Building a self looping "SMOT"

[tinman]

Tinman:

For your video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VN6KWM8Rbc

Just for a change of pace since I am often asked to explain things, can you give us your comments first?

The electromagnets only do work to lift the brick, after that they do no work.  The only work that is being done after the lift is to overcome the electrical resistance of the coils to keep the current flowing.

There is a very simple and elegant thought experiment that explains this.  At the start, you do electrical work to create the magnetic field and lift the brick.  Then imagine after that, that the coils are superconducting coils.  So after the current starts flowing you simply short the superconducting coils into closed loops and the brick remains floating.  See, no electrical work being done and the brick remains suspended in the air.

MileHigh

In regards to the video,the ball manages to escape the magnetic field,and roll along the table because of the extra energy gained from the greater falling distance than that of which it started at-much like the ball just rolling down a hill,and along the flat road at the bottom of the hill.
But two other thing's happened during the process in that video,both of which are energy gains-can you see what they were?.

Quote: The electromagnets only do work to lift the brick, after that they do no work.

In regards to the electromagnet(your example),that is incorrect.
The electromagnet will continue to do work in the way of producing heat. The heavier the mass to be lifted to a set hight,the more heat the electromagnet will produce,thus the more work being done-as we would need to put more P/in to the electromagnet,to lift a heavier load.

My point is MH,we must observe all energy in and out of a system as a whole. Here with the smot device,most seem only interested in what the ball is doing,insted of standing back and looking at all the energy transfers that are takeing place.
To show that magnets were doing useful work within the SMOT device,the ball would only need end up outside the magnetic field of the ramp,on the same plane it started on,as it takes energy to move a mass from point A to point B.

I am working on a ramp at the moment,but i need to get myself some more magnets of the right kind. But this ramp is like no other,and uses one of those energy transfers that all seem to be missing here.
The other thing to note with the video i posted,and Michael's setup(and all other smots of the same design),is once the ball drops out of the ramp, the ball is already under exceleration once it passes the level it started at,at the begining of the ramp.This in itself shows that it can be made to work,as the ball has gone from standing still,to a state of exceleration once at the same plane level.This tells us that the pull of gravity on the ball,is greater than the attraction of the magnets on that ball-or the ball wouldnt drop at all.
So why dose the ball return back to the magnets if we try to drop it out at the same level as it started from?.Well the answer is quite simple,and i am supprised no one has mentioned it,as it's text book physics.It is a fault with every smot device i have viewed so far. This is where my ramp will differ from the other's. TK,yourself and many others have said-many have tried,and all have failed. But what i see in all these smot devices is,all are building the same sort of ramp's,that have the same problem built into them on the exit of the ball.

Although i have done much experimenting with magnet's,and how the fields interact in different configuration's,i have never paid much attention to the SMOT-until now,after Chet messaged me about this thread. So like you MH,i started to look at the video's,and analyze what was going on with the devices,and finding the errors made in the designs.I looked at how the magnets were arranged,and how they were acting on the steel ball,and how the steel ball was destorting those field's.I see where energy in gained,and lost in all the smot's i have viewed.

So what is your take on the video we are talking about?.

[JouleSeeker]

Looking at Bill Mehess' device, one sees - and hears -- a lot of frictional losses as the steel ball moves around the track.  Yet he manages (or claims, his measurement was perhaps a bit crude) to raise the ball 1/8"... but could not get it to self-loop (evidently).

TK mentioned used of a steel-ball pendulum - but where would one put the magnet-ramp so as to have acceleration in BOTH directions of the swing?

I think a conical pendulum might solve the problem.  Here the pendulum ball traces a circle (or ellipse) and the height of the ball correlates with the radius of the circle - and the energy in the system.  So if the ball rises, the energy has increased - and this can be seen as an increase in the radius of the circle traced by the ball.  (If an ellipse, still solvable, more math required.)

  So one places the mag-ramp along one side...  Might work, probably would distort from a circle to an ellipse and complicate calculations and measurements.

  Another approach is to place the steel ball (or 2 or 3 or...n) on a wheel with a GOOD bearing.  And a mag-ramp along one side (or 2 or so).  Here an increase in energy in the system is reflected in an increased speed of rotation (omega).  And the wheel can be horizontal or vertical (or in between).  The wheel becomes the "track" and should have much less frictional losses.

  This is the one I will try.  Does anyone know if the wheel-SMOT has already been tried?  (by whom if so?)    Note:  I'm not talking about the wheel-device which raises the magnet to get things past the sticky-point (although that is interesting, especially if it worked and accelerated). 

I plan to use inertia and gravity to get past the sticky-point, as in the vids by Mehess and Shaw and wytdyk, but with a low-friction wheel this time, instead of a track.

[Newton II]

http://www.packratworkshop.com/wwork.htm

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/smot.htm

[ramset]

TinMan
The Only thing I find Wierd about all these ramps is No One seems to be Hanging the Carrot out in front of the donkey [Overhead].

Seems to me if the array can be switched to above at some point [I believe Jouleseeker
Had One From a man doing it with Leggos claiming a lift?]

and once it is above The drop would seem to be more easy to Do {trap Door]

I see Bill Mehess being Mentioned here ,Didn't he also have a claim with the cat chasing its tail { What he called his Magnetic self runner ?}?

Also ran off to Patent {maybe??]

These fellows that Patent never seem to get anywhere with it
I stopped in to see One man who has been fighting with the US patent office for several years now about his Magnet Motor, William Landen Jr.[retired Nasa Scientist] a few months back.

Told me to come back in a few Months to see about something "New" ?
He's still plugging away,

I think the Dollar and the scent of Money Ruins most of these Ventures,[and the dreams of the inventors]
To try and Patent Magnetism would be Like trying to Patent Air,

It belongs to all ,Not for sale!!

Despite what TK says about _Time wasting_ with Magnets  ..
They Hold the Keys to the City IMO and need to be Played with !

Thx
Chet

[tinman]

@JS
Interesting idea,but would it then start to become something like romero's little number?.
The problem with suspending the ball,is that you loose one potential energy source that exist in the ramp type smot. This is one potential energy source that no one has recognised yet.

Below i have a pic,showing the normal style SMOT setup.So we need to look at this,and see exactly what is happening.This is one where point A and D are level-there is no drop bellow point A,as in all smot's we see,where the ball escapes the magnetic field.
The ball leaves point A,and rolls up hill to point B.As this is happening,the ball gains and then looses potential energy-gained as it accelerates up the ramp,then is lost as it aproaches the end of the ramp. But there is still enough left to leave the ramp,and the ball drops from point B to point C. From point C,the ball will start to head to point D,but is then drawn back to point C by the magnetic field.
So why dose this happen? Who here can see where a lot of the potential energy(more than 50%) stored in the ball (from the fall)went?

Well rather than keep everyone guessing,i will tell you where it went.
To change the direction of travel  of any moving mass, takes a given force over a given time.
When the ball drop's out of the smot,it hit's the ramp(point C)and then makes a 90* change of direction. 50%(+friction losses)of the potential energy stored in the falling ball is transfered to the track at point C,then through the track to the bench,then from the bench to the ground.This is one energy transfer that has never(to my knowledge)been taken into account,when it come to the smot device we are looking at, at the moment. A way to look at this ,is to take a large steel ball(say 1 foot round,and solid),and fire a bullet at it,so as the bullet hit's 45* off center of the ball. The bullets projectory will change,and it will also slow down. It slows down because the steel ball absorbed some of the bullets potential energy.

If we look at Michael's smot,we can hear the energy transfer from the ball to the ramp,when the ball drops from the first ramp,to the second ramp.
This is the energy loss we must try to stop,and keep it in the ball.

There is a second  energy transfer hidden in the smot device that no one has taken into account.It is this potential energy that can remove the loss of potential energy stated above.
This one i will be keeping to myself for the time being.