Posted by Davis Landstrom (195.92.194.16) on January 15, 2002 at 09:07:43:
In Reply to: Re: gravity wheels posted by Matthias Trevarthan on January 14, 2002 at 11:10:06:
: The SMOT is interesting. Kinda like a small rail gun. I would like to make one. Could you give me some tips on materials? For example, where can I find suitable magnets? I think I can probably find everything else at the hardware store. Thanks.
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: Matthias
The SMOT ramp is as you pointed out essentialy nothing more than a permanent magnet rail gun, although I prefer the term linear magnetic motor personally. Your basic SMOT ramp should consist of a ramp about 12mm thick by about 7cms in length with a 9mm wide track running up its length, this is the track for a 12mm diameter steel ball bearing, this is the basic SMOT and can be raised at one end to a height of around 12mm, this is high eneugh for the ball bearing to drop clear of the magnet arrays and roll away from the motor, but it is not sufficiant for muti-ramp linking or closed loop (perpetual motion) opperation, for these two phases bigger ramps and special ramp desighn elements have to be employed. For the basic SMOT ramp you should use Barium ferrite anisotropic (black ceramic fridge style) magnets, these magnets have to be arranged into a pair of arrays that converge slightly at the top of the motor, with one array having an all N pole pointing inwards and the other having an all S pole pointing inwards, this provides the force gradient that drives the bearing. The only limit to length in your SMOT ramp is the way in which the magnetic arrays have to be possitioned, the bigger the ramp the more pain-stakingly percise the magnetic array alighnment has to be, although that hasn't stoped one company called Butlerlabs from producing a 2 foot! long SMOT ramp that takes 25mm steel bearings and raises them up quite a height! For the complete plans and footage rather than the outline I gave I suggest that you visit JLN labs.
I can testify to the performance of the SMOT motor as I have built one it was easy to do and without a doubt over unity, weather it uses potential energy stored in the spins of the electrons in the magnets, or weather it is tapping into some unknown energy source as some suggest I do not know.
On a final note, the SMOT shows some unique features when compared to other linear magnet motor setups like the Adsit and the TOMI (Theory Of Magnetic Instability) devices which both superficially resemble the SMOT, both the above motors require you to overcome some magnetic resistance when placing the magnetic runner in the magnetic field, the only reason that they work is because they are expending potential energy given to the system by your hand, the SMOT on the other hand is desighned in such a way so that the steel ball bearing is drawn (impelled) into the magnetic field and allowed to leave the magnetic field at the end of the ramp with no resistance.
I hope that the above is interesting and informative