Sjack Abeling Gravity Wheel and the Worlds first Weight Power Plant

[Tink]

"I am comfortable with the limited abilities in this one to show that the Abeling wheel as it has been modeled is simply a balanced wheel."

No it is not a balanced wheel!
Is it so hard to see?
When all weights were on the outside of the wheel it would have been balanced, but they are not.
It is sooo simple, is it maybe too simple?
Take a wheel with 8 weights and calculate all the forces of the weights and you will see what is going on.
A shame WM2D has such a hard time calculating it.
I think Dusty will beat WM2D by just making the darn thing in real life.
Go Dusty go!

[mondrasek]

No it is not a balanced wheel!
Is it so hard to see?

Actually I think it is just hard to see that it IS balanced.  This wheel is a bit tricky to just eyeball.  You have to consider several things about each weight:

1)  Is it naturally trying to spin the wheel CW or CCW?
2)  How far from the axle in the X direction since Torque = Force x this distance?
3)  How much of the force due to each weight is acting to produce Torque?  This last one depends on the angles of the weights against the slots and guides.

Add them up and you get zero torque.  But it is definitely not easy to see if you are not considering all three of the factors above.

[Cloxxki]

But a flexible chain wrapped around a "D" shape doen't spin out of control. Just sits there.
Or would you contribute that to a shifted centre of rotation?

Abeling's wheel is also less simple than balanced or imbalanced wheel.
Weights are inserted on top, with exactly the rim's speed.
Keeping overall wheel acceleration out of the picture, the weight exist the wheel at 6 o'clock and roll up, losing momentum, before being caught back up by the wheel, which both re-accelerates the weight up to rim speed, and lifts it for the last part.

I can't get my mind to grasp, to which extent, a weight rolling up a ramp without loading the wheel, shortly taking a slight radial advantage (as I think it is), creates a positive imbalance.
Whichever way you look at it, the weight ends up on the outer top of the D's belly, in the exact same place as the previous rotation.

Dusty's first wheel, in all it's crudeness, does see the weight reaching a very good high already on the first self-started rotation. It SEEMS like a matter of perfecting the weight's path and the system's friction, and it'll push that weight right over the top, and all the way into that slot.
When on weight has reached 12 o'clock, the other is already some way up, albeit close to the hub.

Should Dusty's bigger next generation wheel work, we should together use the knowledge gained to create a machine owrking off the same principle, but working around the patent, respecting Abeling's great invention. His invention and the patent system should not hold up free energy to reach he masses when the first workable machine is confirmed.

[Omnibus]

@mondrasek,

See, what the whole thing amounts to is just conflict of beliefs, not objective scientific proof. Despite your tendency to carry on your belief a little further, which is only natural because mechanical devices don’t exhibit the claimed unusual behavior, conservatively wm2d doesn’t prove conclusively anything either way.

If one ignores wm2d and considers your three points as a criterion for whether or not that’s an unbalanced wheel, they are also not a clear-cut proof that it isn’t. Due to the constraints (as you correctly point out â€" slots and guides) it isn’t at all evident that the generalized force times generalized distance on the right hand side isn’t different from that product on the left-hand side. It isn’t as if you just have a bunch of weights on the left and on the right freely acted upon by the force of gravity. If it were that then the answer is straightforward. Here, however, it seems to be evident that the vertical component on the left is greater than that on the right, despite the seemingly shorter distance to the pivot. So, intuitively, based on your points, one may conclude differently from what you’ve concluded.

It was for a program to calculate precisely at every possible disposition of the elements that balance. Unfortunately, instead of that wm2d only gives us opportunity to reinforce earlier held beliefs, rather than conclusively prove one way or another.

Would be great if you could show at what mutual disposition you think the elements reach equilibrium and show analytically that the torques on the left and right at that disposition become equal in magnitude. Not a bad idea is to also show an earlier disposition whereby that torque inequality reverses sense compared to a disposition of the elements after the equilibrium one.

[spider4re]

Just a thought outside the box, instead of a guide that the weights follow, how about a flexible guide that is driven by the wheel itself? as the weight approaches the "guide" which could be a belt similar to a belt on used on a car engine (maybe grooved so the weight has something to catch onto) the weight hits it and is assisted up to the point where dusty has shown that the weight shoots itself to the end of the curved groove. Might this help reduce friction (although take a toll on torque as the wheel will (through a flywheel setup) run this conveyor belt.