"String" Motor (with simple diagram)

[mike444]

"String" Motor Concept

I recently tested what I call a "string motor" I thought of myself. It consisted of a spool of fishing wire with short ferromagnetic beads of string (like those in dog tags) attached at 1" to 1/2" inch intervals along the string...I placed a strong group of magnets on the floor and fed the string into the magnets standing above it...It pulled the string to it's "end" (not the whole reel yet) with no difficulty thus spinning the reel and theoretically generating electricity.

I didn't have many beads on the string (it gets kind of messy and hard to work with) but the experiment demonstrated that it can work. I would just have to create a line of string long enough that it would keep the reel spinning for a long time before it would have to be rerolled manually or replaced. Once I do that I would of course work on how to make the line of string roll itself onto another reel as it works so I don't have to later.

But, if successful, I like this idea over solar or wind because we can control when the energy is made. It doesn't require that the sun be out or the wind blow or the tides move. We control and create the fuel. And it's clean.

Pros:

Is not reliant on nature. Totally man made "fuel". We choose how much of it we want to create.
Clean
Can, and is made to be, reused.
Doesn't challenge the laws of thermodynamics
Could possibly be easily applied to moving vehicles on land, water and air.
Length of string transmits directly to distance a vehicle using the motor can travel on one spool. Ex. if you can fit a 100 mile spool of string in your vehicle, your vehicle can travel 100 miles before your reel of string (fuel) runs out.
Can be used in large power plant energy generation. If the physics works, I could see power plants with giant spools of string miles long and powerful electromagnets generating a constant source of clean energy for cities.
Works on the same principle scientists have been experimenting with magnetic particles at the subatomic level
Principle can be incorporated into a type of "hourglass" design without using string that would allow the motion of falling magnetic (or non magnetic) beads to generation electricity.

Questions:

Can a spool of string be made simultaneously small (compact, light) enough but the string long enough to produce a usable output of energy generation?
How strong does a magnet need to be to pull a reel miles long?
Can the string be made to wound around another spool as it's working to avoid manual rewinding?
how big would the "hourglass" design have to be to generate days or weeks of energy before it needed to be "turned over"?

Your thoughts, suggestions, improvements?


Edit: I think I've already thought of a way to rewind the string. It would work like a measuring tape or one of those reel dog leashes or clothes lines. Once the string was fully unwound by the magnet, the magnet would be covered or removed by a lever and the string would rewind itself generating energy in the opposite direction.

Edit 2: Actually there is an even easier way to rewind the string. Instead, fix the end of each string inside the bottom of it's own container or bottle, for example with the spouts facing each other and a spool, with the string wound around once, in between. The bottles will serve to contain and control the string and a magnet will be introduced at the bottom of the bottle the string is being drawn into. As the string is drawn in any direction, it will move the spool in between the bottles. Once the string is exhausted in one direction, the magnet will be removed from the one bottle and applied to the bottom of the bottle now receiving the string where the cycle continues.

Edit 3: I just want to point out that you wouldn't use actual "string" for this design but some super light, thin and strong material.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8076/stringmotor.png

[jadaro2600]

Just a few thoughts:

Would the 'string' be like those ball-chains hanging from ceiling fan switches? ...

You could even employ the use of a necklace-chain and instead use two separate chain types or links.

Think about this:  a four section 'belt' where every other section is ferromagnetic. This could rotate.

One thing to consider however is the idea that pulling the magnet away from the metal will cause work to be done.

The windbelt? ..the thing with the magnet attached to a resonant belt which uses wind to generate AC has an assembly at one end which may come in handy - putting a coil around you end magnets would generate AC.

For a prototype, you could disassemble a flatbed scanner with a belt and use that to mount magnets on the belt ( just make sure you get one with a belt that runs full circle )..these would include all the needed features already such as gears and what not.

I've included a mangled version of your design two.  The device would be symmetrical. The red thing is a belt; the doubled line is where the ferromagnetic material would be.  The magnet on a spring is on the right in blue, and the coil ( looks like a hand ) is the inductor on the left, it should be around the magnet, etc.

The wheel in the middle would be the primary mover for the belt.  I'm not sure how much Electricity this would make, but it may prove artistic if nothing else.

Some people buy gizmos for desk pieces you know.

edit: Hilarious afterthought:  if this were in a car and those magnets were bouncing up and down, your vehicle would appear to have hydraulics and bounce down the road.  You may want to consider this as potential stresses on the axels.

[mike444]

Hey, thanks for your critique and suggestions! I waited all day for one. 

I have a number of points to clarify with regards to your response.

First, yes the beads are like from those chains for ceiling fans. more precisely, they are the beads used to make chains for dog tags. I bought a 100ft spool of them but I soon found out it wouldn't be pulled by a magnet if it was one continuous chain of ferromagnetic material because the whole thing became magnetized when the leading end was brought near the magnet! So I got a spool of fishing line and tediously tied short strings of beads (9 in length exactly, like this: ooooooooo) at 1" intervals along the fishing line. This immediately worked but the more beads I added the messier and more difficult to work with the string became...This is because the bead configuration in the diagram is not exactly the same as in my actual test model...In actuality, I cut a short string of 9 beads (again, like this: ooooooooo) and tied the first bead to the fishing line so the rest of the beads just dangled there off the fishing line...This was necessary because one or two beads itself wasn't enough weight or ferromagnetic material to make the spool turn. In subsequent versions I can probably fix this.

Secondly, I am suspicious of circular configurations such as your belt idea. Circular magnetic models don't always spin as they were predicted and can open up a whole bunch of other problems. I prefer a linear motor so there is no issue or worry of reverse pull effects. 

As for "pulling away the magnet", there are a few things to consider:

1.) The beaded string on both sides would be extremely long, possibly miles if the physics work out (at the least hundreds of feet), and the magnets at either end wouldn't bounce up and down like pistons. They would be switched up and down at the end of very long cycles, hopefully hours long, and like switching gears. So there would be no bouncing or stresses on the axles.

2.) When a magnet was moved away from a string box, it would probably have little effect on the beaded string which will be enclosed in the string box. So the string couldn't follow the magnet beyond the box even if it wanted to. Plus they don't even have to be moved but perhaps alternated shielding will serve just as well.

[mike444]

[cletushowell]

Sorry i didnt read every post but three of us proved you can get spin
from a string and magnets by suspending a peice of metal
above the magnet lid proves he can spin the magnets on a strin
i proved i can spin a rock above a plate using a antenna
and another guy proves you can spin
metal on a string so i say put your spool on a matal plate
with a bearing on the string and shit should go forever
hope this helps
before i get arrested again.
Never safe anywhere