Besslers prime mover and its enabler.

[Roxaway59]

Ok here is the best I can do with the WM2D version.

It is very similar to the Algodoo one you have Fletcher except I increased the weight of the blue beams and counter weight.

I had to set the accuracy very high to get it working better and this only worked for one impact before it ran out of memory.

However it did appear to increase speed on that impact.

I still don't know what to make of it but hopefully you can get some answers Fletcher.

Graham

[agor95]

Hello Roxaway59

You can lower the setting and note what happens.

The contact movement fix methods should show up.

Some integration errors are fixed post calculation by repositioning the moving objects on the quite.
With no other variables being changed. Another is to add a reflection of the momentum vector with an energy loss factor.
Or have an exponential repulse force. That really blows things up.

You can see this better in lower setting and deduce what has be implemented.

With the Geometric Algebra it is trivial to find contact & intersection points.
So the place where the object makes contact and it's momentum is reversed[mirrored] is not loose.

Note. You can get allot by finding how programs fail.

Regards

[Roxaway59]

Thanks agor95 I will try to delve deeper into WM2D to see if I can work some of these things out. I only use it in a basic way but that obviously doesn't help when I need to analyse something.

Are you saying that the way something appears where objects meet is misleading?

Graham

[Roxaway59]

I decided to carry on experimenting with the idea for now until something becomes clear about it.

I have made modifications by making the hanging beams longer and increasing the weight of the artificial horizon (I like that term Fletcher).

I have also added a critically damped spring.

Try deleting the spring and notice the difference.

One thing I like is that these simulations seem to self regulate.

Graham

[Roxaway59]

This is the same as the last one but with 2 mechanisms.

It seems to work better than the previous one with the speed increasing more linearly.

Some things to note about this idea.

1) It has swinging weights
2) It makes a knocking sound
3) It regulates its speed
4) It uses springs

Graham

[Roxaway59]

Fletcher I do hope that you find something positive about these simulations but I have to say that at the moment I'm not convinced.

The more I experiment with them the more I find things that don't make sense to me and these types of things are typical of the kind of bugs that seem to be in Algodoo.

I'm seriously considering getting a real wheel that I can experiment with rather than using the simulators. I'm starting to think its a much better way forward.

Graham

[Fletcher]

Hi Fletcher, I don't think you are reading anything wrong in the way the simulation works and as a rule I don't tend to have hidden items so there is no clutch it works just as you see. Its very simple.

Another odd thing that I have noticed is that the less accurate you make the simulation the more likely it wont work.

Now that wouldn't be so odd if there was a clear reason why it works but like yourself I don't see one.

Most of the time in Algodoo if something works on low accuracy it struggles to work on high accuracy. This is doing the opposite and it is a lot more obvious on the last two simulations I posted.

I think the best way forward would be for me to do the best I can in WM2D and post that so you can have a look at it.

Fletcher one thing I forgot to mention is that the restitution for the impact is set to 1. This means that there should be no losses from the impact. However If you set the restitution to say 0.5 so there are losses it still works.

Its never a good idea for me to come up with a theory without properly engaging my brain so no doubt this will back fire on me.

Fletcher what if this is a real effect?

What if it isn't the impact itself that's making any difference other than losing some energy and it isn't anything exactly to do with the oscillation either?

What if it is a momentary pulse that is similar to what Robinhood did with his real build whereby the blue beams are changing length in a snapping action giving the wheel a kick?

It would be both the combination of sudden stop and the swinging of the weight.

Is it real, or likely to be real ?! - I'll have a play with your WM sim single mech and see if I can simplify it and make it more robust, and reliable thru all ranges of accuracy settings - what I'm anticipating is that the elasticity of collisions ( 0.0 to 1.0 [100% elasticity ] ) is always a factor in that it can not be avoided where collisions occur - collisions are "always" an energy dissipative ( loss ) process in my world, depleting the system of energy - secondly, I will probably "adjust" your part parallelogram linkage for rods etc - because in my experience ( mentioned in other threads ) inflexible rectangular sectioned parallelograms can cause "binding" and "lockups", or otherwise errant behaviour - best to avoid them if possible, imo - in your case, because of the way you have designed the mech, it has to turn itself inside-out as it rotates, and with "tight" pivots ( easy to make more sloppy in real-world ) I anticipate it will cause a "squeezing effect" which might cause problems at different accuracy settings ..

A good sim should be predictably robust thru all accuracy changes as you stress-test the sim for reliability, imo ..

I get back to you soonish and have already started the sim mods I talked about above - we'll see if anything becomes clearer ..

[Roxaway59]

Thanks Fletcher I appreciate that.

Graham

[Fletcher]

Ok here is the best I can do with the WM2D version.

It is very similar to the Algodoo one you have Fletcher except I increased the weight of the blue beams and counter weight.

I had to set the accuracy very high ( 5,000 ) to get it working better and this only worked for one impact before it ran out of memory.

However it did appear to increase speed on that impact.

I still don't know what to make of it but hopefully you can get some answers Fletcher.

Graham

Fletcher I do hope that you find something positive about these simulations but I have to say that at the moment I'm not convinced.

The more I experiment with them the more I find things that don't make sense to me and these types of things are typical of the kind of bugs that seem to be in Algodoo.

I'm seriously considering getting a real wheel that I can experiment with rather than using the simulators. I'm starting to think its a much better way forward.

Graham

Hi again Graham .. I took your WM version ( which I can interrogate ) and made some changes that I think add to general understanding of the sim for all, and the "trends" you were experiencing ..

I first swapped out the part parallel rectangular sections for rods and a spring dampener for the horizontal - all "elements" in WM are massless which takes some of the fuss out of a sim in WM - the spring dampener element was added instead of a rectangle or rod so that it had some "flex" in it, otherwise after a turn or two it would bind, lockup, or explode thru the "squeezing" thru the eye of a needle effect ( as I coin it ) - then I decided to change out your polygon built AH for a simple hanging equivalent - and added more outputs for analysis purposes and inputs for everything of importance imo ..

The hope is to make it more simple to understand for us and non-sim users, and generic in nature, decluttering it down to basics, and focusing on the actions of importance as I see them ..

Now we can see at a glance that it is indeed just a pendulum analogue that collides with a heavy hanging AH - the motor starts it turning at a steady clip then is turned off after 1 second - n.b. I have graphed the disk velocity and you can see the trends as it loses rpm thru dissipative collision energy losses ( as we might reasonably expect I think ) - we can also see it swing out the light "hammer ( grey )" on the down-going side due to Cf's ( inertia ) of the connected to yellow mass attempting to follow a straight line path ( Newton's Laws ) ..

Have a play around with the various inputs and re-run the sim etc after your changes - n.b. it is now stable thru all ranges of inputs and accuracy settings ( set to 200 fps but works well at all accuracies low and high IINM ) - see if the graphed out rpm trends for the disk change ( increase ) in your favour ( i.e. indicative of kinetic energy accumulating ) etc as you thought might be feasible before I did my restructuring of the sim ..

Sim attached ..

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......................

[Roxaway59]

Hi Fletcher thanks for taking the time once again.

I understand why you simplify the build. I hope you can see why I tried to keep the build as realistic as I can. I do know that in the real world these things don't lock up as easily and it could be as you say because things are looser in the real world.

It's time for me to marry these experiments with the real world because I feel that the unrealistic nature of Algodoo and to a certain degree WM2D is not working for me on its own.

Graham

[Fletcher]

Should be a fairly simple build Graham .. I've done my fair share of real-world builds when either WM frustrated me or I had some doubt about what it was predicting - a real-world build is the ultimate simulator afterall - skills in each improve the other - I look forward to hearing what your real build shows you ..

Cheers -f

[Roxaway59]

From time to time its good I think to take a step back and take a pause and look at where we are in this search.

Some times I do that and I don’t have a good feeling because I may have spent days being led down the garden path by an idea that didn’t work.

Other days I am a lot more optimistic because an idea has opened up new possibilities.

Most of the time I find myself reflecting on ideas that I think have merit. Sometimes I do that because of realisations I have made myself or I do it because of some of the clues that Bessler left behind. The only snag with his clues though are that they are usually very much down to interpretation.

There has been a lot of discussion just lately on the MT designs over on Fletchers thread and I would like to say something about those as I reflect.

Those discussions made me stop and think about all the things that matter to me. Not just ideas about Besslers invention that may be important but also about myself and why I am doing this.

Anyway lets get back to thinking about the ingredients this wheel had like the ingredients in a cake.

If I had to lay my cards out on the table about what I think the ingredients might be it would go something like the following.

This is based on the recent discussions and on what I have felt was important over the years.

1) Some kind of pendulum action with each of the main weights.

This might seem like a no brainer and a bit pointless because its a bit like saying how long is a piece of string when it comes to how much of a pendulum type action was taking place. There is a definite timing / clock like action to Besslers wheel and there is no escaping it so unless he invented the quartz clock way before its time its a pendulum action for me and just to seal the deal Bessler said the weights swing.

2) A ratchet or catch mechanism.

Right from the early days of thinking about these wheels one of my main focuses was on something on one side of the wheel being different from the other. For me, any kind of one way system has got to be useful to a certain degree. We don’t want one side of the wheel having the same leverage as the other in an over balanced wheel. However it has to dynamically keep on resetting itself in order to maintain the over balance. A bit like using the ground to pull yourself off the ground by your own boot laces.

3) An artificial horizon.

This is again something I have played with for more years than I care to mention. Most of the time in WM2D I would use something that was anchored but not always. More recently I have done what needs to be done on a self contained wheel and hung it from the axle usually with a very heavy weight to steady it. Even if it is not meant as a pendulum it will inevitable swing a little depending on how much force is applied to it. The swinging may have some benefit and it may not in which case we would try to keep the swinging to a minimum. There has been some suggestion that this may be the source of the prime mover. When I first looked at those suggestions my first reaction was to chuckle at the idea that it could be something so mundane but when I gave it serious thought the chuckle subsided. The thing is these artificial horizons bring up all kinds of possibilities that you don’t have without them. This means that they could well be a major or even minor part of the prime mover. If it was possible to go back in time and remove the canvas on Besslers wheel it would not surprise me in the least if we saw an artificial horizon sat there as part of the machine.

4) Folding mechanisms.

There are a number of reasons why I would be surprised if this was not one of the ingredients in the cake. First of all its all over the toy page. Bessler drops a definite hint with MT24 and MT25.

No. 24. This invention should not to be scorned. It consists of special weighted levers and some hinged iron rods that close between the levers and can fold inward. There is, however, more to explain about it before you will grasp and correctly understand its good qualities.

Notice how he starts his explanation by defending it. That’s because he knows that the wheel as a whole deserves scorn. He then goes on to a very brief description of how it works and finishes by telling us that it has good qualities but you need to think about it more before you appreciate its good qualities. In my opinion its good qualities are the last thing he mentions in his brief description – “can fold inward”.

No. 25. This is similar to the previous model except that it is drawn somewhat differently and with longer rods; there is something misleading about the diagram, because the folding rods should not project so far out but must bend further inward. There is more to this than one might think. Mark my words.

This design has a larger degree of movement for the mechanisms and that’s the only reason I can think of as to why he included it. You would have to use two of these wheels side by side with one offset by 45 degrees to have 8 mechanisms in total. The strange thing is he uses most of his short description to inform us of how we should be setting the mechanisms up. He then lastly drives home the message about that by saying you might not think this is important, but it is, mark my words.

Couple this with what he said for MT24 and there is no doubt that Bessler is making it clear that somewhere on his working wheel a folding mechanism or mechanisms came into play. It is one of the ingredients in the cake.

5) Springs

This one is very straight forward. We know that his working wheel had springs on it because he told us so. What roll they played is anyone’s guess but since they weren’t being used to power the wheel we can assume that they were used to reduce impact and control movement in some way. They are definitely one of the ingredients.

6) Impacts / Noises

It wasn't until recently that I gave this more thought and I ended up trying to reproduce the sound that the Merseburg wheel may have had. I thought I was finished and someone (I think Fletcher) brought up the notion that there was a cyclic shake to the wheel. So we have a rattle and a shake as the wheel is turning. Then it hit me that this was a Shake Rattle and Roll machine. Could it be that Bessler was the inventor of rock and roll music? Ok seriously the noises are important and from what Bessler said they were unavoidable. They resulted from unavoidable collisions taking place and we could say that they are a clue to the way the wheel worked that Bessler could do nothing about. Sounds can be deceptive but if the witnesses are to be believed the knock came from the action of each weight and the impact happened on the right side of a clockwise rotating wheel. The shake that was mentioned could be indicative of a large weight on an artificial horizon but with a twelve foot wheel only a slight imbalance needs to be there before it shakes anyway. It seems to me though that these noises are unavoidable and therefore a main ingredient in the cake.

This has been a bit of a long post so I will leave it there and add things later if I need to.

Graham

[Daniel.R]

Hi, Graham. I enjoyed reading your post.

I absolutely agree with the idea of pausing and stepping back. Thoughts and ideas need time to brew. After all, this quest is considered impossible for a reason, and millions have already tried to accomplish what we are trying to achieve. One has to accept that the solution may not be found within one's own lifetime. However, as long as the search brings joy and mental stimulation, why not continue? There is also much joy, at least for me, in crafting and tinkering, in using one's hands, etc...

Now, I want to add my own ingredients and hopefully expand on the topic. This is not an attempt to discourage or undermine your ideas, Graham, but rather to encourage new thoughts. I believe that to achieve something like this, one has to think far outside the box. As Reggie Watts said in one of his performances: "Think so far outside the box that if you were to look back at the box, you wouldn't be able to see that it was a box anymore." Something like that.

1. A Reactionless Drive

This would be the heart or prime mover of the wheel. The idea is that one can put energy into the reactionless drive and take energy out without depleting that energy. The reactionless drive's energy will be depleted only by air resistance and the bearings in the mechanism. This mechanism is the secret and the hard nut to crack.

2. Catching Mechanism

A catching mechanism that can distribute the reactionless drive's energy appropriately around the wheel.

3. Feedback Mechanism

A mechanism to put energy back into the reactionless drive. This could contain springs, magnets, or whatever floats your boat. The aim is to create a mechanism that can efficiently transfer energy to the reactionless drive.

4. Braking Mechanism

If one were to create a wheel with the above ingredients and make it accelerate, there is a chance that it could gain too many RPMs, which could potentially cause all kinds of havoc. To achieve a stable RPM, a braking mechanism would be appropriate. This could involve impacts (I believe Bessler used impacts in this way) to dissipate the energy, essentially slowing down the wheel to a stable RPM. With that said, I can't see how impacts would be the driving force—quite the opposite.

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I searched both AP and DT for the word "swing/swinging" and couldn't find anything. I am personally quite critical of sources when it comes to Bessler's sayings and writings, as one word can lead one down the wrong path. I'm curious where Bessler said that he used springs. Would you be kind enough to show me, Graham?

/Daniel

[Roxaway59]

Hi Daniel, I invite any kind of progressive discussion that can get us closer to the truth and I feel that real progress is being made not just with the Bessler wheel but with other things too.

The springs and the swinging clues can be found on the site you are on. https://www.besslerwheel.com/clues.html

Don't shoot the messenger --)

Graham

[Roxaway59]

On the point you made about the impacts Daniel I disagree with you.

Apart from anything else Besslers wheel was a very powerful device. If it had sunk its excess energy into heat and deformation when it wasn't loaded it would certainly of caused itself lots of damage.

There no doubt in my mind that it self regulated without the need for such action. Only my opinion.

Graham