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Author Topic: Building a self looping "SMOT"  (Read 296258 times)

MileHigh

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #405 on: October 31, 2013, 02:26:26 AM »
Here I found a document on the Internet.  I hope that you have an Apple II.

Pirate88179

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #406 on: October 31, 2013, 02:40:45 AM »

  Another approach is to place the steel ball (or 2 or 3 or...n) on a wheel with a GOOD bearing.  And a mag-ramp along one side (or 2 or so).  Here an increase in energy in the system is reflected in an increased speed of rotation (omega).  And the wheel can be horizontal or vertical (or in between).  The wheel becomes the "track" and should have much less frictional losses.

  This is the one I will try.  Does anyone know if the wheel-SMOT has already been tried?  (by whom if so?)    Note:  I'm not talking about the wheel-device which raises the magnet to get things past the sticky-point (although that is interesting, especially if it worked and accelerated). 

I plan to use inertia and gravity to get past the sticky-point, as in the vids by Mehess and Shaw and wytdyk, but with a low-friction wheel this time, instead of a track.

Yes, I posited this idea on this site here somewhere about 3 years ago and have a great set-up for testing my theory.  I have never posted any videos of my work in this area because, thus far, nothing to show.  My idea was to use the SMOT approach from the 2 o'clock position to the the 5 o'clock position such that, gravity would aid in the steel ball mounted on my bicycle rim (with very good low friction bearings using light machine oil) and it would pick up just enough push to make it go past 12:00 and repeat.  The steel ball will go from 12 back to 11 without any magnets.

So far, no dice.  Maybe when I get done with some other projects, I will get back to it again.

Bill

lumen

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #407 on: October 31, 2013, 02:45:27 AM »
Based on the equations, it took a predetermined amount of fuel/propellant to lift the mass of the rocket carrying the Juno spacecraft against the force of gravity out into space then to break free from the Earth’s gravity and then for it to travel to a certain velocity.  Once that fuel/propellant was spent, in order to increase this velocity, even in the low friction vacuum of space requires more fuel/propellant to be spent.  Juno used the gravity sling-shot to increase its velocity without burning more fuel/propellants to do so.  Was more fuel spent?  If it was, was it spent to increase its velocity or only to maintain direction and for control?  So, Yes, the increase in velocity was accomplished by a gravity sling shot effect...means gravity produced work, the same effect as burning more fuel/propellants. So you are telling us that no work is done unless fuel is consumed, got it.

The problem here is that it was not the gravity that did the work, it was the earth moving through space that applied the energy.
Gravity served only as a tie to earth much the same way as a rope or rubber band. The same effect can be seen in a water skier as the boat makes a turn the skier can accelerate to a speed faster than the boat, but it was not the rope doing the work, it was the boat and the skier doing a slingshot effect.
 

tinman

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #408 on: October 31, 2013, 04:13:08 AM »
If you are going to try and produce any kind of convincing analysis then you would be wise to use the generally accepted terminology and usage when discussing Newtonian mechanics. Otherwise it just makes your explanation look totally meaningless . (Which it is).

Firstly, energy is a scalar quantity. It does NOT have a direction associated with it. 

What you have drawn is an estimation of the FORCES acting on the ball.

The ball only has 'energy' due to it either moving (kinetic energy) or having potential to move (gravitational and/or magnetic potential energy).
The ball has both kinetic and potential energy-the ball is moving,and gravity is acting apon it.
Force has direction associated to it,and a given force over time requires a given amount of energy.

What part dont you understand?.

tinman

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #409 on: October 31, 2013, 05:19:33 AM »
Tinman:

I hit my keyboard the wrong way and I lost my posting by closing the browser tab. I hate that so I'm just going to rattle it off from memory.

For the brick, I mentioned the resistance of the wire.  But in the context of the question, "work on the brick" only refers to whether the brick is lifted or not.  Beyond that I agree that all sources of energy should be taken into account when you analyze a system.

For the clip, I don't see two other places where there is increased energy.  Please indicate what you mean.  My take on the clip is that it's pretty straightforward.  The ball gets no net energy as it goes through the ramp and it's the gravity boost at the end that allows the ball to continue rolling.

You are still forgetting or having trouble visualizing the fact that the ball is still inside a potential energy well as it falls when it gets back to the same level it started at.  The ball may be moving, as compared to being still when it starts.  But you still are not factoring in the magnetic potential energy at both positions and you have to.  The falling ball has less energy than the ball in the starting position.

I looked at the Billmehess video that was linked to and I saw two major errors.

Sorry, but there is something about rewriting a posting that you lost that is so difficult, I don't know why.

MileHigh
Quote; For the clip, I don't see two other places where there is increased energy.

Not increased energy,but the potential to increase the energy of the ball,and decrease it's energy loss. This is why i say that the present design is not as efficient as it could be made.
You said in a previous post that you can look at the video clip's,and determond what was happening. So i would like you to look at it again,and tell me where you think we can gain both kinetic and potential energy in the ball,useing the motion of the system. 1 of these losses i have already shown in post 393Im refering to this video,and this design of smot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VN6KWM8Rbc

Quote: You are still forgetting or having trouble visualizing the fact that the ball is still inside a potential energy well as it falls when it gets back to the same level it started at.

Absolutely not.Look at my pic on post 392. You will see that i have included the magnetic field,and im well aware that it is acting apon the ball.
Please note that both scetches are only a visual recognition,and are not intended to be exact,but an indication of my thoughts.

Quote: The falling ball has less energy than the ball in the starting position.

I believe that the ball at the start position only has potential energy(due to the magnetic field),and only gains kinetic energy once it starts moving. The ball,once leaving the smot ramp ,has both kinetic and potential energy. The gravity potential is obviously greater than the magnetic potential,or the ball wouldnt drop. Most of the energy in the ball is lost on the exit ramp,where it has to make a 90* change of direction. This is something that must be eliminated. This is the same flaw in all the smot devices i have seen.

tinman

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #410 on: October 31, 2013, 05:31:53 AM »
I'm not lying either, then why are you still a mile high?
Michael
I found that in 99% of cases,MH has been correct,along with TK.
What im saying is ,put forth your case,but keep your argument civil.Name calling or quick punt's at other members,only results in a thread turning to trash.
MH has earned respect in the time he has been here,and although i may not agree with him on all thing's,dosnt give me the right to badger him. In regards to this thread,i will probably find he is right again,but if there is a chance that what i think is correct,then i keep on looking.

This is what you must do. If you believe you are right,then continue with your work,but let the argument remain civil.
I myself believe it can be done-i dont have a CANT DO attitude-unless it is completly obvious that it wont work.

MileHigh

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #411 on: October 31, 2013, 07:04:44 AM »
Tinman:

There is nothing that you can do about the friction losses except to reduce them as much as possible but they will still be there.  Is that your strategy to decrease the energy losses?  I still can't see how you can increase the energy when you factor in all three components as the true definition for the energy of the ball, KE + GPE + MPE.  One of the problems with the Billmehess clip is he just looks at the GPE.

Your reference to post #393 suggests to me that you want to change the way the downward part of the ramp is formed to preserve as much energy as possible.  Here is where I simplify and just think in terms of energy.  The ball has it's three energy components let's say at point A at the top of the ramp.   Lets say point B is three inches away from that at the bottom of the ramp.  So there is an energy change there for the magnetic potential energy and the gravitational potential energy.  That will determine what kinetic energy the ball has at point B.   In other words, it's "predetermined" how fast the ball will be moving at point B, and it's independent of the form of the ramp.  The form of the ramp is within reason, it can't be a straight drop down.  It's like watching a roller coaster but you also throw magnets into the mix.

Quote
I believe that the ball at the start position only has potential energy(due to the magnetic field),and only gains kinetic energy once it starts moving. The ball,once leaving the smot ramp ,has both kinetic and potential energy. The gravity potential is obviously greater than the magnetic potential,or the ball wouldnt drop. Most of the energy in the ball is lost on the exit ramp,where it has to make a 90* change of direction. This is something that must be eliminated. This is the same flaw in all the smot devices i have seen.

That sounds just about perfect.  I would add that the ball also has GPE when it starts.  If you decide that the height where you release the ball is zero, then the ball has zero GPE at the start.  Note that when the ball finally falls down onto the second track, that full dropping distance is the total GPE that the ball has "absorbed."  You are trying to preserve that precious GPE by turning it into KE.  You need the KE to get you back up to where you started.  It's like juggling three "energy balls."

Here is the issue:  When you really get down to the nitty-gritty, no mater how good or unique or alternative-thinking your setup is, as the ball interchanges GPE, KE and MPE through time as it runs down the track, friction is always eating away at the KE and bleeding off some of your available energy and turning it into heat.  You can approach the limit and build it out of ceramics or some high tech composite material, and run it in a vacuum chamber, and you still can't remove all of the friction.

Anyway, you are well on your way and I hope that you have fun doing the build and doing the testing.

MileHigh

MileHigh

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #412 on: October 31, 2013, 07:47:09 AM »
This makes me think of how to measure the speed of the ball.  Assume you don't use a camera and process video frames which is a hassle in itself.  Is there a system that anybody has come up with?  Perhaps it's already in the Arduino grab bag?

The first thing that comes to mind for me is an optical slot switch, connected an Arduino A/D converter, or perhaps a digital input, and some software.  There may be serious alignment issues with an optical slot switch, I am not sure.  Don't forget it's a ball and has a variable profile as you go off center.  Perhaps there are "smart" optical slot switches where the ball passes through a series of parallel IR beams and so the alignment issue is not a factor.

You could also do something like a guitar pickup.  It's also another op-amp project.  You take a relay coil and carefully remove the core.  Then you put a long and thin cylindrical magnet into the core.  You connect the relay coil to an op-amp configured as a comparitor.  Something very simple something like Conrad's circuit.  Then when the ball rolls past the relay coil the slight change in the permeability of the immediate surroundings will induce a voltage in the coil and trigger the comparitor.

So when the ball rolls past the sensor coil it should trigger the comparitor.  Obviously the faster the ball is moving the shorter the comparitor is triggered.  So you connect the comparitor output to an Arduino digital input, turn the crank, and the Arduino displays meters per second on the display.  You could easily use the hardware timer(s) built into the Arduino so that the software just has to read a count register, which makes life easier.  There is the issue of calibration, and probably still the issue of alignment, to be determined.  Even if it only made relative measurements, it would be a fun project.

It's a fun little challenge; how do you measure the speed of the ball in a cheap and reliable home-brew kid of way?

MileHigh

LibreEnergia

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #413 on: October 31, 2013, 08:25:13 AM »
The ball has both kinetic and potential energy-the ball is moving,and gravity is acting apon it.
Force has direction associated to it,and a given force over time requires a given amount of energy.

What part dont you understand?.

The bit that I don't understand is why you would persist in displaying such basic errors of understanding when I have already pointed out that you should at least  be using the commonly accepted definitions when talking Newtonian mechanics.

The quantity force over time is known as impulse, not energy. 

A "given force over a given time" does not require a given amount of energy. It only results work done if it causes an object to move.


tinman

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #414 on: October 31, 2013, 08:28:51 AM »
@MH
I was thinking the same thing,in regards to setting up a test exit ramp,and measureing how much the ball is slowed when makeing the 90* turn.By useing my HD camera,and having a 3 decimal point timer behind the ramp,i could calculate the speed loss of the ball after the turn. If the ball lost half it's speed,that would mean the ball lost half it's kinetic energy + friction losses.

I am also supprised that you cannot see the other action takeing place,that could be turned into an energy gain. At the moment with setups like the video i posted last,not useing this potential gain is resulting in two losses within the system. No extra work has to be done by the system to get this gain,and as far as the system go's-this will be a big gain.
The fact that you cant see it(or anyone else so far),gives me reason to press on. Could it no be possable that i see something others have not?

Like i said befor,i have never paid much attention to the smot device,until Chet asked me to have a look at this thread. Within the first couple of video's i watched,i saw the enegy gain possibility in the system-which removes two losses when applied.

What i would like,is for you to also look into the energy loss as the ball makes that 90* turn on the exit ramp.i already have a way to remove all that loss,but we need to know what% that loss is. This will give us an idea as to how much we will gain. Maybe TK(if he has the time) could look into this loss aswell.

I have just got back from our plastic factory here,and have all the material i need to build the ramp.I also just cleaned out the hobby store of all there PM's lol. I wont be useing an aluminum track,as we know that places drag on a moving magnet-which the ball becomes when in the smots magnetic field.

So now,off to start my test ramp,and try and get some speed reduction calculations on the ball.

TinselKoala

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #415 on: October 31, 2013, 09:37:27 AM »
@MH
I was thinking the same thing,in regards to setting up a test exit ramp,and measureing how much the ball is slowed when makeing the 90* turn.By useing my HD camera,and having a 3 decimal point timer behind the ramp,i could calculate the speed loss of the ball after the turn. If the ball lost half it's speed,that would mean the ball lost half it's kinetic energy + friction losses.
Wrong.
Kinetic Energy == 1/2 (mass x velocity SQUARED)  so half the speed = 1/4 the KE.

And don't try to say that this error doesn't matter! If you have been thinking all this time that KE is directly proportional to velocity, rather than to the square of the velocity... that's a pretty big conceptual error and will "resonate" through your whole world-view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/energy/u5l1c.cfm
http://formulas.tutorvista.com/physics/kinetic-energy-formula.html

tinman

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #416 on: October 31, 2013, 10:32:43 AM »
Wrong.
Kinetic Energy == 1/2 (mass x velocity SQUARED)  so half the speed = 1/4 the KE.

And don't try to say that this error doesn't matter! If you have been thinking all this time that KE is directly proportional to velocity, rather than to the square of the velocity... that's a pretty big conceptual error and will "resonate" through your whole world-view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/energy/u5l1c.cfm
http://formulas.tutorvista.com/physics/kinetic-energy-formula.html
Yes,i was just comeing back to correct that after doing some reading,but i see(as usual) you have quickly jumped on my mistake. But it was a mistake that is in our favour. So the correction would be,if our ball slows by 1/2 of it's speed makeing that 90* turn,then we have lost 4x the kinetic energy that ball had-Did i get that right?.
Now another mistake i made (some where back in the thread)was to say mass is directly related to weight,which is not the case. But who is going to the moon or another planet anyway.

You are good at picking up on mistakes of others TK,so maybe you can watch the video,and find the potetial energy gain we could get from the system?-MH has missed it so far. Can you spot it as well as you spot peoples mistakes?.

Newton II

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #417 on: October 31, 2013, 12:38:11 PM »


@TK

You seem to be intelligent in answering qustions.  I have got one question:

The motion of earth around the sun, motion of electrons around nucleus and several such cases are accelerated motions.   For accelerated motions you have to apply force continuously inturn supply continuous energy since these bodies are in motion.  For bodies in uniform motion in space you need not supply energy unless you intend to accelerate it.

Who is supplying energy to keep these bodies in continuous accelerated motion?   Is it God or field?   If gravitational field is supplying  continuous energy to keep earth in accelerated motion then should gravitational field be considered as force field,  energy field or God field or just a space time curve in space?

The following wiki page says that psuedo-forces can do work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_force








TinselKoala

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #418 on: October 31, 2013, 12:44:43 PM »
Tinman asked,
"So the correction would be,if our ball slows by 1/2 of it's speed makeing that 90* turn,then we have lost 4x the kinetic energy that ball had-Did i get that right?."

Well, that's not quite the way I'd put it in words. If you lose 1/2 the speed, you wind up with 1/4 the KE remaining. 

For example, if you have a 1 kilogram mass and you are first going 2 m/sec, your KE is (1kg x 2 m/sec x 2 m/sec)/2 or 2 Joules. If you slow down to 1 m/sec your KE is (1kg x 1 m/sec x 1 m/sec)/2 or 0.5 Joule. Half the speed = a quarter the KE.

So you are losing 3/4 of the KE the ball had. Or you could say, if you reduce (or increase) your speed by a factor of 2, you reduce (or increase) your KE by a factor of 22, or 4. If you reduce speed by a factor of 3 (leaving 1/3 of what you started with) you reduce KE by 32, or a factor of 9, leaving 1/9 of what you started with.

Now, linear _momentum_ is just "p = mv" so maybe that's what you were thinking of at first. But in momentum, the "v" is a vector, that is, it has a direction as well as a magnitude, and momentum is also always conserved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum

I'll watch the video _yet again_ with an eye to what you are looking at, but I still think some of your basic assumptions are wrong, and so it is likely that you and I will interpret what we are seeing differently.

(Please check my math, I'm notorious for misplacing decimals or forgetting to divide by two in the KE calculation).

TinselKoala

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Re: Building a self looping "SMOT"
« Reply #419 on: October 31, 2013, 12:50:20 PM »

@TK

You seem to be intelligent in answering qustions.  I have got one question:

The motion of earth around the sun, motion of electrons around nucleus and several such cases are accelerated motions.   For accelerated motions you have to apply force continuously inturn supply continuous energy since these bodies are in motion.  For bodies in uniform motion in space you need not supply energy unless you intend to accelerate it.

Who is supplying energy to keep these bodies in continuous accelerated motion?   Is it God or field?   If gravitational field is supplying  continuous energy to keep earth in accelerated motion then should gravitational field be considered as force field,  energy field or God field or just a space time curve in space?

The following wiki page says that psuedo-forces can do work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_force

In the accelerated motions you mention, uniform circular motion, the direction of the applied force is always at a right angle to the circular motion. The accelerated object does not travel in that direction, though, so there isn't any work done, therefore no energy is "expended".

From your Wiki reference:
Quote
Fictitious forces can be considered to do work, provided that they move an object on a trajectory that changes its energy from potential to kinetic.
The acceleration due to gravity that keeps planets in circular orbits does not change the planet's energy from PE to KE, because it always acts at a right angle to the motion. No work is done since the force does not act over a distance (the radius of the orbit isn't changing). For closed elliptical orbits the inward work is balanced by the outward work so over a full orbit, again no net work, no energy expended.