Perpetual Motion,or Free Energy

Mountain Don
Mountain Don Solar Expert Posts: 494 ✭✭✭
Here goes nothing..... Anyone believe in the free lunch? Perpetual motion? Free energy?

On another forum I just answered the following .... "You have a large water wheel with a large gear or other pulley-type mechanism which powers (via chain, rope, etc.) a generator with a much smaller gear or other pulley-type mechanism which charges a battery. The large water wheel has a mechanical advantage, so it should not have a problem getting RPMs into the generator to charge the battery. You use the power from the battery to power a pump that pumps enough water from the bottom to the top to keep the wheel going.....and there you have it. The design would be such that there would be "excess" power (i.e. more power being generated than is being used by the pump) to charge other batteries, so you would effectively have a self-contained charging system that would work 24/7." with a "No way it can work", and got told I should not be so negative. What can you say to these people?



Northern NM, 624 watts PV, The Kid CC, GC-2 batteries @ 24 VDC, Outback VFX3524M

Comments

  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    there would be "excess" power (i.e. more power being generated than is being used by the pump)

    Well... if they are thinking about the "Site C dam" in Northern BC , on the Peace River, they might be correct, but ... it hasn't been built yet :roll:;)
     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
    CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM 
    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
    2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
    Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
    West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
  • JoshK
    JoshK Solar Expert Posts: 232 ✭✭
    Yea and next month when the project is dead, someone else will claim the big bad wolves came and threatened their life to stop them.
    The described setup could not gain speed because there is no energy being put in, only energy being converted. Every conversion suffers massive loses. So it just comes to a stop.
  • waynefromnscanada
    waynefromnscanada Solar Expert Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭✭
    ] got told I should not be so negative. What can you say to these people?

    What can you say to these people? There's lots you CAN say, but absolutely nothing you or anyone else can say will open their eyes to the foolishness of what they are trying to promote.
    The only thing you can do is walk away and let them stew in their ignorance. Don't let them take you down with them.

  • petertearai
    petertearai Solar Expert Posts: 471 ✭✭✭✭
    Hi . Once such a machine is built , we will all be over to look at it . Even the magic heat pump isn't a perpetual motion machine , just a way of converting energy .
    Wayne is right with his reply .
    2225 wattts pv . Outback 2kw  fxr pure sine inverter . fm80 charge controller . Mate 3. victron battery monitor . 24 volts  in 2 volt Shoto lead carbon extreme batterys. off grid  holiday home 
  • inetdog
    inetdog Solar Expert Posts: 3,123 ✭✭✭✭
    Hi . Once such a machine is built , we will all be over to look at it . Even the magic heat pump isn't a perpetual motion machine , just a way of converting energy .
    Wayne is right with his reply .

    The three Laws of Thermodynamics, restated in the context of gambling:

    1. Long term you cannot win.
    2. You cannot even break even.
    3. You are not allowed to leave the game.
    SMA SB 3000, old BP panels.
  • solar_dave
    solar_dave Solar Expert Posts: 2,397 ✭✭✭✭
    I say let them put their money where their mouth is!
  • SolarPowered
    SolarPowered Solar Expert Posts: 626 ✭✭✭
    Fusion is where its at, in about 20 years from now fusion reactors will be in almost every home if you could afford one.
    http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html

    Perpetual motion is a scam, takes energy to make lesser energy, law of physics
  • solarix
    solarix Solar Expert Posts: 713 ✭✭
    I've seen a perpetual motion machine using a magnet trick, but it is just slightly over unity and you can't extract any useful work from it. I've done my share of trying to convince folks that believe in "free energy". Actually, the world is full of energy (the Conergy slogan) - trouble is, you have to work too hard to collect any of it. Tapping into that monumental fusion reactor 93 million miles away is our best way to go.
  • inetdog
    inetdog Solar Expert Posts: 3,123 ✭✭✭✭
    solarix wrote: »
    I've seen a perpetual motion machine using a magnet trick, but it is just slightly over unity and you can't extract any useful work from it. I've done my share of trying to convince idiots that believe in "free energy". Actually, the world is full of energy (the Conergy slogan) - trouble is, you have to work too hard to collect any of it. Tapping into that monumental fusion reactor 93 million miles away is our best way to go.
    Come on, using a magnet trick is not enough to get over unity unless your trick is actually to introduce power from the outside in some way. Introducing only a very small amount of external power is going to limit the amount you can openly extract without stopping the machine. But without cheating in some way you cannot even get all the way to unity in the first place.
    SMA SB 3000, old BP panels.
  • waynefromnscanada
    waynefromnscanada Solar Expert Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭✭
    solarix wrote: »
    I've seen a perpetual motion machine using a magnet trick, but it is just slightly over unity

    Unfortunately, the "trick" involved, had nothing to do with magnets - - - other than perhaps being a part of the slight-of-hand or illusion they used to trick you into believing the hoax / scam they were promoting.
  • Iceni John
    Iceni John Solar Expert Posts: 103 ✭✭
    One thing I noticed on another less-erudite forum than this was that any "discussion" (and I use that term very loosely) about perpetual motion invariably resulted in a similar situation to what was being discussed - insufficient realism or common sense being imparted versus the amount of hot air being expended, resulting in a gradual loss of intelligence or even basic knowledge of physics until all wisdom ground to an inevitable halt, but with fanciful opinions never stopping! Members of that forum would also seriously debate the use of water as fuel, and hydrogen as the next wonder fuel, and other similar nonsense . . . If ignorance is bliss, they were all very happy.

    John

    40' Crown bus with 2kW of tiltable panels on the roof:

    Eight Sharp 255W, two Morningstar TS-MPPT-60, Magnum MS2000, Champion C46540 generator converted to propane, eight golfcart batteries, and maybe a small Exeltech inverter for the fridger.

    Southern California

  • JoshK
    JoshK Solar Expert Posts: 232 ✭✭
    Unfortunately the closest thing to free energy is the black liquid we just need to pump up from prehistoric fuel tanks. Solar is a close second, but there's the unfortunate truth of my signature line...
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    There are some weird and wonderful possibilities out there--But they are still not proven (for sure) and does not really apply to our day to day world:

    New Test Suggests NASA’s “Impossible” EM Drive Will Work In Space.

    Last year, NASA’s advanced propulsion research wing made headlines by announcing the successful test of a physics-defying electromagnetic drive, or EM drive. Now, this futuristic engine, which could in theory propel objects to near-relativistic speeds, has been shown to work inside a space-like vacuum.
    ... The EM drive is controversial in that it appears to violate conventional physics and the law of conservation of momentum; the engine, invented by British scientist Roger Sawyer, converts electric power to thrust without the need for any propellant by bouncing microwaves within a closed container. So, with no expulsion of propellant, there’s nothing to balance the change in the spacecraft’s momentum during acceleration. Hence the skepticism. But as stated by NASA Eagleworks scientist Harold White:
    [T]he EM Drive’s thrust was due to the Quantum Vacuum (the quantum state with the lowest possible energy) behaving like propellant ions behave in a MagnetoHydroDynamics drive (a method electrifying propellant and then directing it with magnetic fields to push a spacecraft in the opposite direction) for spacecraft propulsion.
    1233608889415246225.jpg
    The trouble with this theory, however, is that it might not work in a closed vacuum. After last year’s tests of the engine, which weren’t performed in a vacuum, skeptics argued that the measured thrust was attributable to environmental conditions external to the drive, such as natural thermal convection currents arising from microwave heating.
    Can never say "never"...

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • JoshK
    JoshK Solar Expert Posts: 232 ✭✭
    Yea I read about that a few days ago. That is electric powered and uses microwaves as a propellant. The only issue seems to be nobody believed microwaves had any mass. But now they proved they have a little from my understanding.

    I have seen high power lasers leave a foggy spot on mirrors when the air contains fumes. I tried to argue the airborn molecules were being nudged by the light, causing the collisions that made up the sticky spot over time. Nobody believed that, maybe that is being proved right here too.
  • pleppik
    pleppik Solar Expert Posts: 62 ✭✭✭✭
    Fusion is where its at, in about 20 years from now fusion reactors will be in almost every home if you could afford one.
    http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html

    Perpetual motion is a scam, takes energy to make lesser energy, law of physics

    I saw that. It's interesting, but 100% completely speculative since they haven't actually built anything yet.

    Never say never, but the smart money is that in about 20 years fusion reactors will still be 20 years in the future. It's been that way for at least three full 20-year cycles so far.
  • SolarPowered
    SolarPowered Solar Expert Posts: 626 ✭✭✭
    For today's entertainment. Backyard fusion reactor....
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIOZ_aMrKos