Perpetual motion?

[Gwandau]

Draw a circle around the buckets and you will see that the CG is lower than the
axle. The mechanism looks great but its the CG that really counts.

Norman

norman6538,

please do not pay too close attention to my sketch, it only vaguely resembles the original, which I only had  brief look at many years ago. (1982)

regards,

Gwandau

[TinselKoala]

Draw a vertical line through the axle, dividing the machine into left and right halves. For the device to turn and keep turning, say clockwise, the right half has got to be heavier than the left half. Or more correctly, the _moment_ has to be greater. How do we find the moments for this simple system where all the forces are due to gravity and act downward? You take the horizontal distance from the centerline to the weight, and multiply this distance by the weight. Assign "positive" distance to the right half weights and "negative" distance to the left half weights. Add up all the individual moments. What is the result? For the wheel to keep turning clockwise the total moment computed this way must be positive, for every position of the wheel around the cycle.

The Principle of moments is if an object is balanced then the sum of the clockwise moments about a pivot is equal to the sum of the anticlockwise moments about the same pivot.

From the Wiki.

[ramset]

Gwandau
I have a few more days till My shop is usable.The funny thing about this wheel..
It would NEVER free wheel,[will save countless spindown Fussing hrs] If you get it to move at all ...it should Cycle ?

Well that and your friend saying it worked !

Funny you mentioned Toy.....
One of the things I'll be doing in my new shop is building Specialty furniture
Which I design for children with special needs to enhance their Quality of life.

A Toy.puzzle like this For a child with aspergers syndrome or Autism would probably lead to a breakthru in a working Gravity wheel.

I have been totally amazed by some of these boys and their grasp of  Math and the "physical" world around them.

We shall see.
@TinselKoala
Glad you looked in...I know you have "spun" more than your fare share!

Thx
Chet

[TechStuf]

Gwandau, you are not too far from Burt Rutan's model.  You may want to revisit it.

Rutan's is not very far from Bessler's, for that matter.  Aside from liquid weights, and hydraulic weight shifting, the differences are rather minimal.


Blessings, guys.




TS

[Gwandau]

Draw a vertical line through the axle, dividing the machine into left and right halves. For the device to turn and keep turning, say clockwise, the right half has got to be heavier than the left half. Or more correctly, the _moment_ has to be greater. How do we find the moments for this simple system where all the forces are due to gravity and act downward? You take the horizontal distance from the centerline to the weight, and multiply this distance by the weight. Assign "positive" distance to the right half weights and "negative" distance to the left half weights. Add up all the individual moments. What is the result? For the wheel to keep turning clockwise the total moment computed this way must be positive, for every position of the wheel around the cycle. From the Wiki.

TK,

Thanks for the suggestion, but why not just draw a vertical line through the axle with equal placement of weights on each side if the line and then simply compare the sum of distances from center of wheel on each side?

If the right side has a higher value, the wheel inevitably will turn clockwise.

In this simple setup you can actually observe the differential with your own eyes just by observing the origo created by imagining a circle through the center of weights.

If the origo is to the right of the physical center of wheel, it will turn clockwise.

Easy does it.

Regards,

Gwandau