Alright...
I was driving home from Vegas last night... (yeah... nothing to do for 4ish hours...) and kept thinking about Steorn and... stuff.
Those sliding spoke things they make for bikes...
I like them.
Magnetic tubes... such as;
These (http://www.rare-earth-magnets.com/detail-ID-120.html)
placed onto spokes on a wheel....
With a hub... like....
This picture;
http://abolishtheusa.com/perpetmotion.jpg
I found a page with a moving picture and an analysis of why it won't work, but I'm not happy with it.
http://commons.bcit.ca/physics/rjw/pmm/mach/magobw/magobint.htm
With the magnets in the hub, they won't be exerting as much lateral force on the rotational axis (er... torque?)
You could even place an attraction magnet on the outside (top right in the picture) and/or a repulsive magnet on the top left area.
Obviously, the stronger the magnets, the longer the spokes, the more energy output...
Thoughts?
Looking at it, it seems that gravity wouldn't necessarily be necessary...
Put a N pole at the top left - a few inches (mm, yards, etc... dunno what scale would be feasible...) lower than the top of the device...
Use the magnets in the center to pull the weights in towards the center(increasing rotation speed), then kick them back out again(slowing the device...), and have the external magnet kick the magnet at the outer end of the arm forward again, to come in (increase speed)......
Thoughts?
HA!
And... notice how my horrific paint skills are put to shame by careless mistakes...
The N pole on the "sliding" magnets should all be facing inwards.
Whoops.
As for steorn's device....
It uses a stop motion.
Supposing you overlap magnets and have a point where the magnets come in towards the center of the circle again (bottom left of the pic...)
If you have a spoke that would reach this point then... DROP because of the weight of the magnet on a... flexible spoke?
As the spoke bends downwards, you would have an opposing magnet under the attracting magnet - as the magnet pulls in, the spoke bends, the magnet enters the opposing field and is pushed towards the outer rim again...
Again - you could theoretically do this using an attractive magnet instead of gravity... but... simplicity....