Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: wizz33 on April 15, 2004, 03:38:29 pm

Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: wizz33 on April 15, 2004, 03:38:29 pm
i knew it was possible
10 jears i came in my search for a good powersource
with the idea to just but a electric engie and a dynamo in line and put some static magnets in it to help. now some Japaese back room infentor doos my job

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=104183&threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=134&mode=thread&cid=8873654;7

since the server is /.ed the story
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Kazan on April 15, 2004, 04:14:38 pm
that's seting off a lot of BS-o-meters.. i'll wait to see if it gets used
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 04:24:13 pm
You realise this is a scam right?

330 percent eficiency... right... :rolleyes:
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 04:24:36 pm
[color=cc9900]Gee wizz, you're right. It is unbelievable. I for one don't believe it has any practical application.

The only two options I see are that:
[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Martinus on April 15, 2004, 04:27:45 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]It is phony. This has happened before.[/color]

[color=66ff00]I'd wait until it's authenticity was verified to make such a claim.
[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 04:31:07 pm
[color=cc9900]I don't follow. You'd wait for it to be verified truthful before you claim it's phony?[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Rictor on April 15, 2004, 04:42:40 pm
Isn't this going against some basic laws of motion and work? I don't really remember my physics all that well, but it seems unlikely that this could run a motor with no external power source.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 04:44:28 pm
Did anyone pay atention to what I posted?

100% eficiency is impossible... more is... well... more than impossible if that is possible :D
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Martinus on April 15, 2004, 04:48:15 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]I don't follow. You'd wait for it to be verified truthful before you claim it's phony?[/color]

[color=66ff00]No quite the opposite in fact, I'd wait for it to be proven phony before stating so. It may share attributes with previous hoaxes but you can't state that this is a hoax without actually knowing it's a fact.

Well you can but it would be an invalid statement.
[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 04:48:27 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Ghostavo
Did anyone pay atention to what I posted?

100% eficiency is impossible... more is... well... more than impossible if that is possible :D

[color=cc9900]Well, if you don't take into account any external, 'free' inputs, then >100% efficiency is perfectly possible. It's like saying a car is incredibly efficient because look how little oxygen is being used in the engine for how far it's going. Measure it in terms of fuel and you get a different story.

We know very little about what this guy is doing. We do know that all the voltmeter and ammeters in his circuit are taking into account is electricity.[/color]
Quote
Originally posted by Maeglamor

[color=66ff00]No quite the opposite in fact, I'd wait for it to be proven phony before stating so. It may share attributes with previous hoaxes but you can't state that this is a hoax without actually knowing it's a fact.

Well you can but it would be an invalid statement.
[/color]
[/size]

[color=cc9900]My misunderstanding.

What I meant by my comment is that 'free energy' machines of whatever variety have been put forward before and have stumbled at the first stepping stone. I wasn't stating that it was a hoax, hence the list - I think it's either a hoax or it's utilising an external input, the most likely case being potential energy in the permanent magnets.[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: diamondgeezer on April 15, 2004, 04:52:48 pm
Quote
In this house we obey the laws of thermo dynamics!
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 05:01:22 pm
[color=cc9900]Thermodynamics still allows for an external input.

I think a very interesting test would be replacing the permanent magnets in this device with electromagnets, and measuring the current draw on those particular electromagnets. If it increases when running than when at rest, then there's your problem solved. No free energy, just release of potential from permanent magnets.

Magnetic batteries, now there's a freaky idea. I still think the whole affair is more likely to be phony, but still, one can't help but wonder.[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: 01010 on April 15, 2004, 05:03:04 pm
^^^

Missed the reference it would seem.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 05:04:59 pm
[color=cc9900]The reference to the post on slashdot that references the words of Homer Simpson? :p[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 05:09:36 pm
Odyssey, if it gets an input from something else, it is an input none the less, it becomes part of the device, so >100% is a no no.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Martinus on April 15, 2004, 05:09:36 pm
[color=66ff00]The report I read (slashdot) made no claims to be a free energy engine or anything of the kind. It merely stated that it was a lot more efficient than your common motor.
[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Tiara on April 15, 2004, 05:10:58 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Ghostavo
330 percent eficiency... right... :rolleyes:

Anything above 100% means infinite energy :p
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 05:11:53 pm
Maeglamor

Quote
Next we move to a unit with its motor connected to a generator. What we see is striking. The meters showed an input to the stator electromagnets of approximately 1.8 volts and 150mA input, and from the generator, 9.144 volts and 192mA output. 1.8 x 0.15 x 2 = 540mW input and 9.144 x 0.192 = 1.755W out.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 05:15:46 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Ghostavo
Odyssey, if it gets an input from something else, it is an input none the less, it becomes part of the device, so >100% is a no no.

[color=cc9900]I realise that. But, please check where the figures are coming from - going in, the guy's measuring electricity. Coming out, the guy's measuring electricity. That is by no means a complete energy flow representation, so you can't expect a good concrete figure. Hence my assumption that something else is an input, additional to the electricity going in.[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 05:18:43 pm
Then he cannot claim that his engine is better than any other. It is taking energy from somewhere else, and that is still energy no matter where you get it. So concluding you have exactly the same amount of eficiency as an engine that is given the same input as the output of that one.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 05:21:39 pm
[color=cc9900]My point exactly. The whole thing might not be completely phony, just this guy's hiding something. That's why I am sceptical of the potential applications of this as an electric motor.

EDIT: Am I the only one who doesn't quite grasp why there is a x2 in the input end of the calculations quoted by Ghostavo to find the input power? Is it to 'understate' the 'great power' of the device to lessen suspicion, or is it just me missing some calculatory rule?[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 05:21:51 pm
Hmmmmmmmmmm... I worked with motors a little at Farnborough, as far as I can tell, you shouldn't be able to do this, kicking power from one magnet to the next in a 'pulse' could motivate the rotors past the brushes in said way I think, but in order to force them past the lockpoint, they would have to exert a lot more energy that the energy within the lockpoint itself, which is equal to the power output of the device.

I could wrong, physics has a funny way of catching you out with the simplest of things sometimes ;)
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 05:27:32 pm
[color=cc9900]Flipside, you might want to cast an eye over this guy's US patents:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=2&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ptxt&S1=(kohei+AND+minato)&OS=kohei+and+minato&RS=(kohei+AND+minato)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ptxt&S1=(kohei+AND+minato)&OS=kohei+and+minato&RS=(kohei+AND+minato)

I'm not saying they prove anything, but a look by a more experienced eye would be helpful.[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 05:28:27 pm
Odyssey, if he is giving wrong info it is phony, there is no "not being completely phony", either he is or he isn't. By saying that his engines have a better eficiency than the other he is lying... therefore it is phony.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 05:39:07 pm
I can see what she is trying to say, that each magnet is angled to make the other other 'slip across' the magnetic field, similar to when you put two north poles together with permanent magents, and they would push the rotor round with the force of the repulsion, using the brushes to provide the final 'kick' to the spin.

2 things spring to mind immediately :-

1 : How the hell do you control the rpm? Permanent magnets are famous for their non-adjustability.
2 : When the same poles meet, it's not that one pushes the other away, it's that they both push each other away, so therefore any kick forward on one rotor is going to create equal torque in the other one, therefore resulting in zero power gain, at least, that's the way I see it.

Ah well, I'd actually like to be wrong :)

Edit : I suppose making the rotors go in opposite directions would work on really really tiny motors, could be useful in micro-engineering, but you'd never get a magnet powerful enough to do that with a motor of any normal size.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 05:53:45 pm
[color=cc9900]Oh, but the technicalities... Providing that the figures we have been shown are correct, then the guy is not giving false information, he is merely not telling us everything. Or he does not himself understand everything. I guess if you adopted a very broad definition of phony then he might be it, but really he would be telling no lies.

Anyway. Extracting energy from magnets would be a wondrous thing indeed, but it's just not possible. As far as I know, and as far as the general scientific community knows. I still haven't thought of another alternative input that could be used to create the results this guy is seeing however, so... Meh. 99% of me says he's just forged the lot, 1% of me says he's forged it more cleverly by just doing some behind-the-scenes work. Either way, it's not very useful.

Oh, and for the 35kg rotor thingummy, that's nothing special. The acceleration figures would be telling, but once it's spinning you need next to nothing to keep it spinning.[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Drew on April 15, 2004, 06:00:52 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]Flipside, you might want to cast an eye over this guy's US patents:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=2&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ptxt&S1=(kohei+AND+minato)&OS=kohei+and+minato&RS=(kohei+AND+minato)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ptxt&S1=(kohei+AND+minato)&OS=kohei+and+minato&RS=(kohei+AND+minato)

I'm not saying they prove anything, but a look by a more experienced eye would be helpful.[/color]


of course not. Patents only state that this guy holds the rights to what he made, not if it works as he claims or not.   I would really like to hear some sience behind this guys invention besides "im following one of natures basic principles" bull****.

Btw permenant magnets? IIRC perments dont do anything to electricy. If permenent magnets were exsposed to powerfull currents of electricity they would effictivly destroy the magnetism.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 06:08:05 pm
Theres ways of shielding against that actually, but it would still certainly shorten the life of the magnets. Also 330% power output would be possibly if most of the turning energy was being provided by these magnets. It's not the maths that confuses me as much as the physics of it. Magnetic fields are not static objects, they align themselves according to the surrounding magnetic landscape. So they couldn't slip past each other like that.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 06:19:20 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Drew
of course not. Patents only state that this guy holds the rights to what he made, not if it works as he claims or not.   I would really like to hear some sience behind this guys invention besides "im following one of natures basic principles" bull****.

[color=cc9900]As far as I know, patents are only awarded on the basis that whatever you've made would work as you claim it does, based on the information you give. They aren't just given.

The problem you have then is that the person reading the patent is human. They're not omniscient, they have hundreds of patents to get through, they're not going to take time out and try to build the thing. If it looks to them like it might work, you'll probably get the patent, providing it lands on the desk of someone who isn't a field specialist.[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 06:20:49 pm
Besides, you can patent anything, theres no proviso for it to work afaik.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Odyssey on April 15, 2004, 06:31:05 pm
[color=cc9900]Oh, right. I didn't know that. Maybe it only has to work if you make claims as to it working?[/color]
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 06:36:40 pm
You are basically patenting an idea iirc, that's how inventors work, they have an idea, they patent the theory, sometimes there will be small demos or design specs, but sometimes it will be just an idea. You then proceed to develop it.
This thing about needing a working model is only true in certain applications, in this case, I suspect those vague designs were the only patent material supplied.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Drew on April 15, 2004, 09:26:24 pm
a patent is basically a copyrite. You could make some totaly bull**** product and patent put on commercials that says it does blahblah, while its still a bull**** product. Ecept now, you souly have the rights to the product.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Kazan on April 15, 2004, 11:49:42 pm
it's not ALL permanant magnets

he has mostly permanant magenets - then a couple of small electromagnets that "pulse" to keep it from hitting magneto-lockup - ie it keeps the magnets off sync so they're pushing on each other at all times - the speed that the electromagnets pulse at affects the RPMs (and the smoothness of the turn)

this part atleast makes sense - this doesn't sound 100% bollocks to me
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 16, 2004, 11:58:10 am
I don't think it's 100% bollocks, but I since the magnetic field repulsion would realign itself to the shortest possible space between the magnets, I don't see how, when the magnets are approaching each other they don't slow down as they enter the magnetic field of each other, they'd be slowing greatly before they passed each other, as they try to push the other one away. I can't see how the brush could supply enough power to kick past that effect.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Kazan on April 16, 2004, 12:06:43 pm
it's trivial if the positioning of the magnets is correct
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 16, 2004, 12:16:16 pm
Yes, but then if you arrange matters so the magnetic drag on the way in is trivial, then the magnetic push on the way out would therefore be equally trivial? Even operating at 100% efficiency all it would suceed in doing is cancelling itself out and leaving the brush to do all the work.

Ah well, I don't pretend to be the fount of all knowledge about motors, so I might well be wrong. It'd be great if this was possible, but I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: ChronoReverse on April 16, 2004, 12:17:06 pm
Bah, all DC electric motors use permanent magnets.

No matter how you arrange the magnets, they'll still be pulling for the other half of the rotation.  If you're supplying energy to push past that, it's energy being wasted.


Quote
With the help of magnetic propulsion, it is feasible to attach a generator to the motor and produce more electric power than was put into the device. Minato says that average efficiency on his motors is about 330 percent.
 


Unless those magnets are thermal powered or something, this is impossible.



I bet it's just a misinterpretation of the information.  It's more likely a more efficient motor was designed with magnets to smooth out the vibrations (hence saving energy from being wasted) and some fool thought that meant free energy.


Quote
Minato assures us that he hasn't transcended the laws of physics. The force supplying the unexplained extra power out is generated by the magnetic strength of the permanent magnets embedded in the rotor. "I'm simply harnessing one of the four fundamental forces of nature," he says.


Uh huh, for the same reason why we can't get energy from gravity, is the reason why this is also wrong.  To move closer to a magnetic field either requires energy or yields energy (depending whether it's repulsive or attractive.  But if you start moving away, the opposite will occur (i.e. if you gained energy from moving closer, you'll lose energy as you move away).
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Kazan on April 16, 2004, 12:21:40 pm
flipside: you're missinug something, buyt i cannot put my thumb on it
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: JarC on April 16, 2004, 12:29:19 pm
it is the angle how they are placed, you can place them such that the incoming repulsion is less than the outgoing push...got to do with relative angle changing during the pass...
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 16, 2004, 12:29:34 pm
I think you're right Kazan, and it's going to bug me for hours now :(
We helped the Avionics shed once with something along the lines of what Chrono said, a rotor balanced in the field of a of a permanent magnet, and then spun with electromagnetic brushes. The motor was massively efficient, and phenominally unstable, so much as turning on a light would unbalance the magnetic field of the permanent magnets enough to make the damn rotor fall off 9/10 times.

If this person has managed to somehow reproduce the effect without the instability.......

JarC Yes, but the magnetic fields would realign themselves to the same shape relative to each other, regardless of what angle the magnetic objects were at, the field is a flux, all the magnets are is somewhere for the electrons to live.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flaser on April 16, 2004, 01:14:37 pm
When dealing with a force field, most of the time you can't gain energy out of a force field - for it holds no actual energy - it is an object compared to the field that has stationary enegy, that you can harness.

For example when orbiting a planet - or a moon - you could use the gravity of the planet to accelerate you and create dynamic energy.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 16, 2004, 01:55:12 pm
Indeed, though gravity does not have a specific lockpoint (it does have a lockvelocity). I suppose the ground could theoretically be called a lockpoint, but then, look at the amount of energy required to escape it.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flaser on April 16, 2004, 02:21:44 pm
I don't know what you mean to call lock point, but you can actually calculate the energy it takes to take an object from a source of gravity to infinity.

That way you can calculate the velocity which would ammount for the same energy - therefore if you accelerated the object to that velocity it would never slow down, for its movement energy exeeds the energy the gravitic field can exert on it.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flipside on April 16, 2004, 02:53:48 pm
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.... I see what you mean, one last little question then, we are talking about two objects of equivalent magnetic strength here, so it's the equivalent of slingshotting two planets around each other, I thought the difference in mass played a large part in the slingshot effect? As I say, I'm not professing to be any great genius at this :)
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: Flaser on April 16, 2004, 06:40:41 pm
The skingshot uses gravity as you would use a rope to spin a rock.

It's not the gravitic field that is the source of the extra speed the probe gains, but the rotation of the Jupiter, gravity is merly the agent of the interaction.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: an0n on April 16, 2004, 07:21:46 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Kazan
it's not ALL permanant magnets

he has mostly permanant magenets - then a couple of small electromagnets that "pulse" to keep it from hitting magneto-lockup - ie it keeps the magnets off sync so they're pushing on each other at all times - the speed that the electromagnets pulse at affects the RPMs (and the smoothness of the turn)

this part atleast makes sense - this doesn't sound 100% bollocks to me
Yup. It's the equivelant of that spinning-top-and-whip thing.

As long as you input a tiny amount of energy to offset the wobbling of the spinning top, it'll keep spinning indefinitely.
Title: this is unbelivable
Post by: ChronoReverse on April 16, 2004, 07:26:52 pm
All gravitational slingshotting is, is simply borrowing energy.

Everytime we use the gravity of Jupiter to save some fuel for a probe, we're stealing some momentum from Jupiter.


However, since Jupiter is something like 100000000000000000000000000 times more massive than any probe we send, the change in Jupiter's rotation and orbit is undetectable by us (and frankly is probably less than the diameter of a proton, which is also a tiny fraction of the the diameter of a hydrogen atom, which is the smallest atom).