Roll on the 20th June

[fletcher]

In support of SigmaX there are literally hundreds of grav-mag designs on the web & even this site - they are one of the favourite combinations people seem to 'gravitate to' - some I've seen in the past are exactly the same principles quinn is building today & has theorised about these last few weeks.

It seems that a lot of people think quinn has done the community a great service by bringing everyone together within talking range - I think unless we bother to do some research & then learn from history & the mistakes of others we are doomed to make the same mistakes all over - I don't see any 'value' or service in that.

Where does that leave me with quinn ? - an amused bystander waiting to see what he might try next to make his wheels any different form countless others of the same genre.

Let's see what things tomorrow brings !

P.S. great blog jratcliff - enjoyed the summary 

[tekylife]

It looks like all the waiting was for nothing.
Google says it's 6:15 PM east , Archer talks about tomorrow morning, meaning we won't see anything before the 21st Australia Time.
This alone gives any nay-sayer who came and said we won't see anything on the 20th right. To avoid that I would post any material that proves it can run more than a quarter of a cycle ( video 6  ) , even if "it looks like it could have been spun".
I thought you were putting a show because you already had material to be proud of. It turns out to be false. You THINK it can run but haven't got it to run to any of the standards required to be a proof. Epic FAIL ?? Just another EF lever style letdown.

@BATMAN : is your replication running yet ? It looks like Archer is missing his self imposed deadline , maybe you can save the day! Be our super Hero 

[exxcomm0n]

Ahh, actually something Ive thought/researched extensively. May be putting the cart before the horse, but you always need to see where you are going in order to get there...

Nope. Solar and wind energy production need this exact resource now dude.

I've worked for a power co. and spoken w/ the energy efficiency expert there a LOT about my beliefs about methane replacing natural gas (it crystallizes during compression and eats pumps), the actual benefit of ethanol plants (very minimal when you figure the electrical demand of the plant itself as well), and 9/11 plausibility over beers.

Level headed fairly open minded guy, tough as nails to argue energy with.
One of the very few things we totally and emphatically both believed in was better battery technology was needed.

Wind farms can only feed back so much power to the grid man.
Wouldn't it be nice if during a time of excellent production they could run all the windmills instead of having to shut some down to stay within back feed guidelines?

This is the application that can benefit incredibly a burgeoning industry right now.

Okay, there are a few different levels of power to be considered. Ill start small, and work up...

For a small device, Ive considered small, portable power. Someone threw out the idea of a camping light, and while the idea is novel, why limit yourself to lighting? I would build it into one small unit with an AC output. That way it could be used for portable lighting, charging of electronic devices, powering desalinization devices and water pumps in third-world countries, powering heaters for research facilities in the poles... the possibilities are endless!

True 'nough (enough), but I'd rather a 4 outlet electrical box that could power 4 - 100w lamps for 20 hrs.

Size and convenience.

Getting it from where it's made to where it's used with the smallest inconvenience, cause tech lives or dies by popular use.

Generators are heavy, complicated, and messy.

For a medium size device, I would scale it to power a home or car (and yes, the two consume about the same amount of energy, varying from person to person). For the car, I would design it a number of ways. The first (and probably easiest) would be to have the device stop in a "safe mode" so the magnets would not degauss, bearings fail due to constant run time. The other possibility is to have it always run, and when you are home have it tie into your home's electrical system to supply some/all of your needs to cutback/eliminate your electric bill. A cost-benefit analysis would need to be done to see if it is worth the additional wear and tare.

Still easier/cheaper with batteries. Start a generator and let it run continuously if it can and store a cache of energy.

For the medium size home unit, I would design it to intentionally exceed your home needs and tie it into the grid. In this case, any additional energy generated is sold to the electric company so you will actually make money in the long run. This is done with current systems, such as solar. This way, the grid acts like a battery when the panels are producing more than you need; sell it when you have extra, buy it back when you need more. The catch is the electric company buys it for less than they sell it, so you still end up losing. Its like having a battery you have to pay to use, but never need to replace. It ends up being about the same in the long run, but if you are always selling, no disadvantage...

For a large unit, tie it directly to grid. There will be a demand for grid power for a long time after and FE device makes it to market, simply due to human nature. People are creatures of habit, and breaking any habit is difficult. You would be surprised to see how many people would rather have to pay a small amount for electricity continuously from a FE power plant, as opposed to going through the 'headache' of buying the device, setting up the generator/inverter, tying it into your home, operation and maintenances, etc. Most would be happy to come home and flip the switch just as they always have but still save substantially, as opposed to owning/running their own.

Maybe (way) down the line we would eliminate the need for the grid. Only way I see this happening is if homes are sold "FE-equipped" (did I just start a future home marketing term?).

Now you're using the grid as a battery, dude. But I shall never advocate complete cut off from the grid, if not for emergency purposes (but having your own cache serves the same emergency purpose sometimes), for selling power back to the grid (which comes with some not so insubstantial expense on the seller).

As batteries get better, they may be our future. "Super capacitors" seem to be much more promising in my opinion for two major reasons: they dont suffer "memory" effects and they can be charge almost instantly. I say "almost" because you put too many amps through any wire/device and you can fry them (unless we are talking superconductors, but they arent ready for the market; then again, neither is FE, maybe they will hit the market the same time?). Only downside with super-caps is they like to discharge as fast as they can charge;
controlling the electron flow is difficult. Also, if a super-cap car were to get into an accident, you would be pressed to find a firefighter willing to take a risk of touching the car because to the HIGH risk of being electrocuted to death.

Supercaps (like EEstor outta Austin TX) have great potential to replace the battery with many benefits and I anxiously await their offering.

Physical damage discharge is supposed to be a negligible concern too.
But a hush hush Co. doing deals w/ Lockheed and and an eco-car firm in Canada I think.

But I'm not betting all my chips on them coming through either.

Why wait?

Another storage possibility is something already in use: compressed air. While this may throw a few people off, it really makes sense once you look into the details. First the negatives. Over-compression of the containers is the only safety hazard, but we have safety valves for that. Other negative is inflation rate limits. If you try to inflate the vessel to fast, the air will heat up and efficiency of compression will greatly decrease. There are a couple ways around this, such as multistage compression. Even still, the energy storage rates of compressed air is greater than the energy storage rates of a battery (ie you can store more energy faster in a vessel than in a battery). They are also much cheaper and easier to maintain that batteries. Lighter too. Plus there is no toxic chemical waste. One other problem is efficiency. Compression is about 85%, expansion is about 85%, about 72% efficient overall (you get back 72% of the energy you put in) in the BEST case scenario. There is always a trade off, and this is one of the major reasons we dont see compressed air more in the market. But if our input energy is FREE, who cares if we only get 72% back?

Compressed air is used much in industry to power hand tools, assembly lines, conveyor belts, etc. There, it makes sense to have one central compressor unit and have power delivered pneumatically as opposed to running hundreds of electric motors simultaneously. Another surprising area this is used is for large energy storage needs. As ironic as it may seem, old oil wells are being sealed off and fitted with compressors and turbines. Any excess energy and the compressors are kicked on, turning the well into a huge vessel. When the demand is high, the air is released through the turbines, giving the energy back. Small city cars in Europe are adopting the use of compressed air as well.

-PurePower

The compressed air route is cool, but to leverage the great amount of electronic devices we already have, it has to power a generator to do so, and any sane generation supply design will have some sort of buffer or storage between it and the end device just to prevent spikes.

I want better batteries NOW.

Then people will start to look at solar cell window shades or roof mounts and home based windmills (which used to be the norm for water pumping in rural settings) because they can fit a few kilowatts into some shelf space in the closet without the worry of acid spill, hydrolysis explosion (from charging), overcharging, inverting, and structural support failure from weight.

Anything is better than nothing.
And though solar has yet to break the 25% efficiency barrier, I wouldn't mind taking off 15% of my elec. bill.

But right now, to do so, I have to have an array of deep cycle lead/acid batteries with all the problems I mentioned before.

We need better batteries.

[ezzob]

The wheel will work soon or later, with help from centrifugal force or other forces, windpower?, sunpower? rain ? 
The wheel need only a small force to go over the top and then it will create a big force.
Time to build.

[kremlin01]

Shackman, neat presentation, like the idea.
Any time now you will get the knockers lining up to point out all the usual, but we already know what they are going to say, so rollocks to them.
Keep going mate.

Regards,Bren.