@xpenzif,

This is incorrect. Read again what I wrote and try to understand it.

Low-Q, the camera I borrowed can take video's, but when I took those photo's I hadn't yet seen any more than ten or twenty degrees of rotor movement and didn't think it was worth filming.  I was also in a hurry at the time. 

I don't know many people who have camera's who'd be willing to lend one to me or who I'd be willing to ask.  The camera I used is one I bought for my mum and she lives too far away to justify travelling here just to let me take some photo's.  On top of that, there'd be nothing to see except a piece of round wood moving for a fraction of a second then stopping.  And to cap it all off, that configuration of magnets has since changed and would be a real pain to set up again.  Sorry if this all sounds like excuses but it's just the way it is.

I'm not even sure the degree of rotation I did get was due to the device partially working as designed, or whether it was just some other useless effect.

Imagine the rotor magnets as a 'ball' balanced at the top of the first of a series of 'hills', the 'hills' being the rows of magnets on the toroid.  When I rolled the 'ball' up and over the first 'hill', it went up and over the next one, then the next, and kept going up and over about nine of these 'hills' before stopping.  I have no idea if these 'hills' were all the same shape and size (magnetically speaking), whether it was just the initial impetus keeping it going, or what.  At the time it did look like it was somehow re-pushing itself along, but I can't say that it definitely was.  It could simply be that there was a sticky spot at the start that required more force than usual to roll over, and that once I applied that force it was enough to keep the thing going longer than normal, even though at the time I got no sense of this being so.

I don't know what else to say.  It's only that I think about it now, and since other arrangements haven't produced the same effect, that the movement seems in any way significant.  I pretty much dismissed it at the time, in the interests of trying to do better, and I'm still not inclined to place much importance on it.  That may be a mistake, I don't know.

Sorry if I've wasted your time by making you think unecessarily about all this.  I just considered my own results inconclusive at best and wondered if anyone else had any other results or suggestions while I've still got all the bits and pieces at hand.

Les.     

Interesting thought.

What is the most efficient angle to bring two magnets into alignment that uses the least force and then letting the magnets depart at a different angle, again with the most efficient configuration to gain more energy on the exit than on the entry.

The Steorn conversations went down this avenue, Fast in to sway the magnetic domains, Pause and let the domains align and then exit kick creates more energy than the input. But no conclusions seemed to come around, just theories.

If we get this sussed then the rest is easy!!

Regards

Sean.

Suppose two magnets are held together in opposition(like north pole on north pole).
Is the force with which the two magnets push apart equal, or less than the force it took to actually put them in this position of opposition?

The same can be asked about attraction: Is the energy that can be generated from two magnets attracting each other equal, or less than the energy it will take to pull them back apart?

These spiral designs can be elusive. The work that is done by a magnet has to be "undone"(thats why you get sticky spots).