STEORN DEMO LIVE & STREAM in Dublin, December 15th, 10 AM

[freeorbo]

Concerning the Toroids for an Orbo:

I used  FERROXCUBE - TN23/14/7-3E25 - FERRITE KERN, TOROID, TL2/14/7-3E25
Hersteller:    FERROXCUBE
Farnell Best.Nr.:    3056971
Herst.Bez.:    TN23/14/7-3E25

10 meters of 0,4 mm wire on the Toroids.

But I also tried other Toroids of similar size and my little Orbo-Motor (without pick up coils) worked as well. You can see my best Orbo-Motor on the net (just two Toroids, no pickup coils):

http://www.stepload.de/uploads/dFKvoR1IO-,edIWzQFiFFb7IZ221NFzhNis5c2Gh6H_/index.html

I think that the Toroid material does not matter very much (as long as it is some Ferrite, could even be iron) when one only wants to build some sort of motor. To produce over unity the Toroid material might be the crucial point. But I do not know anything specific like everybody else because Steorn is very secretive.

I also found out that it does not matter very much how one orientates the Toroids in respect to the magnets as long as one allows for a a certain distance (about 8 mm) between the Toroid and the magnet. See the attached photo. What I call "radial" seems to be the best solution (but not overwhelmingly).

Attached you find the circuit I am using to drive my Orbo replications (which only function as motors). All components can be bought from Farnell (for a few Euros).

When I try to get some usefull energy out of these Orbo-Motors, I fail. Pick up coils deliver very little power. My Orbo motors have very little torque but spin quite nicely when the bearings are very good. I can drive the motor (you can see on Step-Load) with as little as 0,15 Watts on the two Toroids. I cannot put more than 4 Watts through a Toroid because it will become hot quickly.

I am just building one more Orbo-Motor with a dynamo that has the disk with the magnets attached to its shaft. I want to measure the output of the dynamo in comparison with the input to the Toroids. There will not be over unity but at least I will know the efficiency of my Orbo-Motors. That will be the end of my excursion into Orbo because I suspect that the Orbo-Effect is very small or cold even be an illusion.

Brushless motors ( e.g. http://www.hacker-motor-shop.com/e-vendo.php?shop=hacker&SessionId=&a=catalog&t=3&c=3&p=3) can be used as dynamos (three phases). But I do not know yet how efficient these brushless motors are as dynamos. As motors they are wonderful, having up to 80% efficiency.

Greetings, Conrad

Hey Conrad,

Awesome that you're pushing forward!
regarding your toroids, is there a reason you didn't match Steorn's orientation? They use two magnets and as Naudin has shown they place the toroid exactly between the two magnets. This might help improve your torque as it will cancel the CEMF. I haven't seen much of your rig but from the pictures I'd say you most definitely have some pretty serious CEMF working against you.

[Omega_0]

When I try to get some usefull energy out of these Orbo-Motors, I fail. Pick up coils deliver very little power. My Orbo motors have very little torque but spin quite nicely when the bearings are very good.

Conrad,

Good work and thanks for posting your findings.
I'm facing the same problem, which is, getting something useful from this motor. Its very easy to get the motor spin, comparatively speaking. The toroid material, orientation or input power don't matter, when all you need is a spinning rotor, but as soon as you start loading it, things grind to a halt.

I tried using a brushless motor to generate power, it produced only 0.1 Volts (open circuit), which was not enough to drive any load. The cogging in such motors is too much to get a high RPM. I did not try an alternator. (Still searching for a small enough alternator)
Ultimately, you may need to set up your own air coils with adjustable gaps. It will be difficult to close the loop.

I would suggest you increase the number of coils (at least 4) to get good torque, and I agree with freeorbo that your next step should be to remove CEMF, which is the key for OU.

[conradelektro]

To freeorbo and Omega_0,

I did not read through the whole thread, herefore I do not know what has been discussed allready.

I came up with the design shown in my photos and videos at
http://www.stepload.de/uploads/dFKvoR1IO-,edIWzQFiFFb7IZ221NFzhNis5c2Gh6H_/index.html
because that was the best design for motor action. The reason is, one can use both sides of a magnet.

Yes, more Toroids are of course better for motor action than only two. See my next design in the attached drawings. I am just building this new contraption.

The CEMF question: I suspect (just a hunch) that the whole CEMF show by Steorn is a way to confuse people. They propably can not get a patent on their "invention" (because it is propably an old thing nobody looked at till now) and therefore they try to hide the essential clue.

My aim at the moment is to find the best Orbo-motor without focus on CEMF. Look at it from the point of view of "shielding the magnetic attraction" between the Ferrite material of the ring-core and the magnet on the rotor by help of an electric current through the winding around the Toroid core.

How efficient is such a motor if done right?

My measurements on the motor shown in the photos and videos at
http://www.stepload.de/uploads/dFKvoR1IO-,edIWzQFiFFb7IZ221NFzhNis5c2Gh6H_/index.html

Watt per Toroid-Pair / revolutions of the rotor per minute

0,14   Watt / up to 300 rpm (the motor was left running for hours and nothing became hot)
0,54   Watt / up to 650 rpm (the motor was left running for hours and nothing became hot)
1,61   Watt / up to 1000 rpm (the construction is not good enough, much vibration)
4,17   Watt / up to 1350 rpm (the construction is not good enough, much vibration)
8,61   Watt / more than 1500 rpm (the Toroids become hot quickly)

This does not show much, but one sees that the magnet shielding effect increases with the current through the windings of the Toroid. And I find it remarkable that one gets rotation with as little as 0,14 Watt per Toroid pair (because I have a Toroid on each side of the magnet I use the expression "Watt per Toroid pair"). The current has soon an upper limit (because the Toroids become hot) but we want low current for a good efficiency, also a self runner would have to run with as little input as possible.

Now I want a dynamo at the hub of the machine (the disk with the magnets will be fixed to the shaft of the dynamo) in order to measure efficiency with a certain degree of accuracy.

Once I have a good motor I start to tinker with CEMF in the Toroid cores. Most likely I will give up soon, because material science for the Toroids is not feasible in a little workshop, it is even very expensive for a proper lab. But I suspect that CEMF can be avoided by simply mounting the Toroids in the right position, distance between Tloroid and magnet being most important (about 8 mm). In my new design the position of the Toroids can be changed easily.

For me Orbo is about shielding the magnetic attraction between a permanent magnet and the Ferrite core of the Toroid. Therefore one switches this shield on at the "dead points" of the rotor (when the magnet is trapped between the Toroid cores in my design) so that the rotor can escape from this well known trap. How much does the "escape" cost in terms of electricity? Is it better than the usual motor design? Is it better than the Bedini-Coils (pulse motors)?

I see some similarity with the efforts to build a self running permanent magnet motor. There the trick would be to overcome the dead point. Some shielding of the magnetic field would be necessary. And Orbo does this shielding in an elegant way.

I will finish my new design with the dynamo at the hub and then may be I can tell more than hunches. At least we know something about the efficiency of Orbo as a motor (propably low, but this is per se no contradiction to a self runner).

Do the simple thing first (build a good motor which runs with very little input) and worry about the difficult things (material of the cores, CEMF) later.

Greetings, Conrad

[joegatt]

Cool setup Conrad. You got yourself a sturdy testbed there.
I would like to suggest however that the following layout gives greater efficiency.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGPRoHgz8Rw

Regards
Joseph

[maw2432]

I really like this one.  Self-charging closed loop no bearings.
I would like to see the rotor larger with four magnets.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYgsuJT1zwg

Bill