Posted by Darren (65.35.123.92) on March 19, 2003 at 22:06:07:
>>Gill Simo wrote;
>>The URL showing this design in great detail along with animations can be found at;
>>http://www.besslerwheel.com/gill/11.15.02/
Look carefully at the individual jpg's and the disclow.gif animation at the bottom of the page and mentally number the disks... the disc on top is disc 1, the disc to the bottom right is disc 2, and the disc to the bottom left is disc 3.
Both the individual images and the animation start with disc 2 against the outer rim and the other two discs inward. That's incorrect.
At this point in wheel rotation... if gravity would pull disc 2 towards the rim then it would also pull disc 3 outward to the rim as well. But here it's drawn inward. For this to happen disc 3 would have to move uphill. This would certainly give the wheel imbalance, but is also impossible.
But... even though he explains this isn't the case; what if the discs were connected so that the falling disc 2 pulled disc 3 inward... this is possible but in reality wouldn't happen until much later in rotation when disc 2 was falling more vertically downward and disc 3 was much more horizontal... and at that point you've lost the imbalance that disc 2 gave you by falling to the right so soon.
This is certainly a very pretty and imaginitive design, but in my humble opinion it's just another example of how easy it is to draw a PM device... much harder to build one that does what the drawing shows it should do.
Darren
ps. Before you respond to me with "your just a closed minded skeptic" please note that I'm actually a Bessler kOUk myself with a design of my very own, and I am a physics/mechanical engineering hobbyist who just happens to love to find those "fatal flaws" in PM designs, and I also *am* a firm believer in the Bessler Wheel. I am sure that FE is possible and I know that a working wheel will surface... soon.