Yes you are right about the additional Energy for the Springs.
Maybe even dont need them long as the Shafts,
but even maybe only a Coil would be enough, what fires the Weight to the outside from the Wheel, when it is big enough.
But i guess, you are more specified to mechanical Moves from Parts at the Wheel.
When i think about it, my mind turns like this big Wheel, but anyhow, nothing drops out.

Instead of each shaft having its own spring I would favor all the shaft weights being on a ring wire going to one spring, each taking its turn as needed at pulling the one shared spring. Provided that's possible. I also thought of putting weights on the other side of the backboard and letting centrifugal pulling on them through the hub (sort of) serving to provide the return energy, if that isn't throwing the ball too deep for you today. Having the weights on one side of the plywood and counterweights opposite, on the other side of the plywood, connected by a rope or wire... something like that. That was a couple months ago. I drew a picture here somewhere and I liked it a lot. In other words, a counterbalance to the weights on the back side of the plywood. It was complicated but a beautiful design.

I have built one similar to that design. It self destructed in short order. It would have to be built strong to support the strength of the springs, Even then, I don't think it would work. I have considered the OU contest, but I am not yet ready to submit my machine. It is still a cad drawing at the minute. I ordered some bearings to start building, but they were metric, and now I have to find some metric bolts to mount them on. I got a good deal on E=bay. They are skateboard bearings, and I bought a box of 100, cheap. I will have to build it first and then decide what course to take. If I do decide to open source it, I will post it on this forum first. There seems to be some seriously minded and determined people on here, and I respect all that are trying to make OU and FE work by thinking outside the box. Good Luck. Stealth

I had to try it one more time => using only two arms. I suspected it wouldn't work, just had to make sure. Two arms, only one is hitting at a time, may as well be a single cylinder kadiddlehopper. I am going to slap on a secondary auxiliary system -closer in to the hub- spaced a bit ahead so that it hits ahead of the arms, in effect making it like a Two-Stage Engine Fire... but also like a centrifugal advance.

That's the missing piece of the puzzle that should pull the next arm around further.
Yep, think I'll modify one of my other designs scaled down a bit less radius. The
hub should have been larger diameter also, too late to change that this time.

I'll pick this up again tomorrow.

p.s. It doesn't help a lot when you violate your own drawings. See the hinged arm with the weight? It isn't supposed to extend out past the extended arm but the one I ended up with tonight did. So I ended up with the stroke distance being overly long and the weight further out from the hub (which drug it down on the ride back up). I'll tidy up all the mistakes (pull the weight in 1/2) then add the secondary system (if it still doesn't work). This is a lot of fun.

Stealth: Did you get the stainless steel pipe yet?

Robert Kostoff's 9,000 pound gorilla system is a hybrid device using both gravity AND centrifugal. Has anyone tried making one that is purely or approaching pure centrifugal? At High Speeds a revolving wheel with weights flying away from the hub would pack a lotta punch. Seems like that somehow the next and the next centrifugal force should use a portion of its energy to reset the weight immediately before it.

(Or just do it by virtue of a special "auto-reload" design.)

In that case centrifugal would be the Prime Mover and Gravity would be the Helper Energy. I'm not at all sure that isn't the engine we should be chasing. The new design I mentioned yesterday somewhat does this and I believe will be a strong contender for producing Home Energy... because it would lend itself to a much higher RPM than Gravity.

All: These is one thing we all seem to have left out => the Block & Tackle magnification device. I think plastic ones can be purchased so the added weight might not be so bad versus the gains. Gravity still seems to have a slowness about it in these short distances. There is need for a pre-loaded catalyst to provide a mechanical advantage.

That could be springs except springs add too much extra weight. A straight rope or wire might help but probably not enough; but if it was fed through a central-position block & tackle we might do something nice... because added extra weight in the center doesn't put extra weight away from the hub like springs tend to do.

What happened yesterday, my hinged arm-weight was returning too far backwards, inserting an awful delay reaction when the weight was dropping. The reason for that was the jig I made moved the axis farther out, allowing the weight to come too far (in other words "bending over backwards").

Whichever ones of us conquer this beast deserves more than "a box of chocolates".

No, I haven't as of yet recieved my stainless pipe. My friend is supposed to be getting it for me. I haven't seen him in about 2 weeks. I still need to go find some 8mm metric bolts to mount my bearings on. Maybe when I can get all my materials, I can start building one or both of my projects. Sounds as if you are about to work out the bugs in your system. Good Luck. Stealth

The Value AND the Necessity of
Short Bouncy Compression Springs

Today is June 19 2009. I began tackling Gravity Wheels at the end of February barely 4 months ago Energetic Forum shortcut => http://tinyurl.com/GravityWheelOne . One very early insight I stated there was that my designs were like a pinball machine. Off the starting blocks 1st page of this thread I said the "smack plates" would accomplish the job by having a spring on the back side. I should have qualified that to read "compression springs".

Anyone who knows car engines knows the value of compression springs to pushrods so I placed one behind each smack plate. As of today I've built 3 Gravity Wheels, each a different design but without using the springs. Others here on the Energetic Forum (plus The Mechanical Engine contributors) have come up with many great designs too; and every one of us has noticed a common negative rebound effect that stops them from running nonstop => Negative Rebound Energy. Correctly-placed compression springs (like my first design proposed behind each smack plate) are like Anti-Matter to Matter, the solution to this "Evil Superman" we all feel pushing against our wheels in the wrong direction.

It's like Samson of old pushing a turnstile against us
un-crushing our grain. Compression springs
provide what Gravity lacks:
=> BOUNCE <=

All the gravity wheel designs I have shown so far plus the ones I have not shown will all work so long as the positive rebound compression springs are correctly added and placed. I think that applies to everyone else's gravity wheels, including the swinging board. Pendulum weights swinging outward should hit into a compression spring that will bounce them completely back to their starting position and a waiting latch. That would mean placing the spring soon after the pendulum weight passes say 5 AM, not waiting til the energy has waned toward the end of the stroke. Since the spring energy would be sent toward the rim (and away from the hub) there wouldn't be any negative energy produced because the hub is immovable.

Why would springs being required have to be true? Gravity is our first stage energy. Any motion obtained off of gravity is secondary strength energy. That means whatever design we come up with ONLY HAS ONE SHOT PER MAIN GRAVITY MOTION to reflect the full amount of energy from Gravity. Not to say some really unique and ingenious systems couldn't be thought up say with a counterweight system because I think they can. But for right now we need to whack this beast on his nose, and that means short bouncy compression springs.

Since springs don't grow on trees, + they need to be specially designed and fabricated per use, getting the correct springs is not going to be easy at all. We may end up designing our entire device around a certain size spring. So before running out and searching through landfills and GoodWill stores and hardwares all over the city I think I'll first put some time into figuring out a sufficient spring substitute perhaps using a lever~&~weights combination my weights can smack into, or a thin strip of bungee cord or benchpress weight rubber.

I apologize if I led anyone away from using springs... but many times the springs I was looking at were long (heavy) that I determined would increase the inertia (resistance to motion) overmuch for the total device. Compression springs we need to use should be shorter & lighter. We are on the verge of adding many more machines to Robert Kostoff's.

Thanks Stealth. Yeah, I might get one working today, the one I was working on yesterday. I tried a trick this morning that didn't pan out and made an adjustment too. Still it wouldn't quite make it so I thought up a way to change it again, but then I realized it just plain has to have a bounce in there somewhere.

Spring-contained energy isn't "free energy" and yet in a sense it is. Energy that goes into a spring then coming back at us to do more work is pretty close to free. It's free to use provided us by spring properties sort of like how we throw a Frisbee away from us and its Design returns it to us.

Which I think agrees with Joit #301 but since I thought he meant an electrical coil I didn't grasp his thought right off the bat. A shorter coiled spring would be a compression spring, unless Joit corrects me on that.

I was just looking at my last wheel, the one I'm also presently still working on. I made the arms a bit over long adding unnecessary weight/inertia needing to be overcome. There are several ways to correct that had I not made it PERMANENT with liquid metal used to keep the threaded rods from turning but that's okay. It occurs to me that the arms being too long might have contributed to needing a secondary system closer to the hub in the first place.

I should add that one reason this design has ended up needing so many patches is from making the hub diameter way too small. Such a small diameter increased the Work needed to be done and also made the Timing more critical than it ever should have been. The hub should have been fat like this steam pot toy http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inv...teamengine.GIF made by Hero(n) 1900 years ago:



Once a mistake of that magnitude has been made everything afterward becomes a struggle of playing catch up trying to outrun such a Base-Level Error & Design Flaw. Notice how the short arm steam toy used its design to direct its output steam behind the 180 degree mark! That's what a gravity wheel needs to do, just forward instead of backward.

But we learn from it anyway because
using a two-phase power stroke
may still be the better choice:

In looking at my failure some more it looks like the secondary system I am adding must not only be #1 closer in to the hub it needs #2 to have a shorter stroke and #3 increased weight (leverage) of the sliding fishing weights #4 angled in toward the hub so they will slide backwards on the ascending side ... in addition to #5 adding some compression springs in somewhere for the missing Bounce. A bit like surfboarding, the secondary system closer in needs to split the middle.

The outer system revolving faster is still covering a longer distance (making its punches come slower) so the inner system needs to throw its punches faster using shorter strokes. Right offhand, I would say the inner short "piston" jab needs to hit first, thereby providing the action of a centrifugal-advance car distributor with the added plus the short jab ahead of the longer arm should add to the longer arm's punch... close enough strikes to be considered a single punch.

Following doing all that I'll start the next wheel correctly with a fat-diameter hub plus shorter arms because the design was a good one had I followed it more closely. (I chose to use a hub ~5/8" dowel rod~ I already had mounted & ready to work on.)
....

Distance outward from the hub gives additional mechanical advantage (leverage) when the hub is empty. Empty = Zero Inertia. Of course the heated air and water of the steam was also providing lift so they somewhat actually came close to defining both a hot air balloon and a spinning toy dirigible.

Maybe I should be using a plastic ball for the hub. I'll look into it come Monday.

No no, i dont correct you on that. Its ok, i meant an electrical Coil, where you get some Current from,
or from another one with few Magnets to power the one Coil over a Capacitor, since you said, springs want last that long.
A smaller, maybe weaker or stronger Spring is maybe the right thing, to give some more additional Spin.

Ok. Good. Since electrical coils are usually heavy seems like putting them in close to the hub, their weight wouldn't be so much a factor. Maybe one central coil could be the hub.

Two birds <> one stone eh?

Electrically actuated sliding weights may give you that tip over you are needing. it could be done with relatively small high speed motors.
Linear actuators are capable of exerting a good bit of force so you may be able to use larger weights for additional torque. It all depends on how much power you can generate in the back end.

OK, and the larger the weights = the less distance they need to move away from the hub to exert their contributing force. I was thinking about that myself just by using a short slightly-tilted slide for the fishing weights. Joit might use your idea more.

It's a sad day when you don't have a coat hanger left in the house. I could fix this sucker right now. It spun around a buncha times and didn't want to quit when it did. My kingdom for a coat hanger! Actually, it's more than that. It means rigging two posts near the hub to hold the coat hanger wires with the sliding weights but, I'm going to sleep good on laurel branches this night.

Take a look back at the picture in Post #305 => CloudSeeder's Gravity Wheel on Fire

Notice where all the weight is: out from the hub. It begs for a counterbalance
weight right at the hub, a weight that barely moves 1/2 inch+ either way, so
that when the outer weight stalls it kicks in a tipping point pusher without
moving very far, so it's relationship with the total system is nearly static.
Such a center-mounted, nearly-static weight would need to be heavy.
How heavy would such a "tipping point pusher" weight need to be?

A Scientific First? Departure
from a long-followed Scientific Tenet?
CloudSeeder Reverses the Roles of Earth & Moon.

Perhaps from 1/3 to 3/4 the weight of one whole extended arm (threaded rod + rig + weight). In a sense it would provide the shove from its hub location like the Moon shoves the oceans from its extended location, obviously a reversal of yet similar effect but A SCIENTIFICALLY NOTABLE ABERRATION from what Science usually does => COPY NATURE.

With this accompanying heavy nudge the force of the extended weight would
be magnified perhaps 200%... but since it moves a very short actual sliding
distance the weight's relationship to the hub barely changes. Yep, I like it.

It has the "Earth" inducing action in the "Moon".
....

So a fishing weight with the hole down the middle ~sliding a wire from side to
side as a balancer~ would be a Straight Pendulum: a Zero Height Pendulum.
Can I buy one somewhere as a kit? Shoot. This isn't going to be easy.

Instead of building the slider off the threaded rods, a V-shaped structure would put all the leverage into the hub, provided that's the place to put it. I suppose not, then. The weight short-sliding to either side needs its weight leaning to that side. Hmm. In that case maybe I should make extended support arms reaching further out on the threaded arms...

Using the heavier weights on the slide there's no need for extra leverage. That's why they're heavier weights. Go for the middle then, neither extended nor V-shape to the hub. Drill straight down.

Sometimes, nothing beats a good square box. Anchored to the solid wood
dowel hub can be done while still putting the weight out a ways on the arms.
Placement is critical though. And it still needs compression springs to put a little zest in it.

Pump up the jazz.

I wonder if the Manhattan Project boys worked this hard to line up their shooter (marble).
....

My device as it is, as yet unaltered from the other day, stalls eventually, hanging to a stop at about the 2 pm mark coming down. This has been the case for many Gravity Wheels not just mine. This puts us all very close to success! The sliding fishing weights system I will add will be near to the hub, very close in.

The weight will be heavy so it does not need to slide at RAMMING SPEED. It just needs to slide a short ways over to alter the balance of power and keep the device going through just a little ways farther than it already goes... because the OTHER ARM coming up is close to reaching 12 pm!

So the heavy weight will be pushing and pulling at the same time but the trick is to avoid it sliding back hard enough that it bumps the system backwards! One way to fix that as we were discussing earlier would be to place a compression spring on the slide and the weight would benefit (bounce) from spring rebound energy. Well, maybe it would & maybe it would not because when the weight slides against the spring the spring still pushes back albeit softer but the negative energy is still there.

I believe that can be totally avoided.
Positive can be added w/out the negative bump:

Since my system came so close to continuing to spin already that tells me it does not need a Ka-Bump it just needs a muscled nudge. A nudge over a short slide distance (barely surpassing the edges of the hub radius or so) gains No momentum whatsoever. Maybe that seems a bad thing. It is not. It's exactly what's needed =>

A heavy weight that does not gain momentum will also not return back to the start to slam a negative reverse momentum either! Plus that a) being close in to the hub and b) sliding a short distance and c) being heavy, all that adds up to the nudge we need minus the negative bump. I expect this strategy to succeed by d) putting the slide angle very low to prevent it from reverse-ramming a negative energy stopper while providing the outer arm system the "Power Nudge" forward it lacks now.


Usually we think of a tipping point as working against us, like with the weather. This hub-hugging sliding weight system is a positive tipping point that should also help many other's gravity wheels with a slow, short-stroke but heavy power nudge.
....

If you need a nudge, you can position a magnet at just the right point to help pull or push the arm a short distance. This would not be a pure gravity motor then, but it could provide the extra momentum that you need. Hope this helps. Good Luck. Stealth

Stealth: Thanks. I'll keep it in mind but you'd be surprised how quick a fishing weight will slide soon as it tops the horizon. It's going to be interesting. I think for the slide supports to stay firmly in place I'll end up using some dowel rods, notched out to fit onto the extended arms. Unless I come up with a better idea... which is what I'm holding back for, an idea to drop on me from the clear blue sky. But if I was in NEW JERSEY I wouldn't want something hitting me from the sky. The dowel rods are v/light, wide and strong. Think I'll go walk around Lowe's see if I get any ideas there. Maybe an idea will hit one of you guys.

What I need is Johnny Weismuller and some vines and a long sharp knife.

Stealth: If you used one very powerful electromagnet on the downcoming side, and it was switched on very briefly just about 3-4 am as the arm weight was falling it would jerk the weight already in its power fall. I could see where a hybrid system using solar to power the electromagnet ~firing twice per revolution~ could do what you suggest. There are many such combination systems could be made like that. I just got my electric bill yesterday & by switching off the major appliances (stopping them from drawing "trickle current") I have reduced my usage & bill by 47%. I use mostly the low wattage lightbulbs except for the bathrooms... and got a Viewsonic monitor flat, chucked out the old CRT's that were running up my bill.

The apartment owners do not allow a circuit box switching system as this is Virginia and all new things have to be done and perfected somewhere else first. I did find an automatic hot water system that's very reasonable cost that would reduce the carbon footprint for Virginia a great deal without touching the circuit box. I sent the link to them for their consideration and also told them I'd be glad to PAY FOR IT but it's been 2 months... no response. Here's the link $69.00 Hot Water Heater Control: Intermatic EH40 Water Heater Timer 240 vac from R.E. Williams Contractor Inc. at SHOP.COM

The solar heat trap pool on Pg 7 of this thread CloudSeeder's Gravity Wheel on Fire + reducing hot water heater element run-times + Wind and/or Gravity would easily cover U.S. homes and apartments electrical needs. Thomas Friedman suggested using reduced oil as a weapon to bring Iran to its knees. That could easily be accomplished in under two years if someone resurrected the Manhattan Project men: full protectionist and energy isolationist mode. Right now it appears the U.S. is headed toward geothermal albeit they know of evidence it increases earthquakes => http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/bu...rm.html?ref=us

Once the Big Boys of Industry latch onto the next paycheck oops New Energy Source it seems like causing extra collateral damage from the earthquakes their new technology causes is within acceptable parameters. People gonna die from sumthin', may as well be getting crushed under buildings or an interstate upper deck eh? I fell from a truckbed once <> a bridge dropping from under your car wouldn't be that bad.
....

Better yet a self oscillating coil driven by a 555 and mosfet if triggered by reed would function great for sustaining the rotation of the motor. Then any generator attached to the motor would only have to make up for the energy that couldn't be collected by the oscillating coil.

Ya and then it wouldn't really be a gravity wheel either.

Good points from both. I've noted that the Patent Office has a powerful distaste for natural solution engine systems... so by adding on some electronics Redeagle's idea for a Gravity~Coil Hybrid would stand the better chance of reaching the Public.

But Mark is right to keep the focus on gravity. We really do need to find the Gravity Wheel sweet spot first... because then if we added other systems to it we would only reap more electricity. Adding a coil system right now would magnify what we have, right now.

As someone noted earlier, the Robert Kostoff solution was mostly centrifugal aided by gravity. They let him walk through the turnstile. He didn't quite open the door on gravity <> he opened a door on gravity hybrids.