Building a self looping "SMOT"

[TinselKoala]

Question.

I built a ramp shaped magnet stack and tried my best to fill in the staked ends so as to make a field that is as uniform as I could with a very long pole face.

The ramp is 22 inches long and goes from 3\4 inch to 3 1\4 inches

Using a string there is a change in pull as observed by the string being stretched down to the ramp on the thick end and being about 3\16 of an inch above the ramp on the short end,, level base and level face.

My initial thought was that the thicker, stronger end of the ramp should have an influence on a magnet or steel ball and that should cause a migration from the thin weaker end up to the thick stronger end.

This was not happening for me so I tried hanging them from a string,, I could get a tilt in the string but that took motion and it would tilt either way,, a little more when moving from the thin end to the thick end,, maybe.

Not happy with a basic non-result I thought that hanging an electromagnet on the string should do the job,, I tried that and could get no deflection in the string that it was suspended by,, 30 inches in length,, and was wondering if this is a fair test or not.

I was trying to test for the motive value coming from a gradient in the PM field with a fixed distance of spacing,,, if that makes sense.

I think this is more like what I meant when I talked about a "wind tunnel" test program. You are exploring force vs distance within that presumed gradient field. Perhaps your null result was because you didn't really have a gradient over the area you were sensing. Without a full dimensioned drawing including orientations of everything it's hard to say for sure. You did say that you tried to make it as uniform as possible, maybe you succeeded, so there's no gradient within your test zone.

[tinman]

Hi,
   in all of these things there's always the ubiquitous hand. Let's see a hands free demo.
Question, I put my ball on the scale and weighed it, held my magnet above the ball and the
weight got less,is my magnet doing any work?
   I dropped my ball through a vertical plexiglass tube, I positioned my magnet so that
it retarded the fall, was my magnet doing any work?
    I put a glass of water on my scale, noted the weight and then dipped my finger into
the water, what happened?
     I watched the Tinselzed and it stopped, what happened?
                                  John.                                   

Q1-The magnet is transfering the work being done to your hand and arm.
Q2-yes,it requires energy to slow a moving mass.
Q3-your finger got wet. But on a serious note,
1:the glass of water becomes heavier
2:the potential energy within that glass of water is raised.
3:energy is also being used,in that you are holding up your hand and arm.

[tinman]

I think you have missed my point. The Wright brothers invented the wind tunnel as a tool to test different airfoil shapes, angles of attack and so on. I am not making an analogy between "wind" and the magnetic field. I am saying that I haven't seen anyone explore the critical features of magnets and magnetism _without_ trying to build some kind of functional apparatus. Have you ever seen anyone build a test fixture and use a force gauge to measure the relative attraction of gravity and magnetism for magnets and balls in various positions, to determine whether or not the SMOT idea is viable? That is the kind of "wind tunnel" for magnetism I mean, just one example.

When I was working on Steorn's Orbo, I constructed just such a fixture, to determine the actual relationship between applied current and the "core effect" decrease in attraction of the core to a PM, by plotting current, separation distance and force for many different kinds of toroid material. What I found was very surprising to me, and I have never seen anyone else perform such a test, not even Steorn ... so I think my knowledge of the Core Effect and its ability to drive motors may be more complete than others. I used my knowledge to select the optimum toroid material, to make a core effect motor (Orbette 2.0) and test it, even to the point of reproducing Steorn's scope displays showing the negative energy integral, "proving" that my Orbette 2.0 was doing the same things that Steorn claimed indicated OU.

That's what I mean by "wind tunnel": A system that allows you to examine the critical parameters of your idea _before_ you try to build something by trial and error. People apparently think the Wrights just slapped together a bunch of old bicycle parts and went flying. The truth is very different. For example, they had already been flying, and even soaring for sustained flights, for several years, perfecting their control system and flying skills on _kites and gliders_ before they took their best-performing _glider_ design and added a motor to it to make the first real airplane. They used the wind tunnel invention to try shapes and motions before they put anything together to take flying. They knew without doubt that a certain wind speed over their wing would provide enough lift to fly, that their control system (wing warping) would work, and that their structures could carry the strain, before they ever built anything to take out to Kill Devil Hill.

So my "wind tunnel" suggestion was to examine the particular assertion that a magnet above doesn't retard the fall of a ball in gravity. Build an apparatus that isn't an attempt to make a running SMOT, but just to test that particular bit of critical behaviour.  The things you might find out by examining the critical parts of SMOT ideas may change your position about the feasibility of the idea. Or you may discover something that makes it all possible. Without actually doing the work you will never know. Repeating the designs and experiences of hundreds of previous failures isn't really going to teach you anything much. Testing the fundamental assumptions will.

It's odd that you think repulsion or attraction of a PM isn't a "physical attachment". I know what you mean, of course, you mean non-contact. Now I'll get whacky: Gravity is not a force. It is one kind of "space warpage" that is caused by the presence of mass. Magnetism is another kind of "space warpage" that is caused by certain configurations of electric fields: moving charges within bulk material. The motion of a ball that feels both gravity (because it has mass) and the magnetic field (because its atoms have a certain electron configuration) is the result of the total warpage of space by the mass and the moving electric fields. The ball, left to its own devices, takes the route that represents the _least energy_, that is, a "geodesic" path to the local energetic (PE) minimum or "potential well".

It just so happens that i started a thread on my forum to do just what you describe above.
Your last paragraph i will leave alone,as that is way above my head.
I also have been doing such testing for many years with magnets,there fields ,and the interaction they have on feromagnetic material's. This is how i found that a feromagnetic steel ball can actualy be repelled by a magnetic field,when that field is constructed in a certain configuration.
So yes,i have done some!wind tunnel ! testing on magnets,magnetic field's, and different types of materials. But i also know i have a lot more to do,befor the plane flies.

[minnie]

Hi,
  as far as the Wright bros. are concerned somebody was going to achieve powered flight
around that time. The key to success was the internal combustion engine. I seem to
recall an earlier attempt, albeit a model guided by wire and powered by a steam engine.
  The scientists who have made an impression on me are the likes of Einstein, Peter Higgs
and Hawking who have done the paper and pencil work.
   My point being that by experimenting you've got to almost stumble on to something
whereas by carefully working with the facts that have been established and well proven
you've got a good chance of a result.
                               John.

[tinman]

Hi,
  as far as the Wright bros. are concerned somebody was going to achieve powered flight
around that time. The key to success was the internal combustion engine. I seem to
recall an earlier attempt, albeit a model guided by wire and powered by a steam engine.
  The scientists who have made an impression on me are the likes of Einstein, Peter Higgs
and Hawking who have done the paper and pencil work.
   My point being that by experimenting you've got to almost stumble on to something
whereas by carefully working with the facts that have been established and well proven
you've got a good chance of a result.
                               John.

My answers to your question John,incase you missed them.

1:the glass of water becomes heavier
2:the potential energy within that glass of water is raised.
3:energy is also being used,in that you are holding up your hand and arm.