A sincere gentleman sharing a magnet motor build .[NDA issues??]

[MileHigh]

Anyway,things are what they are,and i can achieve the same results over and over again-just by adding the magnets. The same go's for say a solenoid engine,where a solenoid with a steel cylinder is used,and a steel slug for the piston. Remove the steel cylinder,replace with say a nylon one,and replace the steel piston with a magnet,and you will get much more power out for the same power in-while maintaining the same heat output from the solenoid coil-so where did the extra energy come from?.

"Proof that Magnets CAN do useful work"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhLlI8gclZQ

So what do we see in your clip?  You have some kind of solenoid motor that is optically triggered and makes a drum spin.  Then you swap out some of solenoid parts for magnets and then the drum spins at roughly the same speed but the current consumption is about half.

So does that mean that magnets can do useful work?

Absolutely not, magnets are still dead as proverbial doornails.  They can not do useful work.

So how do you explain what is happening in the clip?

[TinselKoala]

(snip)
TK, If I start my single magnet at TDC from a balance point, let it go and rotates 350* ,then add some steel at 350*, repeat now the magnet travels 365*, is that considered a gain?
artv

You might think so, but it's the "wrong" experiment. Ask yourself why it doesn't just keep on rotating if it actually has travelled 365 degrees. You are misleading yourself by performing a "Confirmatory" experiment rather than one that could potentially disconfirm your idea.

Try this. Remove your "single magnet" and replace it with a simple chunk of lead or modelling clay of the same weight. Keep your added steel in place. Now use some reliable and repeatable method to spin up your rotor with a known input of energy, or to a precisely known RPM, and time the rundown time. Do this several times and take the average, so you smooth out random errors from the data. Then replace the magnet and repeat the process with the same energy input or precise RPM and time the rundown time. Again, take the average of several trials. Which condition takes longer to run down?

Or, do the same kind of thing comparing the rotor with magnet but _no_ steel at 350 degrees, with the full system including the added steel. Which takes longer to run down?

The steel is attracted by the magnet, both as the magnet approaches the steel and as it moves away. But this interaction is symmetrical and should neither add nor subtract energy from the system. However, the moving magnet will cause eddy currents in the steel, which _do_ subtract energy from the motion of the magnet and dissipate it as heat. So the presence of the steel should actually cause the system to run down faster (take less time to come to a stop) than the "blank" control runs with either no magnet or no steel in place. (All this assumes good bearings that aren't affected by the asymmetrical loading caused by the design. If the bearings have too much play... that will be yet another loss mechanism and cause even shorter rundown times.)

The key is figuring out some way to provide that repeatable starting input without interference or help from Mister Hand (who after all knows what you are trying to "prove" and will help you out, even without you knowing it).  A weight-drop pulling a string wrapped around the rotor or its axle, as I showed in the "Mondrasek" video linked earlier, is one way. Using air-blast and a precise tachometer is another way but not as simple as the weight on a string. It is just not possible to do the precise starting impulse with your hand alone.

I hope you do the experiment I suggested, and report your results here. A video would be nice as well.

[tinman]

So what do we see in your clip?  You have some kind of solenoid motor that is optically triggered and makes a drum spin.  Then you swap out some of solenoid parts for magnets and then the drum spins at roughly the same speed but the current consumption is about half.

So does that mean that magnets can do useful work?

Absolutely not, magnets are still dead as proverbial doornails.  They can not do useful work.

So how do you explain what is happening in the clip?

Solenoid motor?
Not sure what ypu watched MH, but my setup uses a DC PM motor for the mechanical rotation. The only thing I change is the counter weight for 1fixed permanent magney, and 1 permanent magnet on the controll are. We then spin the DUT up again to find that with the PMs installed, the DC motor now requires less current at the set voltage, meaning that the motor is now spinning faster for less power input. The only change we made was adding 2PMs to the system.

[MileHigh]

Solenoid motor?
Not sure what ypu watched MH, but my setup uses a DC PM motor for the mechanical rotation. The only thing I change is the counter weight for 1fixed permanent magney, and 1 permanent magnet on the controll are. We then spin the DUT up again to find that with the PMs installed, the DC motor now requires less current at the set voltage, meaning that the motor is now spinning faster for less power input. The only change we made was adding 2PMs to the system.

Sorry I watched the clip yesterday and now I recall seeing the vertical axis DC motor.  Yes, you added the magnets and the power consumption went down.  The real question is were the magnets doing useful work or was something else happening?

[MileHigh]

Brad:

Okay, I thought of an easy way to get my point across.   We will just use imaginary power consumption figures:

Setup without magnets:  4 watts power consumption
Setup with magnets:  2 watts power consumption

So, the question is did the magnets do useful work?

You are saying the magnets did do useful work, implying that they are a source of power.  I am saying that is not the case.

Here is the crux of the matter?   What is the actual output of the device?  Let's say that the mechanical power required to overcome the bearing and air friction to make the drum spin is the actual output and anything that is not the actual output is simply electrical power turned into waste heat power.

Here is the key point that you are not considering:  The actual mechanical power required for overcoming the bearing and air friction is only 0.2 watts.  In many setups it's very difficult or sometimes nearly impossible to make this measurement.

<<<< Sidebar:  The best measurement technique for an amateur experimenter to estimate this actual mechanical power needed for keeping a rotor spinning at a given RPM is the spin-down technique.  I am only aware of TK doing this measurement.  If you want to up your game, and this applies to all people that make some kind of spinning rotor device, then you should figure out how to make this measurement.  Even if it is only +/-20% accurate, that is a hell of a lot better than no estimate at all. >>>>

Now, with that knowledge, let's look at the numbers again:

Setup without magnets:  4 watts electrical power consumption
Actual mechanical power output:  0.2 watts
Efficiency: 5%

Setup with magnets:  2 watts power consumption
Actual mechanical power output:  0.2 watts
Efficiency: 10%

Do you see, adding the magnets only improved the efficiency of the setup so that it went from 5% to 10%.  The magnets did ZERO WORK, the only thing they did was change the efficiency of the setup and nothing else.


Here is what you would have to see for "Proof that Magnets CAN do useful work:"

Setup with magnets:  0.18 watts power consumption
Actual mechanical power output:  0.2 watts
Efficiency: 111%

Do you see what's happening with the numbers?  We are imagining that you have a setup with a motor that is 100% efficient overall to start with, and then you add magnets and the magnets themselves "CAN do useful work" and they CONTRIBUTE 0.02 watts of mechanical power to the system.

The problem is that when you do an experiment where you add magnets and see better numbers that NEVER happens.   What you actually see is something like this:

Setup without magnets:  4 watts electrical power consumption
(Actual mechanical power output:  0.2 watts - YOU CAN'T REALLY SEE THIS AND YOU CAN'T REALLY MEASURE THIS)
Efficiency: 5%

Setup with magnets:  2 watts power consumption
(Actual mechanical power output:  0.2 watts - YOU CAN'T REALLY SEE THIS AND YOU CAN'T REALLY MEASURE THIS)
Efficiency: 10%

When you add magnets to a setup and see better numbers all that you are really doing is making the setup more efficient and reducing the waste heat production.  You are NEVER showing "Proof that Magnets CAN do useful work."

Please think seriously about this example.  It does not matter that the numbers are hypothetical, it's the concept that you need to understand.