The TPU's Fundamental Design Limitation - Reliability

[acerzw]

UPDATE 09 Nov 2007: The validity of the comments I make in this thread have been drawn into question due to more recent theories regarding the TPU's design. Magnetorestriction now seems unlikely as viable mechanism for the TPU's operations. I suspect that the lightning/cascade problem may apply to some more advanced TPU's design, but even this may be in question to a degree. But this is just my opinion, make your own judgment, and if you do get touched by the finger of god, don't blame it on me!


I have created this thread as I am convinced that it is not possible to create a reliable TPU based on a pure version of SM's design. Despite the belief of many that the heating can be overcome this does not address the fundamental problem that the heating is only a byproduct of the real problem, the main coils degradation due to mechanical stresses caused by magnetorestrictive flexing..

SM openly acknowledged that a TPU could not run for extended periods of time...

I am opening up a discussion of this specific issue as once you understand it any solution tends to undermine the original TPU design, which is flawed. Remember SM was seeking investment money for further research, in a view to finally developing a production version, which would have involved solving this issue. However with all his knowledge and access to equipment that he states was better than most professional labs he was not able to solve this problem.

Its seems likely that UEC would have thrown unimaginable amounts of financial and technical resources at this problem in order to produce a reliable production TPU. The potential licensing rights let alone royalties from per unit production would have ensured this. However since the device has not come to market, it seems likely that they were not able to solve this issue. No conspiracy is required to explain why the TPU is not on the market yet, no reliable version has been produced, even by SM himself!

Keep in mind that many here have spent a long time (up to 10 years) focused on this single project, and understandably are biased against any negative comments regarding the TPU. However I would ask all who post in this thread to take this into consideration, this is a scientific discussion, there is no room for emotion or blind belief here, this problem is real. SM worship is not our objective, creating a reliable TPU is.



In essence the problem is:

A fan will not help as SM stated, the heat can be radiated away, but the heat is caused by mechanical stresses in the coil, presumably due to its expansion and retraction because of magnetorestriction, which degrade its material over time.

A single TPU cannot run for a prolonged period of time because of the degradation of the coil material, of which the heat is a by-product. Removing the heat with any form of cooling device will not make a TPU reliable, the heat does not cause the damage, the heat is a result of the damage being caused.

Making the coil from another material may reduce the damage to the coil, but is also likely to reduce the efficiency of the coil, producing less power, which is just as undesirable as the heat and damage which it eliminates.

Tao's example of switching between four TPU's will remove the problem of a single TPU shutting down due to excess heat, however it will not prevent the degradation of the coil material which is cumulative. Resting a coil while another does the work instead will prolong its life, but only because it is being used less over a given period of time, not because resting it allows it to repair or regenerate, it simple cannot do that. The total MTBF for a TPU coil will always be the same, resting has no net effect.

This demonstrates the first fundamental flaw in the TPU's design, because of the mechanical effect that it utilises, it has an unavoidable mechanical mode of failure, despite being 'solid state'. It just flexes rather than rotates, in effect it is a linear motor and will eventually fail like one.

The second fundamental design flaw is that the TPU cannot be reliably 'caged', there is always a chance of the exploding TV effect occurring no matter how good the control circuit is. Like all OU devices it is not a closed thermodynamic system, it is energetically coupled to the source of the OU energy, which many assume to be the Earth's magnetic field. The source of energy which it is coupled to is however largely irrelevant, but we do know that whatever it is, it is very powerful, as evidenced by the TPU's output. The point is that the source is not 'controlled' by the control circuit, no one knows what controls it or how stable it is. A sufficiently large surge in the coupled energy source will feedback into the device. No control circuit can prevent this. I would suspect that a lightning strike in the local area would smoke all the TPU's around.

In essence the TPU control circuit stops the TPU calling down too much power from the source, but there is nothing to prevent the source sending down too much power to the TPU! The TPU is a loosly coupled device.... no cure for that...

It is clear that when this 'replication' project is successful what comes out of it, in order to meet everyones aspiration for a portable and reliable source of energy, will be a TPU in name only. A 'pure' SM style TPU cannot achieve the desired goal of reliability which this group needs because it's fundamental operating principles prevent is from being reliable.

What comes out of this group will not be covered by any TPU patents if they exist, because in essence it cannot and will not be a TPU!



Acerzw, looking for positive comments and solutions, there is enough negative in the above!

[EMdevices]

Acerzw, what happend?Ã,   Why are you pessemistic now?Ã,  

I agree with you, the SM designed TPU can be improved.

ButÃ,  if it can not, and it will destroy itself eventualy, then it will be handled like airplanes.Ã,   When they exceed their flex cycles they are retired.

We will have disposable TPUs then.

So, let's get back into the game and make a TPU first, and then we can IMPROVE it.

EM

[acerzw]

@EM, I appreciate your comments

A disposable TPU? Thats not exactly ideal... but I do take your point, I would personally not settle for one though as explained below...

My 'pessimism' is based on two main points, the first theoretical and not proven yet, the other is however concrete and insurmountable in my opinion :

1) If the TPU uses magnetorestriction as has been surmised, and there is a good case for it being
so... then you are right, it will have to be disposable... not what I suspect most engaged in this effort want or started out on this journey with in mind...

However even if the TPU is not using magnetorestriction, it has one very dangerous flaw... (Remember the consequences of SM's example of the exploding TV, a child killed by corkscrewed nails)

2) The TPU is loosely coupled to its environmental energy source, which no-one has successfully identified yet, but most agree is probably related to the Earth fields, be they magnetic or atmospheric in nature, both of these are subject to natural fluctuations of varying degrees and are not controllable, therefore for reasons explained in my opening comments to this thread they make any device which uses then inherently dangerous...

However it is significant to note that BEMF powered devices do not have this flaw, since the source of their environmental energy input, the local dirac sea, to which they are tightly coupled, is well understood... hence they will always be safer and more reliable...

Acerzw

[bolt]

Whats happened to the TPU community its died? I still yet to see any real electronic designs and the only ones building are stuck on spark coils thus we are heading towards a second complete year and no progress....unless of course the ones that really know what they are doing are not posting.

SM already stated that the pcb build is critical. Its affected by moisture and heat and that the components need to be mounted half inch off the board. DO you know what this means? I tell you its HF stuff which may run up to several megs mixed with pure sine audio frequncies. Its common prototype practice to bread board these desings on to plain copper clad board mounted half inch high and no more so that the oscillators have some stabilty. HAM radio builders done this for for over 50 years. This tells us quite a lot about how to construct the tpu and the level of build skills that needs to go into it.  SM said the diameter of the tpu sets up the fundametal frequncy and is directly proportional.  The LC of the visible to the largest tpu will be running well over a 1 Mhz possibly up as high as 7 Mhz but this really doesnt matter its a variable and only the relationship of the internal frequencies are important. Its highly likely to track deviations for heat, frequency and daily magnetic variations by using PLL VCO's AGC and comparators etc yet this is all add ons later. If non of this makes any sense or if you never built so much as a crystal set radio before then you will have more luck turning water into wine:)

In fact at these frequencies the tpu would be tame as we see on the vids. No one getting shocks or hair standing on end when holding these devices. SM stated the mix is only a precursor and is loosely based on a radio system. Early radio systems had just one or two tubes which can be almost replicated pin for pin with mosfets. In fact pick up an old tube book and the word "kick" is used frequently to describe amplifiers and oscillators receiving a grid signal. Its nothing magic in the old context only odd in the tpu because its hasn't publicly been shown yet but will no doubt amount to a modern day version of a surge, spike or merely a feedback pulse.

The other point i like to make is its extremely unlikely to require active timing to produce the rotation. First the small tpus just didn't have big enough control boxes to support a mass of logic circuits doing complex timings and second SM has already stated that south of the equator its spins the other way anyway thus more proof its only an artifact of the gravity/magnetic effect will see daily in the bath or sink. Its not required to MAKE it spin it will just happen.

When the secret of the tpu has been cracked there are hundreds of ways to control these devices and make them reliable but that the least of our problems. In fact converting to stable wall AC is a easy nowadays and cheap but 10 years ago it was a bit harder and certainly far more expensive.

I'm looking forward to seeing real circuit diagrams and practical electronic ideas and not more theory based on Tesla and blah blah.

[TheNOP]

WE DID TRY THEM SOUTH OF THE EQUATER, THEY
WORK IN REVERSE.
CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHY?

Might simply mean: turning the TPU upside down will allow it to work.