Curious device

[Prajna]

Bigger and better, easier to print, stiffer transmission, looks a bit like the Millennium Falcon, ...

 

[Screwdriver]

Yeah it looks great. Seriously, that's an attractive looking model.

Still won't work of course.

 

[dave h 2]

And the below in bold means ?
"The Scotch yoke is not used in most internal combustion engines because of the rapid wear of the slot in the yoke caused by sliding friction and high contact pressures["

 

[Screwdriver]

And the below in bold means ?
"The Scotch yoke is not used in most internal combustion engines because of the rapid wear of the slot in the yoke caused by sliding friction and high contact pressures["

It is a horribly inefficient mechanism for translating an oscillation into rotary motion, not helped by the needless angular contact of the connecting rods to the yoke slides. Moot point since the fundamental premise regarding the translation of a magnetic force into motion is obviously an impossible folly anyway...

 

[hotponyshoes]

Seems like a complicated way of building something just for testing purposes.

It looks to me like the toothed discs rotates through 2 pairs of magnets that are mounted on pivotal arms.
Just building that part should do to start.
Easily done with basic materials & components & hand tools.
Rotate the wheel by hand and see if the magnet pairs move in/out. If they do they have at least enough power to overcome the friction in the hinges..

 

[Prajna]

And the below in bold means ?
"The Scotch yoke is not used in most internal combustion engines because of the rapid wear of the slot in the yoke caused by sliding friction and high contact pressures["

Thanks for the pointer. In this application I think it is actually a reasonable solution; everything is light weight, probably (relatively) slow movement and there are not the high contact pressures you're likely to find in an ICE. They were commonly used in steam engines.

 

[Prajna]

Yeah it looks great. Seriously, that's an attractive looking model.

Still won't work of course.

It depends how you define 'work'. Maybe take a look at the discussion on https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/133616-curious-device/ and see if you can improve on their definition of work.

 

[PhillipM]

They're arguing mainly the semantics and how the forces are actually generated and the magnitude of them. I don't see anyone there saying it will work, they're just debating the physics at play. It won't work.

Contact pressure and friction wrt the sliding yokes are relative, friction is going to be a huge issue for you to even get things to move to start with.

 

[gaz1]

And the below in bold means ?
"The Scotch yoke is not used in most internal combustion engines because of the rapid wear of the slot in the yoke caused by sliding friction and high contact pressures["

and yet almost every combustion engine uses a ram, tappets to produce power

but you can do away with them and the fastest engine happens to be a plane

 

[Dev]

It takes 16 Teslas to levitate a frog

The most useful thing I’ve learned so far.

 

[addjunkie]

and yet almost every combustion engine uses a ram, tappets to produce power

but you can do away with them and the fastest engine happens to be a plane

Planes use gas turbines, which go suck squeeze bang and blow all at once. Ships used steam turbines which are very inefficient compared to a two stroke diesel. Though many warships later used gas turbines with a power turbine.

There is also a fair difference in the fuel used between an aero engine and an industrial/marine derivative of the aero engine, this allows a vastly simplified a maintenance regime, and lower juice bill.

 

[Screwdriver]

It depends how you define 'work'. Maybe take a look at the discussion on https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/133616-curious-device/ and see if you can improve on their definition of work.

I am using "work" in the strict sense where energy is expended when an object is moved over a distance by an external force. I made a pun earlier when I said: "it will energy but it will not work". Energy is not a verb. It is a noun measuring the potential capacity of a system to do work. "Work" is the amount of energy expended as an object is moved with an external force. The other half of the pun is since "work" can also refer to a successful outcome (or not as in your case).

The thrust of the pun being the magnetic force you experience does not do work. The "magical force" you think you can use as free energy is actually just a function of the external force you are applying yourself when you attempt to push opposing fields together or pull attracting fields apart. Exactly the same force you feel when pushing and pulling on a solid stick. Internally, the stick is also held together and resists compression with electrostatic force at the subatomic level.

Another example, a very similar force you can feel, is gravity. Why can't I just use a dirty great big mass to extract free energy? After all, the force you feel on Earth is actually an acceleration. When you hold an object up against the force of gravity, it appears to exert a constant force. Feels a lot like magnetic attraction doesn't it? Well if you want that mass to do work, by definition it has to move.

When it moves, energy is expended. Once that energy has been expended/dissipated - the magnets collide, the apple hits the dirt - no further work can be done with it until energy is put back into the system by pulling the magnets apart or sticking the apple back up the tree. That requires an external force to be applied in both cases. Just like your toy magnet thing.

That one simple concept, the difference between force and work appears to be the thing you are unable to grasp.

I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for any serious science based forum to have to deal with crackpot theories.

 

[Prajna]

I am using "work" in the strict sense where energy is expended when an object is moved over a distance by an external force. I made a pun earlier when I said: "it will energy but it will not work". Energy is not a verb. It is a noun measuring the potential capacity of a system to do work. "Work" is the amount of energy expended as an object is moved with an external force. The other half of the pun is since "work" can also refer to a successful outcome (or not as in your case).

The thrust of the pun being the magnetic force you experience does not do work. The "magical force" you think you can use as free energy is actually just a function of the external force you are applying yourself when you attempt to push opposing fields together or pull attracting fields apart. Exactly the same force you feel when pushing and pulling on a solid stick. Internally, the stick is also held together and resists compression with electrostatic force at the subatomic level.

Another example, a very similar force you can feel, is gravity. Why can't I just use a dirty great big mass to extract free energy? After all, the force you feel on Earth is actually an acceleration. When you hold an object up against the force of gravity, it appears to exert a constant force. Feels a lot like magnetic attraction doesn't it? Well if you want that mass to do work, by definition it has to move.

When it moves, energy is expended. Once that energy has been expended/dissipated - the magnets collide, the apple hits the dirt - no further work can be done with it until energy is put back into the system by pulling the magnets apart or sticking the apple back up the tree. That requires an external force to be applied in both cases. Just like your toy magnet thing.

That one simple concept, the difference between force and work appears to be the thing you are unable to grasp.

I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for any serious science based forum to have to deal with crackpot theories.

Well Screwy, old boy, it's not half as frustrating as trying to extract simple answers to simple questions from pedantic physicists. The only 'work' I'm doing is to rotate the rotor so that the magnets switch from attraction to repulsion and vice versa, which they will do depending on whether there is a metal finger between them or not. If you can calculate the work required to do that then such comments would be helpful. The rest of your comments are worthless.

 

[dave h 2]

Well Screwy, old boy, it's not half as frustrating as trying to extract simple answers to simple questions from pedantic physicists. The only 'work' I'm doing is to rotate the rotor so that the magnets switch from attraction to repulsion and vice versa, which they will do depending on whether there is a metal finger between them or not. If you can calculate the work required to do that then such comments would be helpful. The rest of your comments are worthless.

If you disconnect the output levers from the magnet arms of your MK1, can the magnet arms oscillate in the manner you require when you turn the wheel?

 

[Screwdriver]

Well Screwy, old boy, it's not half as frustrating as trying to extract simple answers to simple questions from pedantic physicists. The only 'work' I'm doing is to rotate the rotor so that the magnets switch from attraction to repulsion and vice versa, which they will do depending on whether there is a metal finger between them or not. If you can calculate the work required to do that then such comments would be helpful. The rest of your comments are worthless.

You think you've invented a perpetual motion machine and I'm the fool??

I have made it as simple as I possibly can with a number of examples which explains why that is impossible when anyone with the tiniest shred of understanding for physics can tell you such a mechanism is by definition impossible; period. What is interesting is your final comment about such information being "worthless". You're clearly not listening or not thinking or most likely both.

It's also obvious to anyone who can be bothered to read this nonsense is that you are desperate to avoid trying to refute the veracity of my examples because you clearly do not have the wit to understand the actual science. Instead you try to dodge the issue suggesting I should somehow "calculate the work required". Again, a perfect example demonstrating your lack of understanding of what work means.

Tell me why for example pulling and pushing on a stick is not a reasonable working metaphor for doing the same with a pair of magnets. It is a trivially simple example and highlights the catastrophic ineptitude of your folly.

 

[Prajna]

If you disconnect the output levers from the magnet arms of your MK1, can the magnet arms oscillate in the manner you require when you turn the wheel?

I've not made any fingers/tabs to test with. It's all a bit fiddly at that size and, having fixed both the Rockers and rotor to the same structure, there is little adjustment for lining things up, so I haven't tried attaching the magnets and doing tests.

 

[Prajna]

You think you've invented a perpetual motion machine and I'm the fool??

I have made it as simple as I possibly can with a number of examples which explains why that is impossible when anyone with the tiniest shred of understanding for physics can tell you such a mechanism is by definition impossible; period. What is interesting is your final comment about such information being "worthless". You're clearly not listening or not thinking or most likely both.

It's also obvious to anyone who can be bothered to read this nonsense is that you are desperate to avoid trying to refute the veracity of my examples because you clearly do not have the wit to understand the actual science. Instead you try to dodge the issue suggesting I should somehow "calculate the work required". Again, a perfect example demonstrating your lack of understanding of what work means.

Tell me why for example pulling and pushing on a stick is not a reasonable working metaphor for doing the same with a pair of magnets. It is a trivially simple example and highlights the catastrophic ineptitude of your folly.

Well, Screwball, when someone replies with insults and slurs they are obviously no scientist. Any competent scientist has explanations to offer rather than insults. It sounds like you are defending turf rather than testing hypotheses and as for your mind reading and asserting what you think I know, that seems more parapsychological than physics. All I've seen from physicists is an insistence on missing and misinterpreting the point, evasion and distraction, and confusion. How about you address the flux switching rather than poke gravity with your stick.

 

[prepman]

Not entirely sure I should post this here because it is sure to kick off a vigorous discussion but I have been contemplating a device that transmits power and may amplify the power during transmission. Yes, I understand your reaction but consider this:

We all know that when you bring two like magnetic poles together they repel. If, while they are repelling, we insert a magnetically permeable sheet between them they are attracted to the sheet. No arguments so far, I'm sure.

Please look at the following (very rough) sketch and then I'll explain it:

View attachment 440756

Ok, on the left is a metal rotor that has slots cut in it so that it resembles a disc with metal fingers around the periphery. When rotated the fingers pass between two opposing magnets that are fixed to levers. This will cause the levers to reciprocate as the fingers pass in and out of the space between the magnets. The other end of the levers have pins that run in grooves cut around a cylinder - you might consider it as a kind of double swash plate - causing the cylinder to rotate.

Now, I haven't built it yet, so I've done no testing but my feeling is that even accounting for drag on the finger disc from the magnetic field, it is the magnets that are powering the device and the finger disc is merely causing a form of flux switching.

What say you amazing engineers and brilliant bodger's?

I feel sure I have seen something vaguely similar in a science article...but I can see more cons than pros....the opposing magnets are relying on the shielding effect of the disc and the amount of travel is also indeterminate. There needs also to be a starter to get momentum also. How do you envisage the forces produced by the opposing magnets? If it could be trimmed to work I feel effiencies in the 'swash-plate' cylinder would be abysmal?

 

[Prajna]

The design has moved on considerably since that first post, @prepman. I'm now using a scotch yoke for power transmission. It's not shielding that is happening so much as flux switching. There is a full description on my webpage, which is linked upthread.

 

[8ob]

I suppose you could measure/ separate out driveline gains/losses by spinning the gadget with a small motor and measuring the draw, could be done with/without the magnets to ascertain whether they contribute anything to the equation. Basically using a drive motor as a dyno.

Bob