Fletcher wrote:Hey Stewart.. Nice to hear your calming voice of reason again. Rainer tells me you have an animation on the home page of your website (without flash player it appears as a big white hole). Are you able to load a static picture for those of us who are luddites ?
Will your's & Ed's site have a discussion board ?
Hi Fletcher, it's good to see you are still on the case. Sorry about the animation on the front page, I assumed everyone would have flash by now! I'll change it to a basic animated GIF, however for some of the other features of the site you will need flash and shockwave, there's just no other way to present them, hopefully you'll find a way to get them working.
Our website does have forum support, but we haven't decided whether to use it yet, we'll see.
Ken
I think you did disclose what James and Ralph are working on in your last image.
I am working on a similar design.
However even though you have the principal, it may not be the design that they or I am using.
I am behind James and Ralph as far as I know.
I could be wrong as usual, but I think you have put the fear of Bessler in those two front runners.
I place my bet that James or Ralph will come through with a real design.
Ralph and I are working on the same design with variations. Mine was running. I am now in some adaptions to make it plausible to use for various unheard of places. jim kelly
Thanks Stewart. Rainer sent me a screen dump so I could see what it was, so you don't need to change anything. Very nice, would look good in animation. Must have been quite difficult to build btw.
I will eventually get around to buying a new computer sometime this year & that should have the bells & whistles & enough memory & processing power to to make the 'Matrix' look like a kids game of noughts & crosses.
Sorry Ken, I did not answer until I quit laughing! All you have done is put Kelly's original idea inside another wheel. A design by the way that you said would never work.
I, too, did some laughing last night after I made a quick WM2D model of the "Empty Side / Heavy Side, Peacock's Tail Wheel" and saw how utterly unworkable it is. I tried a variety of gear ratios, but could not get it to turn over even a single time. In fact, it is probably one of the more motion resistant designs I have ever tried modeling!
In any event, I am certainly glad that it (and hopefully any variations of it) is not what you and James Kelly are working on. I've attached a screenshot of the model below. As I predicted, it was a challenge to construct, but not an impossibility.
James Kelly wrote:
Ralph and I are working on the same design with variations. Mine was running.
"WAS running"?! Don't you mean that "IS running"?
So, let me ask you this. Do you NOW have a model wheel which is capable of continuously running?
ken
Attachments
This design is useless...
On 7/6/06, I found, in any overbalanced gravity wheel with rotation rate, ω, axle to CG distance d, and CG dip angle φ, the average vertical velocity of its drive weights is downward and given by:
james kelly wrote:Mine was running. I am now in some adaptions to make it plausible to use for various unheard of places. jim kelly
Oh, oh, ... don't tell me you took it apart to apply those changes.
Now I'm worried you will encounter the "I put it all back together, but somehow it's not running any more"-Syndrom :(
Would'nt it be really something if James Kelly's wheel turned out to be nothing more than one big stunt?....LOL
I'm guessing 98% of forum members would be totally relieved! We all dream to be the first one's!
As for my own wheel. Completed a few tests and so far it's a no turner! Have at least 20 -50 combinations left to try out on this same model.....it's all "educated guess'" (calculations on PM will be reserved only until after the fact)
Last edited by Sevich on Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
My engine can not be transported in one piece. It must be apart to transport. It weighs over 600 lbs and is over 7ft. tall. making the original run is no problem. doing what I am presently working on is tedious.
Sevich says:
''I'm guessing 98% of forum members would be totally relieved! We all dream to be the first one's! ''
98% totally relieved...
Other 2% ABSOLUTELY relieved.... :{)))))))))
regs. M.
james kelly wrote:My engine can not be transported in one piece. It must be apart to transport. It weighs over 600 lbs and is over 7ft. tall. making the original run is no problem. doing what I am presently working on is tedious.
James
I will transport it for you.
Where do you wish to have it trucked?
I will pay the freight and supply the moving equipment to move any working wheel up to 15 tons and 17 ft. high.
This is easy now days.
Yours Truly
JB Wheeler
I thought this was a good a place as any for an update. Looks like I won't be completing this particular build after all.
We had found many months ago a particularly interesting & simple arrangement that allowed the physical CoG of each mech (& the combined wheel CoG) to be at a different position/location vertically & horizontally to where the wheel 'felt' it acting.
In Ken's terms, it displaced the CoG constantly to one side of the mech (& the wheel) without giving rise to any negative torque, which would lead to Punctum Quietus or keeling. Sounds impossible, but it can be done & we were/are enthralled by it. The swiss army knife analogy.
From there we attempted to use this constant orientation (with displaced CoG) mechanism to 'push & pull' weights around via a guide rail system, either closer or further from the rim where required, to create useful asymmetric torque to continuously turn the wheel.
Unfortunately, even with a method to create an eccentric orbital path for weights to follow, that didn't itself try to keel the wheel, once the driver weights were displaced into their positions they ultimately led to a keeled wheel. Primarily because of their connection back & method of attachment to the mech. It was a surprise that the back torque was as much as it was to be honest & was a disappointing result.
It showed us that even with a mechanism (contained within & as part of a wheel) that had no torque penalty to keep a particular orientation in space (creating an eccentric orbit to one side of the wheel axle) the mere fact of using that to move drive weights into position, to follow their eccentric path, did keel the wheel, vis-a-vis, Ken's 4th law orbital path probably would not work even in ideal circumstances.
A simple analogy would be to have an independent orbital ring guide on a free stand. Set it up so the circular guide is separate from the wheel but to one side of the wheels axle (a sort of cam wheel). Then have free circular weights roll within a wheel incased in a straight " + " guide system that interacts with the eccentric orbital guide. It would not turn continuously & would keel & so did ours even though the eccentric guide was contained within the wheel itself. Not totally surprising but disappointing nonetheless.
After that disappointment we altered things dramatically to try a second approach & perhaps learn more. On WM this showed a slight torque advantage. To use WM we had to create our own force formula as we were asking it to do something it wasn't really capable of doing "off the shelf".
This looked very good for a period but still we were reticent about trusting it completely although it had always been accurate in the past. We changed as many variables as we could & did things differently where possible to provide a double blind test of the model, so to speak. Eventually it boiled down to the force formula we had created. Although what we had created was adequate for most industry uses, the fact that we were using it in a wheel environment meant that it had to pass a closer scrutiny. It didn't in the final analysis pass muster, but we learnt a lot :) When we adjusted the formula to give even greater real world accuracy the small advantage disappeared & it was balanced *sigh*.
Lesson learned, lick the wounds, tomorrows another day. We haven't finished with the swiss army knife, just have to find another way to open the blades. When we get over this latest disappointment & decide we are finished with this interesting (yet simple) mechanism we will post it on the 'Symmetrically Balanced' thread I started some time ago.
In the mean time we wait for John Collins to finish his investigations & publish his findings, for a couple of reasons. First as a check against the directions we have headed (were we even close ?) & secondly, if we were on a similar path at all, to see if he has uncovered something we have overlooked that could have lead to a solution at long last.
But most importantly to provide a shot of enthusiasm into some tired veins.
Sorry it couldn't be better news. Over & out.
Last edited by Fletcher on Fri Sep 08, 2006 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thanks for the update Fletcher. I am also intending to release my designs on this board so no one follows in my footsteps. I'm going to start with the one you and Tinhead had a look at, so feel free to talk about it openly. Interesting some of the comments you made on your design. My last one also used a cam...SEE! I told you I had a strong suspicion that we were doing something similar! I'll be posting images of that up as well when I get the time.
From there we attempted to use this constant orientation (with displaced CoG) mechanism to 'push & pull' weights around via a guide rail system, either closer or further from the rim where required, to create useful asymmetric torque to continuously turn the wheel.
That's probably what caused your design to fail. I never use rails, ramps, or guides in my designs because I do not believe Bessler used them. His mechanisms were self-adjusting and shifted their CG's in response to their orientations in Earth's gravity field. No rails would have been necessary.
In the few designs I've tested that did use ramps, I found that as soon as a weight or mechanism part made contact with the ramp, counter torques would immediately arise that would stop all wheel motion. In my opinion, any use of ramps, guides, rails, etc. should be avoided at all costs when trying to "reverse engineer" Bessler's inventions.
ken
On 7/6/06, I found, in any overbalanced gravity wheel with rotation rate, ω, axle to CG distance d, and CG dip angle φ, the average vertical velocity of its drive weights is downward and given by:
