheel v's a lighter mass faster flywheel - if heavy & slow is advantageous it should show up in a careful experiment - this experimental setup could also be quite versatile & able to be changed for comparison purposes.

Take a one-way sprocket bike wheel without the tyre - mount it vertically - add opposing masses at the same radius to provide variable mass & inertia that can be changed out to try different combinations - run a fishing nylon around the rim to which is attached a known drive mass, or conversely construct an Atwoods type arrangement - the purpose is to accelerate the flywheel in a controlled manner that can be tried in different combinations & configurations.

Somewhere on the rim attach a lightweight bungy cord & have the other end attached to the control lifted mass - have the lifted mass anchored initially.

Let the drive mass accelerate the flywheel as it descends a known distance - once the drive mass can't fall any further the flywheel will stop accelerating but will have momentum - let the flywheel stretch the bungy cord until the flywheel decelerates to a stop - the one-way sprocket will stop it from turning backwards - the bungy will be stretched.

Release the lifted mass & see how high it gets vertically & compare Pe's lost & gained.

N.B. you may have to play around with the position of the anchored lift mass so that its near vertically aligned under the bungy attachment point to the rim when it stops the flywheel - also, you may have to loop the bungy attachment at the rim over a hook so that the lifted mass & bungy cord can fly free if required.

What is objectionable about this test setup ?

[broli]

What is objectionable about this test setup ?

Such tests have been suggested over and over. I included some of mine too that went a step further by only measuring velocities rather than heights since I have the equipment to do so. Do you remember this ludicrous setup:

http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewt ... 3748#73748

But it kind of proves the point doesn't it Fletcher, that people in this area seem to hate progress.

Wubbly has excellent presentation skills and experimenting equipment. But when asked to change his setup slightly to perform the "peq experiments" he shut down.

The test I performed was using a magnet and pickup coils to measure time on an oscilloscope. It was very simple to set up for me. However the build was the problem. I didn't get the fancy work place I got promised so had to make due with junk.
I really like to redo this with a better setup so I can finally rest my mind.

For some the above setup takes an hour to make, for others a year. While the same goes for data gathering as this thread is the living proof of. We must work together to make up for our shortcomings.

[greendoor]

I have doubts about springs - they seem inherently lossy to me. I keep thinking back to Newton's balls when it comes to transfering Momentum. The most efficient transfer requires high elasticity - and there aren't many materials with higher elasticity than steel.

A spring, as I see it, is steel that has intentionally had the elasticity taken out of it by geometry. Instead of quickly deforming and transfering the force with little loss, a spring is engineered to move - a lot. Every coil of the spring is another stage that multiplies the movement and reduces the elasticity. This encourages the spring to stretch a much greater distance, and I can imagine much more heat escaping at every turn. It's almost like the equivalent of a radiator, designed to ditch as much energy as fast as possible.

Think about kicking a football over a goal post. A very sharp impulse, heavy mass of player's leg and boot, fairly slow velocity - but when it is sharply applied to the lightweight ball, it takes off with much velocity and height.

Now imagine trying to kick that football over a goal post with springs attached to your boot ...

Springs obviously have uses - I have no doubt that they can store Energy fairly effectively. But we are in this grey murky area of trying to see the difference between Momentum & Energy, and I think springs could confuse things. Unless of course they catapulted the driver mass well higher than it fell and proved over-unity :)

Since Momentum requires velocity, it's fairly obvious that a tensioned spring contains zero momentum. But it does contain Force, which can be used to accelerate a mass over Time. But the Force quickly diminishes with Distance, so it's hard to calculate.

If Energy is as fickle as we are trying to prove it is, I see springs as a complication. However - I will agree that whatever device is used, it will have Elasticity, and it is really a question of how much is required to get the job done. Bessler mentioned "the bow twangs" and "archers" - so maybe he used something spring-like. I'm favoring a sharp impact, like Newtons balls, or a sharp yank on a tether - because I think it's a faster transfer and less obvious energy losses.

My guess is that Momentum is Momentum, and that a fast/light flywheel having the same Momentum as a heavy/slow flywheel will apply exactly the same impulse. You are right that we need to experiment. But as I pointed out, i'm having difficulty with building heavy/slow rigs. I wanted to engineer a huge surplus of momentum, to counter-act friction and bad build quality, for a clear indication of over-unity. If it turns out i don't need to labour with heavy mass ratios, and use a lighter flywheel, I might have more success.

I'm thinking just a simple fishing line tether with a loop, manually attached to a hook on the flywheel when it is up to speed might be a simple start.

[greendoor]

I see a bungy as being inferior to a steel spring. We know that rubber heats up when stretched. Imagine trying to kick a football over a goal post with a bungy between the boot and the ball ... I just see losses.

A one-way clutch is also lossy. Especially with the level of build quality I would bring to it ...

Just looking for the simplest, most direct way of proving this concept. Actually - a pair of boots mounted on a flywheel, and manually placing a football over them might just work ... the same football could be used as the driver mass ...

[FunWithGravity2]

Fletcher, i'm guessing that was sarcastic about the time frame, I feel the same frustration about the lack of seat of the pants evidence that we all can grasp, and i don't fully get or agree with the current belief of the progress that some think has been made here or the effectiveness of this type of setup. I believe it is a great line of experimenting but as it relates to a rotating frame of reference, even if positive results were to come from this i don't believe the transition to rotation would be an easy track.

The reason i told pequaide not to feel rushed is because i do feel he is in the right area of attention and that he needs to take the time to fully understand every movement and make sure it is not valuable in his search before moving on.

I have stayed out of this thread, (maybe a handful of posts in 54 pages) and i also stayed awya from getting involved with any of the items Nic was working on. Nic was very close to alot of my very early work (3-4 years ago) when he was throwing mass last year. An i agree with the thoughts that these should have been easy experiments to setup and prove conclusively very quickly ( i was nervous) but it also was very interseting to me how someone that started where i had can so quickly envision some differnt typr of setup and take a left where i had taken a right. The amount af variables that could have been altered to get desired results in those setups,
Wheel Dia (as percentage of tether lenght)
Wheel weight
Wheel weight ditribution, (moment of inertia)
tether lenght
Tether weight
Tether release point.
All have a large amount of variables, and unfortunately, once the data starts trending in one direction the outcome is not set in stone for that data set, ALL possible variations need to be pursued and assumptions as to the trend will be the downfall of most experimenters in any endeavour.


The other day i very quiclky tried the idea that greendoor propsed about a weight hung around a spiral coned and able to accelerate the wheel up slowly. It sounded like it might be interesting.
Outcome.
Just using a 5/8" axle. the weight was to small to start acceleration of the wheel (yes it was light) and even with a help to get started it was a very sad outcome the wheel would only gain a slow rotaion and was not enought to toss th weight higher than it started.
Using a 6 inch diameter wrap the amount of circumference allowed a very limited rotation to gain any speed in 3 rotations to fling the weight.
Huge loss's were experienced, but i missed a huge amount of variables and did not go with a conical grooved yadda yadda. But i satisfied myself. Unfortunatley this limited variable setup would not have made anyone happy and i would have been asked to further travel down a road that i thought was useless and i was not interested in doing so so i didn't share. I mention it now only because i think its relevent as to why many people don't jump on someone elses bandwagon and do the experimenting for them. We all are sure that the direction we are heading is correct and being told we should not pursue it or try something different is not ussually acepted well.


ten times the energy, probably not, i'd say 10% increase, if its ten times then i my design will be obsolete very quiclkly. Springs ? i can't tell if your serious of if your just baiting people to say yes to springs because then you can prove so easily why that is then a failed reasoning for their principle of operation. Energy storage, definately yes, but i believe in using the flywheel as my spring.

I will stay away from this thread Pequaide as i don't believe i have anything useful to add and i don't want to be a hinderance, I had some questions about some of the variables being used and their effectiveness at giving a conclusive result if expected to perform the same in rotating enviroment but thats not your issue right now so i wish you the best of luck with your continued work.


Crazy Dave