Building a self looping "SMOT"

[JouleSeeker]

  Your use of ceramic magnets is most interesting.  I have been reading scientific papers regarding the MOMENTUM carried by the magnetic field itself, and how non-conducting magnets may offer a chance to explore this effect. 

   I also agree that the "EXIT" is critically important.  Can you give us sometime more detail about how you achieve the exit for the ball, so that it proceeds back downward, away from the magnets?  That would be needed for a replication I think.

[elecar]

Hi Jouleseeker, I could not get it to work with the neos, I could get them to pull the ball up the ramp and the to get the ball to reverse. But I could not get the ball to move away from the magnetic field. The C8 magnets have worked best.

You are correct the exit is absolutely critical, in that the ball must be able to roll freely and at the shallowest angle possible and there must be NO resistance or the ball will hang up, I only have a cheap plastic protractor and checking mine it is 12-14 degrees. My track is pretty much like that shown in reply #3 on page one of this thread.

[elecar]

Hi DTB,  I hope you do not mind me using your drawing, hopefully the alteration is self explanatory, the area indicated by the red ball would need to have a greater influence from gravity than that of the magnets. I have no idea if it would work just thinking out loud.

[elecar]

Hi Jouleseeker, I have not tried this, but it is one of my designs. the track is constructed of aluminum channel, a NON magnetic "gate" is placed at the junction. It would need to be super light and as friction free as possible. The orange dot represents the hinge. The red dot represents a very small ferromagnetic fixture which would allow the gate to be "pulled shut" by the attraction to the  magnets on the side of the ramp. Which leaves only one way for the reversing ball to travel.

Again I have not tried it, its just one design idea.

[JouleSeeker]

Hi Jouleseeker, I could not get it to work with the neos, I could get them to pull the ball up the ramp and the to get the ball to reverse. But I could not get the ball to move away from the magnetic field. The C8 magnets have worked best.

Yes!  and just a quick follow-up, in your self-looping prototype, the C8 magnets do allow the "the ball to move away from the magnetic field" and move back down the ramp (right-hand ramp, i.e., the ramp without magnets nearby) -- is that correct? this is crucial. 

There must be no input from the outside by any prosaic force such as a finger-touch or moving a magnet or vibration or anything like that.  (No such input, right?)

PS - note- I'll be driving a friend right away to a VA hospital, gone all afternoon.