SMOT - Close to closing the loop ,second video-BIG improvement

[mscoffman]

@billmehess;

Just to play devils advocate a bit - let me suggest a way
that nature does not give up so easily - please make
my day and prove the following text wrong. :-)

->

Both gravity and magnetism are conservative forces.
Neither force has insulators (without some exotic
energy intensive methods - like superconductivity)
So it's impossible to create a magnetic commutator
switch in the sense of one in  a standard DC motor.
But there is  one insulator; that is radius squared
distance to a point  magnetic pole (which always comes
in pairs again conventionally).

The problem is defeating R^2 is the construction of
magnetic arrays. So in a sense there is a near-magnetic
field and a far magnetic field and the array keeps on
building the far magnetic field as you add more elements
to the array. This will cause the ball to misbehave at a
greater and greater distance from the array even when
it's not in it. The question is simply: "Is this problem
an absolute one?"

Remember the time that a medical patient was fatally
injured when a ferrous fire-extinguisher was sucked
into the scanner part of an MRI machine when he was
being scanned, an MRI machine which has a powerful
rotating magnetic array. Implying that the far
field can become quite strong under the right
circumstances.

My concern is that the array will look like it's working
until the time comes where forces balance and then at
the end of the array the ball begins to misbehave.
That misbehavior will take on statistical properties
- meaning that; "The ball is not fully under engineering
control."

Now, magnetic flux can be conducted with an iron
armature. The presents of the armature will change the
functioning of the array but should also reduce the far field
effects. As I've said an iron pipe can probably serve as
an armature to isolate parts of the device, but you
may have new entry and exit problems then to contend
with.

<-

As I said at first, please make my day and prove my
above text is incorrect. For example maybe Neodymium
Magnets change the equation.


:S:MarkSCoffman

[billmehess]

Hi Mark
Confession is good for the soul, I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Its way over my head.
I have tried to approach this with a purposely simple attitude. I consider this device to be similar to a water wheel in a flowing river. The water flowing at a fairly constant rate to me is similar
to the magnetic field projecting from a array of magnets. The ball simply gets caught up in this field and is dragged along until it exits the gate. This of course is due to the v shape acting more strongly on the ball as it moves up the ramp. What I have noticed though is that when I first built some really huge SMOTS, 32" long with over 400 magnets that at the start with the larger space between the two sides to the end with the tapered spacing the speed was at the beginning  slowed down as the ball went up the ramp.
This is due to friction not ( I believe) any anomaly with magnetic fields. It is the correct spacing, distance measurements that have got me to where I am at. My tolerances are down to 1/32" in some spots.
Potential energy in the initial ball placement is a non issue. The ball does not care how it got there. It is simply acting at any specific moment on the immediate magnetic and or gravitational forces that
it encounters a any point in time.
I am down to 1/8" from having the ball reentering the SMOT.
The entry point is 1 3/8" from the base and he exit point of the ramp is 1 1/2".
The ball landing on the entry plate down the u channel to the receiving plate and looping to the entry uchannel must drop a total of  1/2".
Bill

[billmehess]

It might be worthwhile to have a length of cast iron
pipe. They used this in city-gas, compressed air and fire
sprinkler distribution systems. This may be of use to
isolate a steel runner (not a magnet) from the influence
of external magnetic fields if the runner misbehaves
and it is not at an end. Just heat the plastic tube
and slide it over the iron pipe and do the opposite
at the other end. The external mag field should flow
around in the body of the pipe leaving the ball inside
alone to roll on.

:S:MarkSCoffman

I tried wrapping a plastic tube with mu-metal but his caused a distortion in the magnetic field to a degree that the ball would not exit the gate.
I will try this suggestion of yours and take a small cast iron pipe and slide over a plastic tube of it.
This does not seem that it would cause any distortion in the field.
These last few fractions of an inch are all that's holding me back at this point.  I am also intergating at this time the energy generation system into the device.
Thank you for your input.
Bill

[mscoffman]

@billmehess,

Perhaps you have the right idea. The ball needs to go
around, but nobody says it needs to go around rapidly.
Perhaps you could use one of those very inexpensive
plastic mechanical alarm clocks powered by an AA battery.
Convert it to run on array power.
And use something attached to the minute hand to simply
push the ball runner out the array end and into the metal
(drain) pipe. Perhaps like the rollers of a peristaltic pump
- never having to remove the ball from tube. The clock
motor probably draws only a few microamps average to
run, at only 1.5 volts DC.

:S:MarkSCoffman

[DreamThinkBuild]

Hi Mark,

When you mentioned using a powered mechanical system this toy came to mind "Solar roller coaster".

http://www.ambientweather.com/scmbecl28404.html

Replace the balls with a N52 neo-mag sphere and line the track with pickup coils fed to an ultra-cap.

Lego great ball contraption 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9VBQ3hW6t8