March 18, 2009; 8:45-10:25 pm Mountain
I just got off the phone with Mylow, who phoned me. We talked for nearly 1:45 hours. He gave me all the dimensions and parameters as he has information available. I will be posting that. Interesting stuff. He is to be congratulated on his breakthrough."
Here's the link to my report:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mylow_magmo/message/7 Here's our page:
http://peswiki.com/energy/MYLOWI'll quote my report here:
NOTE: This is a rough draft. I have not yet passed it by Mylow to make sure it is accurate.
REPORT OF MY PHONE CONVERSATION WITH MYLOW THIS EVENING
March 19, 2009, midnight
Mylow has been tackling the attempt to duplicate the Howard Johnson design since it was first featured in Popular Mechanics nearly 30 years ago.
After years of trial and error, pouring over everything he could find on the subject, he said that he noticed that there were differences between the Howard Johnson patents and the photos that exist of the actual devices. He decided to go with the photos rather than the patents.
It was just about a month ago that he was in the Science and Surplus store in Chicago that he stumbled into a box of C/U - shaped alnico magnets, noticed that they resembled Howard Johnson's magnets, and purchased them for around $25.
I asked him if he is sure that the rotor and stator magnets he is using are alnico magnets. He said he is 100% sure, because that is what was on the purchase receipt. He thought they looked like they may have come from an older hard drive design, or possibly they were used in old 8-track players to erase the tape.
These rotor magnets are polarization with N on the two tip ends and S being on the back side.
[see image below]
They are quite small: just 1" inch tall, 1/4" wide, and 1/4" thick. The protrusions at the top and bottom of the C (or top left and right of the U) are 1/8" in length. They have a shine to them similar to a neodymium magnet.
Not realizing this was a synchronicity, he assumed one could find these anywhere. That's why he made a comment to that effect in one of the earlier videos.
The stator magnet, also alnico (is stamped "G5") is one he's had kicking around for quite some time. Referring to the up-side-down U orientation of the magnet, the magnet is 1" long from the bottom far left to the bottom far right. The bottom left and bottom right legs of the up-side-down U are 1/4" wide each. The magnet is 13/16" deep. The dimension from the bottom to the very top of the arc of the up-side-down U is 5/8" high. The dimension from the bottom of the up-side-down U to the bottom of the arc is 3/8" high.
In giving these dimensions that Mylow was reading off the tape measure as we were on the phone, I should mention that he has a bit of a struggle with the tape measure as to what is 1/8 and what is 1/16. I was able to establish that his tape measure is broken into 1/16 increments as the smallest marking. He would then tell me the dimensions in terms of "1/2 plus two of those little marks". Please don't get on Mylow's case for having a challenge with this thing that is so easy to most of us. Remember that some people who appear to be challenged in easy things, are usually compensated by superior talent in other areas, such as intuition or following hunches. For those of you working up schematics from these numbers, it would be good to refer to the still shots of the videos Mylow has provided in order to get proper proportions.
Mylow said that there is a shop near him that he takes his stator magnet to re-magnetize it. He said they have a big electromagnet, and the process includes quenching the magnet in a hydrogen bath for five minutes. After it is recharged, the magnet works best for about two to three hours, after which it begins growing weak. As we were timing the rotation speed over the phone, he remarked that the speed was quite a bit slower now than it was last night. (He said it has been running for about 28 hours continuous). He had stopped it so we could take some measurements. When he got it spinning again, it was rotating at around 30 rpm in the first fifteen seconds. After about five minutes, it was spinning at 77 rpm (36 rev in 28 seconds).
Getting the things going is a bit of a science as well, which he addresses in several of his videos. He calls it a "sweet spot" where the pull begins overcoming the gate. While we were talking, he noticed that the motor tended to want to self-start in the region of the set of 4 magnets.
The aluminum rotor and high-precision bearing apparatus Mylow has been using is something his brother machined for him years ago. He's applied many different combinations of magnets on that rotor, scraping them off with a razor. That's why he uses crazy glue, and not something more permanent.
You will notice in earlier videos (from about a month ago), Mylow's prototype had sets of 7 of these rotor magnets placed around the perimeter of the rotor. When he went back to the Science and Surplus store, he was chagrinned to learn that they had no more of them, and that the manufacturer no longer makes them.
In a "what happens if I do this?" approach, he removed the middle of the seven magnets, leaving 3&3, followed by a large space before the next set of 3&3. He was then able to fill in the last set of 3&3, with one exception. One of the nine sets of 3&3 actually has four magnets. The non-symmetry seems to be a key to the operation of the motor. You can see that 4&3 set quite clearly in the upper left portion of the wheel in the YouTube preview of Mylow's March 17 video showing his motor in motion (see
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:_MYLOW%27s_Magnetic_Motor_based_on_Howard_Johnson%27s_Design#Spins_When_Horseshoe_Magnet_Gets_Close_Enough )
It turns out that this is the arrangement that works. It doesn't work if he doesn't put that fourth magnet in on that one set. If it just has 3&3, the motor vibrates quite vigorously and stops spinning. He said there is still a little wobble with the 4th magnet, but at least it works.
Mylow thinks that the key is the spacing of the large gap between each 3&3 set.
Within the 7-set of rotor magnets (with middle one removed), each rotor magnet is separated by 1/4 inch (slightly less). The large space between sets is three inches. He said this spacing is "very critical".
The aluminum wheel part of the rotor is 17-1/8 inches in diameter and has a thickness of 1/8 inches (within 1/16 inch accuracy). Mylow thinks the weight of the aluminum wheel provides a flywheel effect that helps the system work (possibly helping the magnets past of gate, to then be pushed through the next set hard enough to make it through that gate again [my conjecture]).
Regarding the aluminum bar that suspends the single stator magnet, Mylow said he tried putting two stator magnets in, for one on each side, but it didn't work. ([Sterling's note:] It may be that additional stator magnets could be added in, but that they would probably not work in symmetrical locations.) Mylow did try turning the stator magnet up-side-down. When he did, the rotor spun in the opposite direction.
The stator-suspending bar is 20-1/4 inches long, 1-5/8 inches wide, and slight less than 3/16" thick. The wooden supports on each end of the aluminum bar is fastened with aluminum screws. Mylow said he had tried stainless steel screws, but they effected the movement of the rotor, making it jiggle.
The bearings have regular steel balls with chrome.
