Okay, this was discussed in another thread, and I've been thinking on it a little bit and I have a few questions on a design I came up with and whether or not it would work.

Okay, basically here's my idea. Have falling water turn fly wheels, that will spin wires in magnetic fields and generate electricity. Also, some of the fly wheels drive cam shafts that operate a mechanical water pump (similar to those things they used to use in blacksmith forges) to get the water from below to above the fly wheels so it may fall again.

I was thinking a reservoir with holes in the bottom, connected to tubes containing fly wheels (similar in design to a flow meter in a water cooling system). the fly wheel can be geared to increase the output speed, and will spin tightly coiled wires through strong magnetic fields. I was thinking about using neodymium magnets for this, as they can be smaller and still have a good field.

A few of the fly wheels could operate light weight cam shafts that use pistons to push down on a bladder that has two one-way valves to get the water from below to above the fly wheels. If the bladder is put between to boards, a spring can be added to assist in refilling after the piston compresses it.

To get the water back up above the fly wheels to the reservoir, I think I'll use spiraled tubing, as it takes less work to get up a more gradual incline. The friction of the water in the tube is the only force opposing the motion in the lateral direction, and gravity is the opposition in the vertical direction. The distance will be longer, but the force required to move the water will be less, so if you use the right diameter spiral, you can move the water with less work. I'm using solid mechanics in this reasoning because I've yet to study fluid mechanics. Correct me here if I'm wrong.

if you fill the reservoir and tubes all the way, and leave a slight air pocket in the bladder, you can use nozzles to increase the flow rate over the fly wheels. You would have to start the pumping by hand, but I think this could produce a small amount of electricity and keep itself running as long as the parts were light enough for the fly wheels to turn.

I was hoping to connect the generators in parallel, and I read it can be done as long as they are in phase. I was thinking of using some sort of "Y" splitter to connect the generators, and I think this will increase the current.

Does anyone have any idea as to how well this would work? I'm not trying to make something that can run a house, or even a power tool, but if I could get a couple LEDs lit with it I think it would be worth my time. I have the money to buy all the parts I need, but wanted to ask opinions on if it would work or not before I invested into it. Any and all answers would be appreciated.

PS, you can also run this in DC depending on how you set it up. DC would be the way to go for running an LED, but AC is also possible.

 

Are you trying to make an overbalanced wheel? If so read this.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/overbal.htm

Actually this might be more like it.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/people/people.htm

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Sounds like perpetual motion revisited.

Ken

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Kind of. There are really two different systems in the same device. One is a generator, the other is a mechaincal pump. Now you could maybe use a small amount of the generated current in some way to assist the pump, but it really depends on how well it works, the whole idea uses the momentum of the piston against the potential energy in a spring. if you do it all laterally, you don't have to fight gravity. that concept is used in Porsche engines, where the pistons operate from side to side as opposed to up and down like most engines.

But yea, basically I'm going for a perpetual motion device, kind of like those metal balls that hang on the fishing line. Those things will eventually stop, but the time it takes for it to happen naturally is ridiculous. I'm kind of going for the same idea. My contraption will eventually stop pumping, and thus will stop producing electricity, but the time it would take to do this is pretty long. And if it did need more power, I could push the bladder harder with my hand and make it work faster.

I'm not really looking for a device that will run forever, just something that will take a really long time to stop. I have no problem adding more water every now and again, or giving it a squeeze to introduce more energy to the system, but I'd like to see how long something like this would last before it needed additional energy.

 

Did you even read the links I posted? Excellent site.

By the way the device with the balls is a "Newton's Cradle" and it very much follows the laws of Newtonian Physics.

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I did read them, and they are not quite what I was looking at. I was thinking more along the lines of a super small hydroelectric plant.

If the potential energy of the water can be converted to kinetic energy driving a cam shaft that will operate a pump to get the water to a point of high potential energy again, I don't need to gain anything. I simply need the kinetic energy required move the water up to equal the potential energy the water has at a given height.

If the potential energy is greater than the kinetic energy, the excess can be converted to electricity. Does that explain it clearly?

 

And therein lies the rub, it can't. Read the other articles on the site. No free lunch in physics.

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It can be if I introduce energy to the system, such as by squeezing the bladder that pumps the water every now and then. Its just like newtons cradle. You will lose energy after every collision, but the amount you lose is insignificant. The more energy you start the system off with, the longer it will run. An example would be barely touching the newtons cradle vs pulling the end ball all the way up. The first instance will stop quickly relative to the second. Both will stop eventually. The only variance is the length of time.

the potential isn't "higher" than the kinetic, but if the potential is only slightly lower, it will take a long time to stop the machine. In the mean time, you can harness the potential in two different ways. You can have it running the pump, and you can have it running the generator. if you use a smaller flywheel on the generator, and you gear it right, I'd think you can get the potential darn close to the kinetic. I'm probably wrong there though, as you'll probably have a limit equation, where the smaller the wheel is powering the generator, the closer you can get to making the potential equal the kinetic.

 

Have you tried posting this on www.overunity.com they seem to think this is possible.

Newtons Cradle simply demonstrates transfer of energy. A ball on a string (a pendulum) would oscillate about the same. Every swing is smaller than the last.

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Nope, I haven't. again, im not looking at perpetual motion, just something that loses very little energy per period of oscillation (ie, it can run for a while before it stops).

 

I would agree newtons cradle is nothing more than a pendulum that oscillates through contact. But then again Newton never understood what was happening to begin with LOL. Take a swinging pendulum and ask yourself where the largest forces evolve? Not in the pendulum itself but in the fulcrum of the pendulum extending to the base of which the pendulum swings. The mass of the pendulum through centripital force can produce a force many times it's own weight as measured at the fulcrum. In the next instant at the top of the swing the pendulum mass becomes weightless, that is in the instant the pendulum mass comes to rest at the top of the swing if you put a scale under it instantly it would register zero, this is because motion is not instantaneous and motion is a progression through a given space in a given time. This seems odd that a mass can produce a force many times its own weight and can be weightless within the context of a simple pendulum. But many people have concluded that centripital force is a non-existent force as if it is some kind of illusion. If you can measure a force how can it not exist? It is much more likely that nobody has been smart enough to find a way to harness this latent force, it seems all these scientists have quite the ego and cannot abide by not having the answers to everything no matter how absurd there answer may be. Latent non-existent force ---- Oh yes of course-----and pigs can fly.

 

It won't be able to pump enough water back up to make the slightest bit of difference - as everyone has said, it's essentially a perpetual motion scheme - and it won't any where near work.

If you ever get to Wales, check out C.A.T. (Centre for Alternative Technology), they have a water powered rail system to move visitors up the hill (based on a Victorian design). If drought conditions mean there isn't enough water at the top, they pump some back up using energy collected from solar and wind energy - you can't use the water to pump itself back up.

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Yea, how about this idea instead of the water powering its own pump, having a metronome-like device crank a fly-wheel that operates the pump? Or for that matter, just a metronome moving a coil of wire through a magnetic field, using the slip rings and brass lugs as the masses. You can regulate the current by moving the masses up or down along the coil.

Also, I was wondering if you were to take a really small gauge wire with a certain voltage, and run it into a step up transformer that output on a large gauge wire, would the current increase? I imagine it would, as resistance would go down, and for the voltage to increase while the resistance decreases, you have to increase the current, but I also imagine this is a highly impractical method of bumping the current. I was just curious as to whether or not it would work.

To be honest, I'm quite new to the world of electricity and electronics in general, as if you couldn't tell already by my ridiculous ideas. I plan on taking classes on this sort of thing next semester, and I do read up on it in my free time. Hopefully I'll be able to take my creativity and apply it practically once I know more on the subject.

 

Perpetual motion doesn't work, never has, never can - you can't create or amplify anything - everything you do makes a loss. Assuming you had some 'magical' device that was able to utilise the energy in the falling water 100% to pump it back to the top, it would still be of no use whatsoever, because as soon as you try and use some of the energy you would drop below 100%.

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@Nigel Goodwin
Richard Feyman a highly respected Nobel winning physicist once stated "there is enough energy in a cup of coffee to boil all the worlds oceans ----instantly". That seems like a whole lot of energy from a plain cup of coffee and alot more energy than I get from my first coffee in the morning. The truth is E=mc/squared say's all matter has energy as motion----perpetual motion that never ends or matter will cease to exist. Here is something I deduced a 20 years ago, Energy=mass x c(speed of light =386000miles/sec) squared. But C is a velocity and a velocity squared is in fact an acceleration, so the equation should read E=ma. Every engineer knows this equation as Force =mass x acceleration (F=ma). So we could say all energy and forces in matter are due to accelerations in mass. Again, if these accelerations stop matter will cease to exist----perpetual motion. It is also a known scientific fact that all space including outerspace is filled with radiation covering a near infinite number of frequencies. Our sun produces these radiations and they radiate in all directions, they include alpha.beta,gamma,microwave,UV,infrared and visible spektrums ----so all space is in perpetual motion because all space is filled with radiation--ie... energy that is radiated from a point source.
A basic experiment is too connect an AV plug to a capacitor(use germanium signal diodes), you will find any capacitor will charge to 1v or more from what many consider as nothing. I have built an AV plug array and produced large capacitive discharges at 50v or more from an antenna 3" long. This circuit will also charge slowly in a faraday cage which rules out the possibility that RF or electromagnetic waves charged the capacitor--so what charges the capacitor?

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