I have the sneaking suspicion that a magnet motor even if self-sustaining will never be an overunity machine. If magnets lasted forever this would have been a different story. I hope someone with the necessary knowledge will reply to clear this for me and everyone else. To me a magnet is like a battery. You create it and you charge it. It takes then some time for the magnet to return to its original state with its original properties i.e. no magnetic flux. Just like a battery it will go "flat". If you leave it sitting in the cupboard it will take a very long time. If you use it to do some work it will take shorter time to go flat. The question I want answered is: How much energy is required to create a magnet with particular properties? If this magnet was then used to create electrical energy for example in a device which was self-sustaining and 100% efficient, will the magnet manage to create that same amount of energy before it goes flat? It seems like a logical idea that the magnet will only produce as much energy in its lifetime as was used to create it, and that is if it is used in a machine that is 100% efficient. I am unsure about this and wish someone knew the answer.

I agree with Liberty. A magnet is not like a normal electric battery.

If you leave it sitting in the cupboard it will take a very long time. If you use it to do some work it will take shorter time to go flat.

We have magnetic motors and alternators capable to work for long years in normal use. The magnets inside these machines don't go flat. They are in your hard drive, in your dvd, in your cd player... Also, if you have a magnet just place it on the handle of a window, oron your fridge, and check it after some year. If the magnet didn't receive any outsider influence, it will still there. Worked against the gravity all the time, and didn't go flat. Or put two magnets (facing the same poles each other) in a pipe, where they exactly fit in the pipe. One is floating above the other. Check it after some time, and the upper one is still floating.

How much energy is required to create a magnet with particular properties? If this magnet was then used to create electrical energy for example in a device which was self-sustaining and 100% efficient, will the magnet manage to create that same amount of energy before it goes flat?

The magnet always do the same work in every second. But the strongest point of the magnetic field is inside the magnetic material. So It can't do 100% the same amount of work, but It can do a given force (depending on distance) all time.
How much energy is required? I also interested in this question, but I don't know...
You can immagine a magnet better if you check its magnetic lines of force in 2d with the use of iron filings. It draws curves coming from one pole and returned to the other. When magnets made, this field was created. It can symbolize the energy closed inside the magnet.

What happens when a magnet induce electricity in a coil?
Physics usually don't say too much about this. Only say induction and usually thats all. But you can immagine particles circulating around and inside the magnetic material on the way of the flux lines. And inside the coils also there are many same particles "standing".
And these particles around the magnet, and inside the wire, they are twitting, when close enough the "team" of each other. So, when you move the magnet, you also move the particles inside the wire of your induction coil. Or when you move the coil, it's almost the same.  So, not the magnets charge the coils with particles, they only move the particles due the natural "attraction" between these particles. And once they move, this can be used to do work in an electric circuit, or something.

Of course, this is only my heretic theory, I developed myself one time I tried to understand what happens. I think you never find similar explanation in a physic book, like I didn't find one.

I have the sneaking suspicion that a magnet motor even if self-sustaining will never be an overunity machine.

At last I agree with your guess:
A self sustaining magnetic motor itself is still not mean overunity in my heretic opinion. Simply you can't use all the power inside the magnets, and can't convert all the power what you can use.

Hope I helped a bit. But this is just my viewpoint, and my theory, not the same as the physics books say.

Greg

To both replies above:
I know magnets can operate for long time but how long? Not forever. Magnets in your hard drive will go flat, so will the ones on your fridge door, its just a matter of time. If you suspend one magnet over another and it floats on top it is only a matter of time before it comes closer and closer until it contacts the bottom magnet. You can't ignore this fact just because it is a long period of time. Long period of time doesn't mean forever. My question was about energy required by a magnet to gain its properties and energy that can potentialy be produced by a magnet until it looses its properties.

I understand that when a magnet is created, they use a short high power pulse to align the poles in the 'would be magnet'.  It is a fairly high power that is used, but for a fairly short time pulse, just to be strong enough to align the poles.  (I don't know how much power is used to set up a magnet, maybe someone out there does?)  Once the poles are aligned in the magnet, the integrity of the magnet is established and will last for quite some time (some say for hundreds of years perhaps), but some magnets may weaken shortly after the creation process if all of the poles don't stay aligned (may depend on the material in the magnet)??  Of course no person lives that long to tell if it is true).  A strong magnetic field can weaken the alignment of the magnet if it is close enough and strong enough to 'overpower' the alignment within it.  (Just in the same way the magnet was created to start with, by realigning or scrambling the direction of the pole alignment.)

That is why I say that as long as you don't subject a permanent magnet to a stronger magnetic field that is disruptive to it's internal integrity, it will probably remain and continue to be a magnet for quite some time (meaning probably beyond your lifetime).  Even if used in a motor.  The type of magnet material also determines the length of life and it's strength.

Old speakers in old radios and tv's from the days when tubes were used, still usually work, or if they fail, it is due to paper cone damage, I have never seen one fail due to a magnet failure in my lifetime and probably won't.  I still have a 1940 Airline (Wards shortwave radio that uses tubes that still works well).

Here is a Q&A on magnets that might answer some of your questions:
http://www.magnetsales.com/Design/FAQs_frames/FAQs_2.htm#howperm

I have the sneaking suspicion that a magnet motor even if self-sustaining will never be an overunity machine. If magnets lasted forever this would have been a different story. I hope someone with the necessary knowledge will reply to clear this for me and everyone else. To me a magnet is like a battery. You create it and you charge it. It takes then some time for the magnet to return to its original state with its original properties i.e. no magnetic flux. Just like a battery it will go "flat". If you leave it sitting in the cupboard it will take a very long time. If you use it to do some work it will take shorter time to go flat. The question I want answered is: How much energy is required to create a magnet with particular properties? If this magnet was then used to create electrical energy for example in a device which was self-sustaining and 100% efficient, will the magnet manage to create that same amount of energy before it goes flat? It seems like a logical idea that the magnet will only produce as much energy in its lifetime as was used to create it, and that is if it is used in a machine that is 100% efficient. I am unsure about this and wish someone knew the answer.

Here is the web link that has a short description of the motor that I made mostly out of permanent magnets.  It is: http://www.airlancomputer.com/page8.html

Liberty

Hello TEguy,

All I can say is check out a dc motor.  Chances are it will have permanent magnets for the fields.   

I have an old wheel chare motor that is very old, maybe 30 years.  The permanent magnets are still good as new.   Hard to tell how many hours this thing has on it.   If you think permanent magnets will go dead, how due you explain this. The magnets in this motor can be replaced for around $10.00.  I think there has been more than $10.00 worth of use out of them.

Permanent magnets will last for severial life times if used correctly and not overly abused.  Rare earth magnets are, I am told will last for severial thousend years.   

Later,,,,,JackH

I don't believe that a PM only motor will ever be built that will produce usable power for a long period of time.  Magnets exhibit a force.  That force is very useful, but I think it can be shown that it is impossible to arrange a bunch of forces is a closed configuration that will be constantly out of balance.  For a PM motor to "run" it must be constantly out of balance, force-wise.  I don't think this arrangement can occur.

It is kind of like the old story about being stuck in outer space outside the capsule and you are moving away.  You are out of rocket fuel and you can't get back.  How do you move?  The only way is to take off your shoe or something and throw it away from you.  This action will cause a reaction that causes you to move.  Now close yourself inside a box.  Throw the shoe.  The shoe will accelerate you to one side of the box, while it moves toward the other side.  When you and the shoe collide with the box walls, the whole box ends up in the same place it was before, because the system is "closed", the same way any PM only motor must be.  Once you "box in" the forces, you are stuck with a system that will eventually (quickly) balance.

I believe that no matter how you initially arrange the forces, they will not remain out of balance to operate the device.

I do think that devices like perendev can appear to work for a seemingly long period of time.  I would explain this as a "winding up" effect.  If you notice, when the perendev design is "closed", a good amount of force is applied to close the clamshell around the rotor.  Compared to the amount of energy that it takes to rotate the rotor, which is on bearings, the energy to close the clamshell is large.  This initial energy makes the perendev design accelerate and spin impressively fast.  I think that the perendev device will be proven to not work when it is actually released for true scrutiny (I predict it will never be released for true independent testing.)

I have stated before that I believe if you actually arrange a PM device in a way that it does rotate, indicating you are getting power from the magnets, the magnets will fail.  The fact of the matter is, if the device spins (past the initial "windup"), the energy is coming from somewhere.  If there is no electrical input, the energy must really be coming from the magnets.  if energy is coming from the magnets, the magnets must be depleted, and will be depleted.

As noted before, there are at least two examples of motors that "worked", that depleted the magnets.  I don't recall any other examples of motors self running.  Thus, the ones that appear to have run depleted the magnets.  None of the others ran (no credible evidence of having run).

Magnets are an unending source of force.  Not an unending source of energy.

I don't discount that there may be a way to arrange magnets and other things to produce OU COP, but I don't believe it will happen with magnets only.  The energy has to come from somewhere, and it isn't going to come from the magnets, unless the magnets deplete in the process.

Just my opinion, of course.

Jake

Hi Jake,

I like your logical analysis of the various ideas presented on this site. I'm curious what you have to say about the Finsrud device?

Albert

Hi Jake,

I like your logical analysis of the various ideas presented on this site. I'm curious what you have to say about the Finsrud device?

Albert

Albert,

Thank you for the kind words.  I try hard to be objective in a subjective world.


My personal reaction to Finsrud is, I don't like devices that are that "mechanical".  It also appears to fall in the category of devices that could only ever hope to keep turning themselves.  There was another thread here somewhere where the usefulness of this type of device was being debated, and I weighed in there.  In general  I find this type of device kind of useless because if it can't hope to produce significant torque beyond what it takes to turn itself, what can you do with it?  Arguably if it would produce 1w of excess energy, it proves a point.  But how big would it have to be to power even a single light bulb?

For the sake of mankind, a heat pump with a 10% higher COP is a more useful device - in my opinion.  Incremental improvements are where the tangible gains are going to be made.

It doesn't seem that the Finsrud device "works" either, so I guess it doesn't matter much.  Something about the glue drying out???  What's that about?

Jake