ATTN LMNO: physics(ish) question

[P3nT4gR4m]

I have a mate who will pretty much buy into any conspiracy theory you care to mention. I've sold him more than a couple myself. Now he's go a bee in bonnet about something to do with Nikolai Tesla and Overunity. Planning on going "off the grid" with some kind of magnetic induction motor or some shit.

Now (correct me if I'm wrong) the whole idea here seems to be to produce moar power than you're putting in, charging the battery you're powering it with, with the excess power. Impossible right? Smacks of pseudo science. But what I was wondering is - how close to this elusive "perpetual motion" thing have the crackpots got? Because I'm thinking I might have the answer (using non pseudoscience bullshit. Basically what I'm thinking is - if I can get pretty close to the overunity point, using whatever, surely all I have to do is add a couple of wind turbines or solar panels or both in order to beef up the juice.

Anyway I'd appreciate if you could bring me up to speed on this stuff, he's the kind of chap who will spend a bit of money in pursuit of this goal and if I can tag along for the ride and get a working prototype up and running then I save myself a bit of bread on leccy bills.

[LMNO]

Link to specs.

Standard physics states energy/momentum must be conserved.  Anything that looks like it's putting more energy back in than it's putting out (or even breaking even) must be viewed skeptically.



There are a lot of clever devices out there, most of them variations on a handful of themes.  Let me know what kind of device he's thinking about, and I'll get back to you.

[Template]

As I understand things, "Overunity" is just a buzzword for efficiency greater than 1.  Literally equivalent to "creates energy."  I've not examined the concept, but from my definition, it's utter nonsense, except as a descriptor of empirical evidence.  If I turn a crank one turn, and my car goes up three stories, energy's coming from somewhere.  But I'd have had to actually tested the damned thing.

A near-unity generator would just be something that accepts energy and doesn't lose it fast.  Coffee in a thermos.  A high-quality flywheel.  These are efficient over time.  But, they don't do anything useful except when you put energy in (store energy) or take energy out (recover energy).

Devices that pull energy from ambient sources (wind, solar, possibly stray radio communications) shouldn't be considered overunity.  Would you call a wind-chime a perpetual-motion machine?  It kind of is, but not like any seeker would probably admit.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Have a look HERE

also this page

The main criticisms seem to be from the "perpetual motion" angle which, as I've already mentioned, I'm taken as a given (that it wont)

I am, however intrigued if this thing might be producing energy at anything approaching "zero point" because, if this is the case then I'm guessing I could hook the power supply up to the aforementioned solar/wind source to provide the extra juice.

I realise that I'm probably being totally naive and making some fundamental error here. I got no clue how any of this works. Figured if I ran it by someone who can check the maths or physics or whatever it is then I could either look into developing one or at least get my mate to stfu when he goes on about it.

There's also the whole "cult of tesla" thing that's baffling me at the moment. Mainly because it all just goes over my head but I'm getting the impression he was a nutjob that invented AC then made some fucked up claims in the throes of a breakdown and conspiracy theorists have been lapping it up ever since. That about right or did the guy actually imply something we still don't understand about the properties of electricity and for some reason science has never worked it out?

Devices that pull energy from ambient sources (wind, solar, possibly stray radio communications) shouldn't be considered overunity.  Would you call a wind-chime a perpetual-motion machine?  It kind of is, but not like any seeker would probably admit.

I'm not suggesting those things are perpetual motion - the plan is to "cheat" and use these readily available sources to tip the balance.

[fomenter]

i don't know much on the subject but wasn't the Tesla stuff supposed to transmit electricity at a lower loss than electric lines and allow users to grab it from anywhere?  not to create the energy from a perpetual motion source, it still had to be made the old fashioned way?

[Faust]

i don't know much on the subject but wasn't the Tesla stuff supposed to transmit electricity at a lower loss than electric lines and allow users to grab it from anywhere?  not to create the energy from a perpetual motion source, it still had to be made the old fashioned way?

Yeah he came up with a few models but there were phase issues. Collecting the energy isn't the only problem, unless its phase is predictable its useless.

[Requia ☣]

Um, even if its 99% efficient, thats still a 1% drain on whatever power source you hook it up to.

Or did you want it as a battery?

[Template]

Devices that pull energy from ambient sources (wind, solar, possibly stray radio communications) shouldn't be considered overunity.  Would you call a wind-chime a perpetual-motion machine?  It kind of is, but not like any seeker would probably admit.

I'm not suggesting those things are perpetual motion - the plan is to "cheat" and use these readily available sources to tip the balance.

I expected that you understood such things as not "perpetual motion".  I just wanted to offer a "better idea" in the form of an evocative image.

Innovation comes from curiosity, not confidence.  Plan to make other fun things with the parts at such time as the perpetual-motion machine fails.

Also, a secret I read in MAKE:  Not only do you not understand the device, the designer at most thinks he does.

Look up http://amasci.com .  That's got cool wierd stuff on it and essays that might clue you in.

[LMNO]

Ok, apart from the math being off (according to the second link you posted, which sounds about right), my main objection is more or less semantics.

That is, a "motor" (step 1) and a "generator" (step 2) are both just Transducers of a sort, mirrored.

That is, a motor uses energy to get something to spin, and a generator makes energy using a spinning thing.

The energy loss comes from the thing that spins (friction/heat).  While you can grease the hell out of it and make it very effecient, you still lose energy. 

So, this appears to be a DC to AC converter.  I suppose if you timed the spin just right, you could have minimal loss, but I'm not sure what the benefit would be. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

Cheers, that pretty much answers my question. I'm sure if you could build a machine that spat out moar 'lectric than you fed it it'd be front page of the "new scientist" and not some bedroom stunt on youtube.

I think the plan was to use a wheel of magnets and four oscillating poles around them powered by a small battery, when hooked up to a dynamo this produces a bunch of leccy, some of which is used to trickle charge the battery.

[LMNO]

When all is said and done, you'd end up with a less-effecient battery.

It sometimes helps to think about it in terms of water.

If you have a bucket of water, and you pour it down a plank of wood into another bucket, some water will splash over the side, but most will end up in the second bucket.

If you divert some of the water on the plank back up into the bucket, you'll get less water on the plank for a longer amount of time, but you'll still end up with an empty first bucket, eventually.


For our purposes, the bucket is a battery, the plank is the Overunity device, the water splashing over the side is heat/friction, and the diverted water is the electricity fed back into the battery.

So, the battery will last longer, but the amount of work it can do will be less.