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

[captainpecan]

Great stuff in this thread guys!  Thanks to all of you who have rolled up your sleeves on this one and got your hands dirty!  I'm just getting caught up to speed with this thread, forgive me if someone has pointed out what I'm about to ask already, but I missed it if so.  I agree, it is impressive with the reduction of BEMF with this type of toroid power coil setup, but it leaves me with a big question.  Is it necessary?  What I mean is this...  It appears mostly that what is being done is powering a motor with no BEMF, and recovering as much from the inductance as possible.  (I'm ignoring the generator part, as it is a seperate animal than I am referring to.)  If this is true, then has anyone made a simple attraction motor?  Replacing the magnets on the rotor with Iron slugs, would easily remove all the BEMF in the system.  Pulse the power coil before the slug reaches the coil to attract it in.  Cut the power just before dead center, and the field collapses, still pulling the rotor into the coil.  When it reaches the center, the power is totally off and the field completely collapsed so the rotor floats right on by with no resistance, and I believe no eddy currents.  No BEMF at all.

Now, it is possible that using the toroid power coil with rotor magnets concept produces more mechanical power, with less energy wasted...  But I'm not sure that it would.  So that's my question here, has anyone tested an attraction motor, and how would you compare it to the orbo design?  Not to mention, the demo runs on 1.2 volts.  That does seem a bit interesting.

The point here is this, while the motor concept is intrigueing, I am not sure it is more efficient than just an attraction motor that has already been invented long ago. Granted, I have not seen an attraction motor go to OU, just simply no BEMF.  I think the magic is in the generator side of this device.  Not that the motor is bad, just that I think the second part of Orbo is key. Only problem is, I see nothing out of the ordinary on the generator side.  At least as far as I can tell, from the pictures, the pickup coils appear to be regular nylon core coils.

[captainpecan]

@k4zep,

Great work!  I wonder if you could try something simple.  Could you try putting a permanent magnet on the opposite side of your toroid?  I am just curious if maybe by partially saturating that core with a permanent field of the same polarity the current you plan to push into it is going to create, maybe you could get better efficiency by not drawing as much current to bias that toroid...  As long as the permanent magnet is not strong enough to saturate it to much, I don't think it will effect the attraction the rotor has to the core much if any.  Just a thought, I know it's not in the demo, but maybe it's part of what they will show in January.

[MileHigh]

Stephan:

Just a minor correction for you, the tau a.k.a. "time constant" is L/R, not L*R.

So from the cap charging measurements we will estimate that the average power that you can recover from the back-EMF spike from the coil is somewhere around 35 or 45 milliwatts.  If K4zep was to freeze a frame on his scope when the motor is turning at its steady-state speed then you can easily calculate the average motor power consumption.  You have the voltage, current, and ON and OFF times, so the power consumption calculation is pretty trivial.  I think that it is fair to say for K4zep's setup or the Steorn setup the power consumption of the motor itself is much larger than any possible back-EMF recovery based on the data that we have seen today.

You made a few references about overcoming this situation by using a much larger toroidal inductor to that your ON time is less than 1/5 tau, or time constant.  This is not going to work because then you will never manage to saturate the core and the motor will not run.

Beyond this, there is the issue of really being sure that the core is fully saturated, assuming that is your goal.  I am not sure if K4zep made any measurements to be sure if the core was fully saturated or not.  The less saturated the core is, then it "does not completely disappear" and therefore the motor will run at a lower speed.

K4zep:

I think that you made a few references to arranging your four wires that make up your toroidal coil so the inductance measures nearly zero so that the coil becomes a resistive element only.  If I am understanding you correctly then this does not make sense - with that coil wiring configuration you will not be able to saturate the core and the motor won't work.

Here is where I think the discussion is right now:

Some measurements were made of the back-EMF of the coil and the average power is only in the tens of milliwatts.  The average power consumption of the motor itself (the energizing of the toroidal coil) is probably three or four watts.  These measurements are backed up by the scope traces.  In the case of the Steorn setup, the potential recovered back-EMF power is proportionally much smaller as shown in the scope traces of Sean's demo.

Therefore, the idea of using the back-EMF from the toroidal coil itself to "get over the hump" and demonstrate the possibility of OU is highly unlikely but not completely ruled out.  It would require that the power recovered from the separate coil energy recovery system (the pick-up coils in Steorn's setup) be nearly the same as the amount of power consumed to drive the motor.

To repeat, for any chance of OU where we also use the recovered back-EMF power from the toroidal coil, then the separate coil energy recovery system would have to generate nearly the same amount of power as that consumed by the toroidal coil.

I will make an important statement about the separate coil energy recovery system.  Sean clearly stated that it is a simple vanilla system where the coils output into a full-wave bridge rectifier and then charge the battery.  Many of you have played with these types of setups and you all know that there is no "magic" here.  This is just a mundane standard circuit and many of you have observed them first-hand yourselves by adding the setup to a Bedini motor, etc.  I can envision some of the true believers in Steorn insisting that there must be something special about the pick-up coils that tap into energy from Xanadu or whatever.  I will state categorically ahead of time that I reject this unfounded speculation.  It is a vanilla energy recovery system, an ordinary generator configuration that generates power the old-fashioned way.  Don't blind yourself by thinking otherwise.

So, let's forget about the back-EMF power from the toroidal coil for now because we know it is very small.  Let's move on to the real issue of power into the motor as compared to the power out of the motor from the energy recovery coils as per Steorn's setup.

So, how do you make some sort of reasonable estimate of the average power out?  We already know what the average power in is, the scope traces clearly show it and it would be trivial to make the proper measurements.  We also can see a tangible manifestation of the input power because K4zep has remarked about how hot the toroidal coil gets after running the motor for a few minutes.  From the perspective of the battery, this motor looks mostly like a resistive load that burns off battery power and turns it into heat power.

So, we know the average power into the motor, perhaps two or three watts (to be confirmed by somebody) and we want to make an estimate of the average power out from the energy pick-up coils.

How do you do this estimate?

MileHigh

[captainpecan]

Does anyone have any information as far as to how many times they had to replace the batteries, or how long it ran before they had to?  That is a 10,000 mah D nimh in the video and pictures, and I do not see the 3rd hot wire hooked to battery anywhere, except in the diagrams.  I assume it is the pick up coils not even hooked up in the demo, but I am not sure.  Either way, there must be more data I am missing somewhere.

[exnihiloest]

Sure it isn't since you have tried every possible arrangement conceivable to mankind or any alien race to absolutely prove this, right?

Why "every possible arrangement conceivable"?! Only one is enough (and there are many). When the magnetic field collapses, the energy it stored is converted in electrical energy which can be recovered without difficulty.
In the magnetic area, to open the circuit of a coil carrying a current is the same as in the electric area to shortcut a charged capacitor. In the first one we have to recovered the magnetic energy of the magnetic field (energy density = B²/2*m0), and in the second case, the energy in the electric field (energy density = E²*e0/2). There is no magic.
If Steorn claims the recovered energy is more than that one initially stored, Steorn has to prove it, not me. A motor powered by a charged battery is not a proof! A 1.5v, 10 A/h battery can easily sustain a low friction motor for days even for weeks.

...
I will politely ask you to either contribute to encourage positive progress or not disturb the progress with your short sighted believes. Thank you for your understanding.

There is no interest in encouraging anyone to waste time in conventional devices known from the XIXth century, and to believe instead of analysing the facts. I suggest to spend time in more profitable tracks and to not expand the noise around Steorn while waiting their proofs.