Solved: Width for Height Conundrum

[nicbordeaux]

It will be impossible to protect, to market, to generate just electricity for your own house: it will be confiscated by MIB's, you will be abducted by aliens, and the government will tax you and your descendants for 7 generations. Just ask Ovyyus.

Why not put it in the open, publish it here ? If it is workable and real, if you haven't overlooked anything, you will be recognized as a all conquering Genius, your name will go down in history, strangers will buy you beer, and buxom Women will find you irrestibly attractive. Fletcher will confirm this.

There are worse Fates.

[Fletcher]

Easy to account.

That's good to hear. Then you are unlikely to have overlooked something.

I'd be interested to know whether you get the same results in sim world for the mech ?

If gravity force can raise the mech CoM increasing local GPE then it seems that many mechs should be able to raise a systems CoM and GPE; or perhaps keep it OOB ?

Good luck with the experiments.

[ME]

Silvertiger, thanks and congratulations for your positive experience.

The next experiment: Find out how much load you need to remove for the mechanism to reset to its initial position and orientation.

[Tarsier79]

Silver.

Honestly, vagueness now annoys me, but let me attempt civility. The reason some here are very skeptical, (me included) is because 5 cannot lift 15 equal distances. Simple levers describe all machines, and this includes complex levering systems.

I suspect your complex lever is either: using an unnacounted mass or force, or using another stored form of energy (springs, pressure, a water column, a weight and pulley system or something similar). If you account for this other additional energy, and in the context of a wheel, all you will find is another problem to overcome. Any source of energy you use needs to be replenished.

You also noted if you flip it, it doesn't work. You will find any mechanism needs to be "flipped" to rotate around, or shift even a few degrees and reciprocate on a see-saw.

[Fletcher]

Just to add Tarsier ..

Silvertiger said he lifted 20 lbs, then 30 lbs, with 5 lbs with slight modifications. He talked about experimenting with pulleys previously but to no avail.

In both instances the effort (5 lbs) and load (20 or 30 lbs) moved 15.75 inches vertically, but in opposite directions (directions as you'd expect but not equal distances vertically).

And that they were equidistant from the fulcrum.

The law of levers does not allow this in its current form. As we all know F1D2 = F2D1, the force times displacement trade-off.

I agree that some type of stored PE is in play if he has accounted for all the mass in the system which results in a gain in CoM height (GPE).

I think a clue is in the relationship between effort and load (5:20 and 5:30; or 1:4 and 1:6). This smacks of a 4 to 1 and 6 to 1 pulley reduction technique. But pulleys are still subject to F1D2 = F2D1 law of levers.

So it begs the question how can you get an equal fall and rise height of different masses using only gravity, whilst being equidistant from the fulcrum ? I guess that is his magic solution and what I am unable to currently fathom.

Since Silvertiger is physics and sim savvy then I'm still interested in what he has to say regarding his experiments, FWIW.

[nicbordeaux]

Quote, Fletcher "So it begs the question how can you get an equal fall and rise height of different masses using only gravity, whilst being equidistant from the fulcrum ? I guess that is his magic solution and what I am unable to currently fathom. "

That might mean that the weight is somehow cancelled out by exerting it's "force" against something external ? For example, a big pipe with a column of water, on which floats a polystyrene cone big enough not to sink completely, but small enough to sink a bit. That Archimedes stuff would provide weight relief.

Definitely not saying or implying that the claim is in any way fraudulent.

There is always the possibility of some linkage of the heavy weight to the light end so that the force is transferred.

Just trying to guess :-)

[ME]

Just trying to guess :-)

Me too :-)

With the following technical information:

Just measured it again. I kind of eyeballed the measurement before. If you want to get technical the 20 Lb load is 15.75 inches above the fulcrum and the 5 Lb effort is 15.75 inches below the fulcrum.

Here's one possible (sneaky) scenario showing what could have happened.

• Take a balanced lever: left side of the fulcrum 20 Lbs at 15.75", on the right side 5 Lbs at 15.75".
  We know it will rotate counter clockwise around this fulcrum.
  
  Take a wheel having some spokes, perfectly balanced around the axle.
  Put that lever in its horizontal position with its fulcrum at the 3-o'clock position 9.45" from the axle, free to rotate around its fulcrum and allow the 20 Lbs weight to push against some spoke of the wheel.
  This system is balanced.
  
  Now move the position to an unnoticeable 9.4501" this system will eventually rotate clockwise.
  After 90 degrees the 20 Lbs weight will be 15.75" above the fulcrum, and the 5 Lbs weight will be 15.75" below.
  One could say that lowering a 5 Lbs made the 20Lbs rise 31.5"... (I think not so fair statement: fraudulent)
  
  As this system is almost balanced we only need an unnoticeable amount of energy to reset this system: It just needs to overcome some minor engineering problem.
  We could dramatize this slightly further with the following distraction:
  • But notices the 15 Lbs raise over 31.5" !! For almost free !! We only needed to move 0.0001". As can be verified, the percentages (31.5/0.0001) are off-the-scale ! Plus the fact the system has gained kinetic velocity.
  Hopefully it's obvious what occurred in this made-up example.
  (we only forgot to mention or ignored some relativity).

Silvertiger's solution is probably entirely different, but suspect of doing something similar (as Fletcher mentioned: lowering GPE).
If not, then that's fine too.

I think a solution can only be valued by its reset capability.

[sleepy]

Silvertiger,
Are you sure we have all the info? When the weights settle,one is 15.75 below the fulcrum,and one is 15.75 above the fulcrum.But that does not indicate the distance traveled .Let's say the 20 lb weight starts level with the fulcrum,and the 5 lb weight starts 15.75 above.At the end it looks like they have moved the same distance,when in fact the 5 lb has moved twice as far.
But if you have truly accomplished an even trade of total distance traveled,then congratulations! You have done what was thought of as impossible!

[helloha]

Not lever related, but to counter the height, can make use of hydrogen gas, as its properties is light, it floats.

Using a bucket of water which weighs 3kg
(1) At the very bottom, using electrolysis to separate hydrogen & oxygen from that bucket of water
(2) Store the hydrogen & oxygen in balloon (or airship-material, so it wouldn't burst)
(3) Hydrogen floats up, carrying oxygen along.....
(4) Reaches the very top, using hydrogen & oxygen as fuel to generate electricity, store in battery
(5) The by-product is water, .... assuming it weighs 3kg
(6) Then let the bucket of water falls to the very bottom, while rotating the pulley, generating electricity, store in battery
(7) Repeat (1)

How high the hydrogen float up (or bucket of water fall down) ?

If 1 storey is 5m high, then 100 storeys is 500m;
If using airship which can reach an altitude of 9000m, that's 1800 storeys high;
And by further digging underground of 3000m below, that's total of 12000m, 2400 storeys high;

The bucket of water would have to fall a height of 12000m, although the bucket of water still only weighs 3kg.

Another way, instead of one bucket falling, can have multiple buckets of water falling at the same time.
Assuming each 1 storey (5m high) has one bucket of water,
then 2400 storeys would have (2400 x 3kg water) = 7200kg, although the bucket can only fall 5m at one time.
But by using gearbox system, with 7200kg turning the pulley, a small rotation can turn into thousands of revolution.

Since the bucket of water fall down & hydrogen float up, connect them to the pulley; so water pushes down the pulley while the gas pushes up.

[Art]

Hi Helloha ,

Interesting way to beat the height conundrum ! : )

A few comments .

I'm not sure what the losses of energy would be in reburning the hydrogen and converting to electricity , probably very high . I would imagine somewhere about a 50 % loss .

But even with that sort of a loss it might be worthwhile doing the numbers because there are a few other steps you might add

ie

(3-a) Dump the oxygen [ sell it ] at ground level . this leaves you with more Hydrogen buoyancy which can be used to hoist up some good old lead billets for your gravity generator .

(3-b) Only allow the Hydrogen to bring the system up to the level in the atmosphere where there is sufficient oxygen that is easily obtainable for combustion of the hydrogen . Not sure what height this would be but it would be considerable .

(3-c) Generating the hydrogen from water at ground level should also have the side effect of absorbing heat energy from the environment (as gases expand they absorb energy ! ). This results in the 'heated by the environment' hydrogen having more buoyancy than it would if it hadn't absorbed the energy and is therefore bonus energy collected from the environment.

(6-a) Add the lead billets you brought up , to the bucket of water for the 'gravity' generating system.

(6-b) Think about compressing and liquifying air with the energy obtained by your hydrogen burning and use this as extra weight along with your water and lead billet 'gravity' generating system .

(8) Have a pay to go up and look tourist system , and send them back down on the 'gravity' generating system ! : )

[Tarsier79]

I have looked into this kind of thing before. Generating electricity from a relatively slow rotation is usually not efficient. Electrolysis is usually not super efficient also, and depending on the medium (pure water doesn't conduct electricity), can produce by-products harmful to people & the environment. At a great pressure, which is what you have at the bottom, hydrogen and oxygen dissolves quickly back into the water, decreasing efficiency, and the pressures make buoyancy more difficult. (Try filling a plastic coke bottle with air and swim down to a depth of 2M)

[helloha]

Generating electricity from a relatively slow rotation is usually not efficient

If using the gearing system, the rotation is actually fast, although the inefficient came from a lot of friction contract among the gears.

Electrolysis is usually not super efficient

True, but do remember it didn't mean it can't improve. Once in a blue moon, some institute will jump up and claim they make a breakthrough in electrolysis technology... regardless whether it's true, at least the research of improving the electrolysis is still on-going.

Also applied to hydrogen-powered generator. Using hydrogen fuel-cell for vehicles, companies are probably still continue researching to find ways to reduce fuel consumption, reduce cost, improve engine efficiency etc.

depending on the medium (pure water doesn't conduct electricity)

Then extract the water from reservoir for the electrolysis process, the by-product pure water can be used for consumption without the need for filtration and chlorine and others, while generating electricity from the falling

can produce by-products harmful

The same can be applied to hydrogen-powered vehicles. Electric cars would probably also have harmful by-products caused by the battery, while wind turbine is bird killer & the process of manufacturing solar panel.... no solution is perfect

At a great pressure, which is what you have at the bottom, hydrogen and oxygen dissolves quickly back into the water, decreasing efficiency

Try not to mix both together.... just kidding. In that case, invent a device/system that isolate the two gases completely once they are split up by electrolysis..... or just don't dig too deep

pressures make buoyancy more difficult

the weight of thousand of kg of water should be sufficient to pull the gas up if pressure make buoyancy difficult, since the bucket of water and the gas are connected to the same pulley



Just to add on:
The concept of the hydrogen is pretty rough. If anyone interested, by all means do go deep and improve, modified, fix the problems etc

[Silvertiger]

I overhauled the design while keeping the principle intact. It now works when it is flipped over. I still have a lot to do though. I have only tested the 1:4 weight ratio with it. I haven't attempted full rotation mounted on a wheel. I simply flipped the model. The easiest way to do that is to simply reverse the direction of gravity rather than trying to select the whole thing and rotating it.

Edit: The main trick, and always the most difficult, is to use gravity to store up PE in whatever form you choose without having to reset the whole thing with an external input of energy.

[Furcurequs]

The easiest way to do that is to simply reverse the direction of gravity rather than trying to select the whole thing and rotating it.

The words I've made bold sound like things one might do while working with a simulation program (perhaps like the one you started a thread about only two posts before starting this thread) rather than when experimenting with a real world device. That reversing the direction of gravity thing might be a little difficult to do with the latter.

You haven't been talking about a simulation this whole time, have you?

I found your youtube channel, btw, and I see that you did just uploaded a simulation. ...hmmm..

[Silvertiger]

Yep that's the one. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEtOu8FwWQ

The other day I was asking about a program I saw advertised. Since no one responded I guess no one's used it lol.

It's my night off too thank God. I get two to four nights off a month. I didn't think anyone else stayed up this late. You could just be up really early though.

Note: Sims are the best route to go before trying to build something imho. Also, in a sim, reversing gravity is the same thing as flipping the model over. Makes testing a lot faster.