The Mechanical Engine

[Inquorate]

Back to principles, real life - no computer sims

YouTube - gravity mill principle - real life demo

[Ted Ewert]

YouTube - gravity mill principle - real life demo

Very interesting! That really increases the centrifugal component, much more than I would have guessed (I suppose that's why Peter put a return spring in his design). It opens up a lot of possibilities too.
Thanks for the demo, that kind of stuff is priceless.

Cheers,

Ted

[Peter Lindemann]

Excellent Experiment

YouTube - gravity mill principle - real life demo

Inquorate,

Besides that one shot of your knee, that was a great film. I believe you are beginning to see exactly what my experiments showed me and I summarized in post #171. Your film all but proves that my design is on the right track.

As much as you want the pendulums to swing back and forth a number of times, in the end, I believe there is only time to swing it out and back once (each revolution) before the ability to catch it near its starting position is lost. That is the reason to have 8 or more pendulums on the wheel. As soon as one swings out, bounces back and is caught, its time for the next one. That way, all of the downward forces on the wheel keep happening in the middle right quadrant, and the center of mass on the wheel remains OFF CENTER.

You are in the process of working it out. Very, very good work!

Peter

[Ted Ewert]

I went back and read 171 again, and it makes a lot more sense now. Letting the pendulum swing up and back down again doesn't really buy anything. The business is all done at the bottom of the swing. Once the pendulum passes the bottom on it's first pass, the quicker it can pass the bottom again, the better.
I agree, right after the bottom, a stiff spring, or superball, would be optimal.
The only minor caveat I can think of would be with a wheel that is designed to rotate quickly. Then you would have the centrifugal force of the wheel itself to consider as a vector. This might necessitate moving the spring a little further away from the bottom to take advantage of this force.
Great stuff.

Cheers,

Ted

[Inquorate]

Latch mechanism

I don't know how close this is to dr lindemann's design; I haven't looked at it since he posted it, because I wanted to work out the why's and wherefore's by myself - leading to a deeper understanding.

Even though the pendulum won't bounce back 100%, the wheel will have turned and therefore the pendulum should return to the latch.

I forgot to draw the nub on the latch mechanism that stops the pendulum falling backwards on the other side of the wheel.

Latch+mechanism.jpg (image)

Possibly, the 'eccentric wheel' timing should be moved from 3 to 4o'clock, that way the pendulum weight will have higher potential energy. More than 4o'clock though and the wheel's centrifugal force will tend to throw the pendulum backwards??

Anyway, it should be pretty easy to make the eccentric wheel latch trigger position adjustable.

Homage to Peter Lindemann for your patience..

[Inquorate]

Hang on

The latch just needs to be 10 degrees of pendulum rotation toward the outside of the wheel, that way the centrifugal force on the whole wheel will always pull it toward the return spring on the rim.

The faster the wheel spins the more centrifugal force pulling the pendulum toward the rim - the pendulum will still return to the latch though, on account of the wheel spinning faster.

It may be possible to have two latch trigger points?

[Inquorate]

All I can say is..

YouTube - It's gotta be like this

6 seconds only; it's easier for me to upload a video than a picture

[Michael John Nunnerley]

centrifugal and centripetal

Just a point on these two forces in relation to a pendulum. If a disc with pendulums on its cicumference turns and the pendulum at 3 swings out it will have centrifugal force to the point that it stops at the far right at which point it will turn to centripetal force the latter which is not wanted as it will work against the overall gain. The gain when the pendulum is fully streached to the right is one of gravity with the weight farther away from the axis of the disc and the axis of the weight.

Just a point guys, hope you do not mined

Michael N

[Michael John Nunnerley]

Just a point that I missed stating, the centrifugal force of the pendulum moving out is as ALWAYS in a straight line from the axis, the axis is fixed in two places at the pendulum pivot and at the center of the disc, AT FULL STREACH IT IS TRYING TO PULL OFF THE CENTER DISC AXIS, no gain here.

Michael N

[CloudSeeder]

Nunnerley again makes lots of Sense. You guys should listen to him. The supporting upright is getting outward Energy from the pendulum that needs to be harnessed if this thing is to ever work. NO ENERGY CAN BE WASTED, NONE, NADA.

[Inquorate]

No gain?

@ Michael N - did you watch the demo video I posted? If there's no 'gain' then why does the otherwise balanced lever rotate?

Oh well, I guess for some the proof will be in the pudding - which I'm presently cooking up.

[CloudSeeder]

I watched your video Inquorate. It looked like the weights were sliding on top when you released the pendulum. A good video, but the weights sliding was altering the experiment. Now if you could fix the weights, then attach a scale in there somewhere to measure the impact would maybe be helpful for you to know too.

[Inquorate]

Sliding weights?

@ cloudseeder - with all due respect, the weights that could move on the lever were for fine tuning the balance of the lever when I moved the rubber ball. All up, not more than 100 grams. If you watch the video again, you will notice that the accidental shifting the 100 gram weight had a negligible effect on the centrifugal force of the pendulum.

[CloudSeeder]

Weights flopping around looked sloppy in my opinion, respect or disrespect notwithstanding. If you want people to look at your work and believe it you need to not have weights doing a dance to prove your conclusions.

[Mark]

Cloudseeder you might want to try to be a little more constructive and less insulting especially since you are not the one building anything.