Building a self looping "SMOT"

[elecar]

Hi JDSanders, I am a grandad to 8 girls, so there is nothing that anyone can throw at me on here that will bother me.

Lumen, I am pretty sure there are many ways to improve on the design, I have actually just ordered some more materials to try a couple of them out.

Hi Bill, I did not use a bumper as such during my trials, what I did was attach a very slim wedge shaped piece of acrylic to the magnet side rail of the track to try and guide the ball, it did NOT work the resistance was enough to stop the ball and it was held where it was by the magnets.
Please look at the drawing, the rail circled is the critical rail. It must allow the ball to travel smoothly up the ramp and when the ball descends it must be positioned to guide it onto the exit. It does take a lot of playing with you can not have the rail sit too high where it impedes the ball traveling up but high enough that it will bias the ball rolling in reverse to the exit. although that is how I did it, I really do believe there are easier ways. Something else that is important is that you can not divert the ball just as it starts to reverse, you have to allow it at least a third of the straight section to gain enough momentum to exit. That is why I said you should do the tests because they will help you get the magnet positions correct. You will get an idea of how the ball reverses and how much space/length you need before the junction. Do not build your ramp with too steep an angle otherwise the magnets will have to be placed to close to the track and your ball will not escape the field.

[norman6538]

@elecar

I think you really started some gears turning in this thread.
If what you show is true, then there are many ways to improve this to the point of real output energy.

This device is carefully balanced and when you take power out you upset that balance
and risk stopping it entirely.
Think about this. Where is the energy? It can only be from the normal stopping point of
a pendulum where the magnets lift the ball further along to the where it runs out of
inertia and the small attraction force and gravity wins again and the ball drops. So its only the gravity power  at that small distance where it drops to its starting point.
Lets say you scale this up to the size of a one car garage with a big ball. With proper timing I think you could take a small amount of power out without destroying the balance but nothing in the order of significant horsepower - maybe light a small light or something.
HOWEVER - anything at all will disturb the establishment greatly.....

If Elecar simply turns a tiny fan or something he will be out in front of the other horses in this race.  Yeah Elicar!!!! So this is small like the sputnik satellite but major.

Norman

[truesearch]

This "SMOT" design idea presented by elecar is very interesting to me. I've been thinking there might be an easy and effective way to switch/gate/redirect the ball at the tear-drop point. Look at the following drawing. If the "main" track would narrow and narrow as it went up the ramp to the point where the ball would simply "drop" off onto the return track wouldn't this make a non-friction and non-energy-using "switch"? But perhaps I'm not grasping all the angles.


truesearch

[elecar]

Truesearch, I like your thinking but alas I tried that and it failed. I think I have an idea of why, when you set your magnets to pull the ball up the track they are set in such a way to act on your Specific ball and specific track. If you alter the track as it rises the ball will get pulled off of the track toward the magnets. As Norman has said, it is a balancing act.

Here is something interesting, you would think that if you have a 19mm ball running on the tack it would require more work than a 12mm ball ?
NOPE the 12 mm ball will not even travel as far up the ramp as the 19mm ball when you set the magnets and ramp for the 19mm ball.
Maybe just me but you would think the smaller lighter ball would travel further ?

[norman6538]

Truesearch - you have a great idea there, especially the horizontal smot, but the real problem is, in terms of a clock the ball is dropped from noon or thereabouts but it will not go past 11 or thereabouts and the smot is the trick that lifts the ball that final hour and then the "elecar trick" gets it past the sticky spot so the cycle can be repeated again.

Norman