A balanced wheel once put in motion will spin forever if there is no force acting against it. ie. in an ideal or perfect system.

Hans von Lieven

...
Center of mass is persistently to the right of the axis of rotation according to the wm2d, therefore, this must be a perpetuum mobile if we are to believe the program....
...
The decisive factor proving perpetuum mobile is the observed persistent discrepancy in the position of the axis of rotation and the center of mass....
...
The program seems to be correct on that and it's proving unequivocally this device is a perpetuum mobile, at least in the ideal case. I've repeated this multiple times and I'm saying it again because, unfortunately, you don't want to hear it....
...
If these centers are correctly placed by the program (as they seem to be) at the different moments of turning of the wheel and if they always stay sideways to one another at any position of the wheel, that's a definitive proof that the device is a perpetuum mobile. Interestingly, that's exactly what's observed with the model of Abeling's device.
...
The conclusion is that the model of Abeling's rig is a perpetuum mobile at least in the ideal case....
...
One also doesn't need the ramp. Just the slotted wheel and the spheres, positioned where they would be if the ramp were present, is enough for the conclusion (the ramp, by the way is very light and practically doesn't contribute to the calculation of the center of mass). This can be repeated for different positions of the wheel within its full turn only to observe that the center of mass is positioned always sideways to the pivot. That clearly is a proof that the device is a perpetuum mobile. Simple but categorical criterion....
...
This has to be studied more now that we know that perpetuum mobile is possible in principle....
...
No, no, we're discussing an ideal situation. No resistance, only masses and gravity. It's a perpetuum mobile, no doubt about that....
...
Reality of perpetuum mobile has already been proven beyond doubt theoretically. What remains now is to see it as a working model. I don't doubt that it has been done in the past but many fall for the propaganda and repeat its mantra that it hasn't been done before. That's just propaganda. It has and that can be confirmed at once theoretically....
...
For a device such as the one we're discussing to be a perpetuum mobile the mass must be off center at all positions of the wheel making it always a self-starter. Such self-starter won't work only due to poor engineering....
...

Unbalanced wheel, on the other hand, even if not set in motion will spin forever when let go from a standstill if correctly engineered, let alone if the conditions are ideal.

Seems to me an "unbalanced wheel" will seek the position of maximum entropy, which just happens to be "balanced". Once that is achieved, there is no more motion.

Here's one definition:
"a non-conserved thermodynamic state function, measured in terms of the number of microstates a system can assume, which corresponds to a degradation in usable energy."

Here's another:
"a measure of the partial loss of the ability of a system to perform work due to the effects of irreversibility."

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

The heavy side of the unbalanced wheel will settle to the bottom and no further work will be done.

Incorrect.

An unbalanced wheel will not spin, even in an ideal system, unless there is an outside force acting upon it. If there is no outside force it will behave like a pendulum.

Hans von Lieven

@All,

Those who are reading this exchange shouldn't be misled by the semantics which Hans likes to play with. This isn't a literary conversation and it is well known in what sense the term unbalanced wheel is used here -- unbalanced wheel in this conversation is a wheel whose center of mass is always to the right (in the discussed case) of the axis of rotation for any thinkable position of that wheel. One such wheel is the one in Abeling's patent. Such wheel, even without an external impetus, always seeks equilibrium and never finds it.

There is no such unbalanced wheel in Abeling's patent howevermuch you want to see it that way. Abelings patent is Patent Nonsense!

Hans von Lieven