Opposed Piston Motor

[solinear]

Clever is often not enough. As an old drag racing engine builder I find it difficult to get past the flywheel connected to the crankshaft connected to the piston. Your engineering thoughts are welcome.
Tropes

For now, I would just go with putting a generator on the crankshaft, possibly attached to the flywheel.

[tropes]

"How would I make it better?  I would get rid of the load (the flywheel/crankshaft) during the repel phase."

Solinear
The motor is also a generator as are all pulse motors.
I am more interested in how and why to get rid of the load during the repel phase.
Tropes

[solinear]

Solinear
The motor is also a generator as are all pulse motors.
I am more interested in how and why to get rid of the load during the repel phase.
Tropes

Why?  Because if there is no load during the repel phase, you're moving the weight of the magnets (and their carrier).  If you're putting a load on, then you're moving the weight of the magnets plus the effective weight of the load, which requires more joules of energy, while all the energy that you get from attraction costs you no electrical energy while generating kinetic energy.

The goal is to get as much kinetic energy as you can from as little electrical energy as possible, so while you'll get some energy back from the repulsion, it won't be as much as you are putting in.  Additionally, every joule worth of energy that you pull out of the system is a number of joules worth of energy that were put into the system somewhere else.  Basically, on the attraction side of the cycle, you're getting x joules worth of energy from 0 joules worth of energy - it's all gain.  During the repulsion side of the cycle, you're getting y joules worth of energy from (y * (1/efficiency rating)) joules of energy.  Remove the load and your equation changes to simply expending the energy required to move the magnets back to the start (maximum distance) of the cycle.  Since you can hit high levels of efficiency from reducing friction (over 90%) and your carriers probably weigh very little, you'll expend very little energy in moving them back to start.

[tropes]

Why?  Because if there is no load during the repel phase, you're moving the weight of the magnets (and their carrier).  If you're putting a load on, then you're moving the weight of the magnets plus the effective weight of the load, which requires more joules of energy, while all the energy that you get from attraction costs you no A energy while generating kinetic energy.

The goal is to get as much kinetic energy as you can from as little electrical energy as possible, so while you'll get some energy back from the repulsion, it won't be as much as you are putting in.  Additionally, every joule worth of energy that you pull out of the system is a number of joules worth of energy that were put into the system somewhere else.  Basically, on the attraction side of the cycle, you're getting x joules worth of energy from 0 joules worth of energy - it's all gain.  During the repulsion side of the cycle, you're getting y joules worth of energy from (y * (1/efficiency rating)) joules of energy.  Remove the load and your equation changes to simply expending the energy required to move the magnets back to the start (maximum distance) of the cycle.  Since you can hit high levels of efficiency from reducing friction (over 90%) and your carriers probably weigh very little, you'll expend very little energy in moving them back to start.

Very good explanation of the "WHY" but what about the "HOW"?

[solinear]

Very good explanation of the "WHY" but what about the "HOW"?

Unfortunately, most of the methods I would use would require dramatic changes to your design.

In the meantime, using your '10 cylinder' design, you can just lower the voltage on the coils to the point where they aren't pushing.  The end result is that all the real work is being done by the attraction phase of the other pairs.  I'm not sure what the difference would be and it might not even be a positive impact.