"String Motor" Concept (Clean Energy Idea)

[chillspike]

I recently tested what I call a "string motor" I thought of myself. It consisted of a spool of fishing wire with short ferromagnetic beads of string (like those in dog tags) attached at 1" to 1/2" inch intervals along the string...I placed a strong group of magnets on the floor and fed the string into the magnets standing above it...It pulled the string to it's "end" (not the whole reel yet) with no difficulty thus spinning the reel and theoretically generating electricity.

I didn't have many beads on the string (it gets kind of messy and hard to work with) but the experiment demonstrated that it can work. I would just have to create a line of string long enough that it would keep the reel spinning for a long time before it would have to be rerolled manually or replaced. Once I do that I would of course work on how to make the line of string roll itself onto another reel as it works so I don't have to later.

But, if successful, I like this idea over solar or wind because we can control when the energy is made. It doesn't require that the sun be out or the wind blow or the tides move. We control and create the fuel. And it's clean.

Pros:

Is not reliant on nature. Totally man made "fuel". We choose how much of it we want to create.
Clean
Can, and is made to be, reused.
Doesn't challenge the laws of thermodynamics

Could possibly be easily applied to moving vehicles on land, water and air.
Length of string transmits directly to distance a vehicle using the motor can travel on one spool. Ex. if you can fit a 100 mile spool of string in your vehicle, your vehicle can travel 100 miles before your reel of string (fuel) runs out.
Can be used in large power plant energy generation. If the physics works, I could see power plants with giant spools of string miles long and powerful electromagnets generating a constant source of clean energy for cities.
Works on the same principle scientists have been experimenting with magnetic particles at the subatomic level
Principle can be incorporated into a type of "hourglass" design without using string that would allow the motion of falling magnetic (or non magnetic) beads to generation electricity.

Questions:

Can a spool of string be made simultaneously small (compact, light) enough but the string long enough to produce a usable output of energy generation?
How strong does a magnet need to be to pull a reel miles long?
Can the string be made to wound around another spool as it's working to avoid manual rewinding?
how big would the "hourglass" design have to be to generate days or weeks of energy before it needed to be "turned over"?

Your thoughts, suggestions, improvements?


Edit: I think I've already thought of a way to rewind the string. It would work like a measuring tape or one of those reel dog leashes or clothes lines. Once the string was fully unwound by the magnet, the magnet would be covered or removed by a lever and the string would rewind itself generating energy in the opposite direction.

Edit 2: Actually there is an even easier way to rewind the string. Instead, fix the end of each string inside the bottom of it's own container or bottle, for example with the spouts facing each other and a spool, with the string wound around once, in between. The bottles will serve to contain and control the string and a magnet will be introduced at the bottom of the bottle the string is being drawn into. As the string is drawn in any direction, it will move the spool in between the bottles. Once the string is exhausted in one direction, the magnet will be removed from the one bottle and applied to the bottom of the bottle now receiving the string where the cycle continues.

Edit 3: I just want to point out that you wouldn't use actual "string" for this design but some super light, thin and strong material.

What do you guys think?

[Statistical]

1. Perpetual motion machine?

Law of Conservation of Energy?

You can't get something from nothing.

There is no such thing as "making" energy. You can only convert it from one form to another.
Even "powerplants" simply convert energy from one form (chemical energy in fossil fuels) to another (electrical energy).

So what does your machine do?
Simple. It converts chemical energy (in form of calories of the person winding & unwinding it) into electrical energy.
If the machine was perfect 10kWh of calories -> 10kWh of electricity. However no machine is perfect so it will require >10kWh of chemical energy to produce 10kWh of electrical energy.

No different than hooking a stationary bike to an electrical generator.

[chillspike]

3. Have to run but

the quick answer is: No, the string eventually would run out so it's not perpetual motion and attempts to violate no laws of physics.

the trick is getting the string light enough so you can have miles of it on a small spool.

Will come back later to answer more.

Thanks!

[Statistical]

4. then at best it isn't "clean energy" more like "clean energy storage" or "clean battery".

It is simply a method of storing energy like a battery, super capacitor, flywheel, or hydrogen tank.

Also some of your assumptions are incorrect. You make claim vehicle could go 100 miles on a string that is 100 miles long. There is no 1:1 relationship between length of string and distance traveled. A light spool with tiny magnets may be 100 miles long but may only have enough energy to go 10 feet (or maybe not enough to even move the vehicle). On the other hand a spool that is only 10 miles long may store enough energy for a vehicle to go 10, 100, 1000, or even 100,000 miles (not likely but theoretically possible).


So distance of string is an incomplete metric. "Work" (physics term) is the metric. Work is force x distance. Moving a car requires an certain average amount of force. Thus the work required to move a car 1 meter is thus W=F x 1.

A battery (or string-battery) is simply a storage of "work". We call a capacity of stored work potential "energy".

Your string-battery will be able to store a certain amount of energy. How much depends on the properties of the magnetic flux, density of magnets, resistance of reel, etc.

If the energy density (energy per unit of volume & energy per unit of weight) is less than existing methods of storing energy the system isn't really viable. Say a string battery of X size can power a car for 12 miles however a lithium-ion battery of same X size can power a car for 200 miles. In that case the system wouldn't really be viable would it?

Make sense?

[chillspike]

13. If I could hire someone to help me build this

it would be you. And yeah, it all makes sense. You clearly understand a lot more about the physics than I and your perspective is very helpful.

Just a couple of things I want to address from your response.

I'm not sure what you mean when you state that a spool of 100 mile string may only have enough "energy" to go 10 miles??? It's confusing because, to me, isn't the length of the string the energy? I mean, if it moves, it moves and as long as there isn't too much friction along the way (the car rolls without any problem) and the magnet is strong enough to pull the string its entire length without getting stuck anywhere, how does 100 miles of string not add up to 100 miles of range?

I am speaking specifically of the vehicle design with the spool as part of the driving wheel, not the stationary motor design in the top drawing.

But I totally get what you're saying about the energy itself not necessarily being a 1:1 ratio. At first I didn't see that but you are correct. Yes.


Regarding the motor energy density as being less than existing alternatives, the advantage of a motor of this kind (assuming it can work, it has worked in a first test, btw), even if it has less energy density, is that, if you look at design # 2, the spool is not like a battery that has to be recharged. Once the string has been exhausted in one direction, you just pull a lever, switch the magnets and you create energy in the opposite direction, ad infinitum with no charging time needed and no coal fire power plants involved in the entire process.

Also, because the "fuel" is man made and nothing is burned, the energy is totally clean. The energy stored in a battery when charging at home, is primarily generated in coal fired power plants. AND it can take hours to charge a battery.

I also wanted to make clear that I already tested this motor in a stationary design like in the first pick and it DOES work. It's just a matter of increasing the length of the string and employing a more powerful magnet.

[Statistical]

20. "switch the magnets and you create energy in the opposite direction, ad infinitum"

You can NEVER create energy. Doing so violates law of first law of thermodynamics.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed only converted from one form to another.

Most systems where people believe energy is being created is simply not understanding the system.

For example a person might see sand falling in an hourglass and think if they could "capture" that energy somehow = free energy.
Well falling sand is simply converting potential energy (sand higher in glass) into kinetic energy (sand moving). There is no free energy. The amount of energy transfered into motion is exactly equal to the amount of energy required to raise the grain of sand to top of hourglass (which happens when you flip it over).

"I also wanted to make clear that I already tested this motor in a stationary design like in the first pick and it DOES work. It's just a matter of increasing the length of the string and employing a more powerful magnet."

Never said it doesn't "work". That is why I used a pinwheel example. Pinwheel turns in a breeze even a very slight breeze like my breath. The amount of energy required to turn a pinwheel is negligible. It "works" obviously since you can see it but without quantifying how much wind energy it can capture that is meaningless. You will never be able to design a car powered by pinwheels. Why? First law of thermodynamics tells us that the pinwheel didn't create energy it simply converted energy of my breath to kinetic energy (circular motion of pinwheel).

Thus first law of thermodynamics tells us that if this is true
my breath -> pinwheel motion -> electrical power -> electrical motor -> accelerate car to 60mph

then this MUST also be true

my breath -> accelerate car to 60mph.

Make sense? pinwheel is simply converting energy and as such if the output of it could propel a car then my breath could too.


Thus the amount of energy converted by your device is equal to the amount of energy to wind it.
Since you could wind it by hand then obviously if it could power a car so could your muscles. There NEVER is any creation of energy. Nowhere in the universe is energy created. Ever. That is why it is the LAW of thermodynamics.


The next step would be to connect the spool to something that can measure energy like a small electrical generator. What you will immediately find is that the falling magnets can no longer turn the spool. Why? because the potential energy of the magnets is less than was is necessary to turn the generator (convert magnetic energy into electrical energy).

You seem genuine but if you are really interested in engineering I could recommend some college level physics courses. You could like take one at a community college for a minimal amount of money/resources.

[chillspike]

26. btw, i didn't mean to say "create energy"

obviously energy can be transferred but not created. poor choice of words. i do that a lot so, if you can, just ignore it when you see it. i'll try to refrain from that.

and your pinwheel example is excellent. really helped me picture it.

right, a person's breath can't power a car because a person's breath is limited in its strength.

but what about a neodymium magnet? they are available with various pull forces and don't seem to be as limited in strength as human muscle power.

doesn't the power of my motor depend almost entirely on the power of magnet we can employ assuming the "string" is made light, thin and strong enough not to counteract the magnetic pull?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Pity we can't wind it up like a watch and use the potential energy

we could have 'winding stations' rather than gas stations.

Your idea is very interesting.

[BlueJazz]

5. If such a machine would work, you wouldn't need a spool. Just form an..

..endless loop of string and run it through the magnets.
But of course, it won't work...there's no free lunch.

[qazplm]

7. he isn't describing a PMM

his description is no different than any other engine that converts one form of energy into another.

His "internal combustion engine" is the magnetic energy of the moving string. He "runs out of gas" when the string winds down.

Actually, the easiest comparison is a wind-up watch turning potential energy from winding it up to actual energy to run the watch until it winds down, and needs to be wound up again.

Same with his device, winding up a magnetic spring for want of a better description and then getting energy out of it until it winds down, and needs to be wound up again.

Of course, I have no believe that such a system would come close to providing the amount of energy needed to power anything other than a light bulb maybe.

[Statistical]

8. The other issue is that it isn't necessarily "clean".

How are you going to wind the system back up?

Manually if so then you might as well ride a bike because either way you are converting calories into transportation.

So if it isn't wound up manually how does it get wound up?

Coal powered electricity?
Diesel generator?

Just like a battery or hydrogen "powered" car it is simply an energy transport not a source of energy.

[qazplm]

9. solar panel?

How much energy is required to wind it back up?

I think not that much, but the bigger issue is that this thing IMO is only likely to put out enough energy to maybe power the cigarette lighter or the light that comes on when you open the door.

[Statistical]

12. Well you could build a massive one but that doesn't change anything.

Even if it was a perfect machine (no friction) the amount of energy to wind it up would be exactly the same as the amount of energy to unwind it.

:)

[chillspike]

15. See design #2

It's rewound by removing the first magnet and placing another magnet at the opposite side of the string.

[Statistical]

19. Then you just created a perpetual motion machine.

There is no something for nothing. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you understood that and were designing an energy storage mechanism.

In order for the second magnet to wind the spool the resistence on the spool would need to be negligble which means negigble amount of usable energy (like a fraction of a watt).

Still even in that instance each winding will generate store less and less energy. Why? The machine isn't perfect. No machine is perfect. Some of the energy is wasted in the conversion into heat (friction), the friction also results in wear which robs the system of energy.

Ever seen one of these (newtons cradle).

Half way down the page there is an animation (you can drag and release the balls)
http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/newtons_cradle.htm

Theoretically in a perfect system this should work forever. It would never stop but no system is perfect the system eventually slows down and stops.
Why? friction in the rope and at the point of collision between balls resulting in heat ("lost" energy) and wear.

So if your "dual magnet setup" was connected to nothing it would work very similar to Newtons cradle and depending on how perfectly it was built it could oscilate back and forth for a very long time. However if you connect that system to an output (say a generator) the generator removes energy from the system and would stop it much much sooner.

Physics is a bitch. There never is a free lunch.

[chillspike]

22. Thank you...

I do appreciate the care and thoroughness of your answer. They are quite illuminating.

I suppose I am not very good at expressing this concept so if I've given you the impression that I have no respect for the Laws of Thermodynamics or the Conservation of Energy, my apologies. I have the utmost respect for scientists and the laws of physics so when I keep pressing an issue or returning to a question it is not to challenge or ignore them but because I'm not understanding why they are saying what they are saying.

My understanding of PPM is that one would run (if it could) without any new energy being introduced into the system.

With my machine, clearly when the string runs out in one direction, a new catalyst for motion is introduced each time with the reintroduction of the magnets at either end. A person would have to pull a lever to do this and isn't that reintroducing outside energy (recharging) into the system? Just like refueling a gas engine or recharging a battery or breathing again on a pinwheel that has stopped. My motor is not at all a closed system. Not intentionally, trying to challenge you, just trying to clear this up for myself. If you're convinced I am not understanding simple physics, you have my utmost sympathy and I don't expect you to go on setting me straight much longer.

And regarding efficiency, again, if something is less efficient but cleaner and easier to "recharge" couldn't it still be worth the loss of efficiency if you could still power your house on it or run your car? I mean, supposing I could get this to work, it may provide less range than a gas engine but since the energy is clean and, if design two could work and is not a PPM as I endeavor to explain it isn't, there really is no recharging just running the motor in reverse, wouldn't the loss in efficiency be worth it?

My object is not to be more efficient than carbon based motors, just efficient enough that we can still function day to day without burning fossil fuels.

It's an additional clean source of energy that we can control when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. It can work night and day, wind or no wind.

[chillspike]

14. It gets wound back up easily

Just see design number two.

You just remove one magnet and place another magnet on the other side of the motor to wound the string back in the other direction.

So no fossil fuels are need to rewind the string.

[pokerfan]

29. then with a simple transmission

so that you're still moving forward during wind-up and it would run forever!

[thereismore]

6. Here's a solution that will work: just drive it downhill all the time.

At least that would not violate the 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics. LOL

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. Don't let the Big Energy shills shout you down.

Your invention is beautiful and speaks truth to power.

What you need to do is invest a lot of your personal savings into developing this idea into a working model. But don't tell too many people what you're doing, because that may attract people who would want to stop you.

[chillspike]

16. Thanks a lot...

I truly appreciate your comment and inspirational advice. :thumbsup:

[caraher]

11. As others have pointed out, you just have a simple magnetic energy storage device

Conceptually, it's the same as a wind-up toy or running water from a reservoir over a paddlewheel. You do some work to "store" the energy (by winding the toy, filling the reservoir or, in this case, separating the magnetic beads) and get some of that back by letting them machine run. It doesn't strike me as very different from wrapping a heavy chain around a spool, and letting the falling chain drive the spool which in turn does some kind of work (pump water, run a generator, etc.).

Given almost any way I can think of to do this, it won't be very efficient.

[chillspike]

17. How efficient does it have to be?

It doesn't work on gravity, which would be a problem in the confined space of a vehicle. A falling chain spool wouldn't turn very long. You'd have to have a drop as long as the chain.


This works on magnetic attraction so the beaded string will, "fall" until it runs out and in a compact space. So in that respect it is very different from a falling chain working entirely on gravity.

[qazplm]

18. sure

I dont disagree, the problem is, you are going to get tiny amounts of usable energy out of this is my gut reaction.

No offense to you, but I have no doubt that someone thought about magnetism as an energy source 100 years before your or I were born. If it were a viable source of usable energy, we'd be using it already given how ubiquitous and non-polluting it is.

[chillspike]

23. Well, then I don't understand

where the "tiny amounts of energy" is coming from?

I mean, if you have a very light, ultra thin but strong string of ferromagnetic beads and an extremely powerful Neodymium magnet with a pull force of say, 1000 lbs. wouldn't that pull the string very fast? You'd probably need a more powerful magnet to pull a car, obviously, but a stationary string motor would turn very fast, would it not? Doesn't turning speed have a relation to energy output?

[chillspike]

27. Yes i'm sure they did think of magnet motors back then

but they got side tracked by thinking of how to make a circular system (in other words, perpetual motion) and so a linear magnet motor got ignored.

my motor is a linear motor. it doesn't try to violate and laws of physics.

the only questions it brings into play are those relating to friction.

[qazplm]

28. as pointed out below

the energy you get from a really strong magnetic field pales to what you get from a gallon of gas.

I don't believe your proposal is a PPM machine like others, I just think you'd get very small amounts of energy produced.

But build it and try it. Prove us wrong, or not. That's science.

[Salviati]

21. Not going to work.

There's a little something called the conservation of energy that this doesn't pass the smell test.

There's no such thing as a free lunch, the energy going into the car has to come from somewhere, and wherever it comes from, it is no longer there after it is used. One can store energy in the magnetic field, and the worlds strongest magnets, created for nuclear physics research, have strengths that are over half a million times stronger than the earths magnetic field. (30 Tesla, which is huge, don't let the small number fool you :) ). If one could tap this energy directly with an efficiency of 100% and turn that magnetic energy into useful work, it wouldn't be terribly useful because even these super powerful magnets store a pittance of energy compared to a tank of gas, or a comperable amount of batteries. If you had 1 cubic meter of this truely enormously large magnetic field, it would store 350 million Joules of energy, or 350 MJ. That may sound like a lot, but 1 cubic meter of gasoline stores 100 times as much energy. 1 cubic meter of battery would store about 20 times as much energy.

If one was not siphoning off the energy of the magnet in order to run this device, then it would require some sort of energy input to create the situation you've got described, and the magnetic system is just acting as a storage system. In that case the efficiency comes into play, and I have very little doubt, though doing the calculations would be crazy hard, that it is not going to be close to the efficiency of a rechargable battery + motor.

Remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch, the energy that you use has to come from somewhere...

[chillspike]

24. Forgive my ignorance...

...but how long can 350 million Joules power the average house?

I ask because the object is not to outdo the fossil fuel based engines, but just provide enough energy that we can still function as a species, but cleanly.

[caraher]

30. Well, how long can it run a hair dryer?

When you buy your electricity, the unit of energy is a kilowatt-hour. A watt is a joule per second, so 1 kWh in joules is 1000 watts times the number of seconds in an hour, which is 3600. So 1 kWh=1000 x 3600 = 3.6 million J.

A hair dryer draws about 1000 watts, so you could run a single hair dryer for about 100 hours on 350 million Joules. So for a full house, you might get a few days out of that many Joules. You could even take your own electric bill, figure your average daily use in kWh and use that figure to get a better estimate (assuming your house is typical).

I'd like to add that it sounds like you really need to set aside some time to study the basics of energy and power before you get too excited about this. If you find the translation of 350 MJ into domestic electricity consumption non-obvious you probably don't have the background to evaluate your own invention properly.

[chillspike]

31. I absolutely concur, I don't have the background

that's why I posted this on a forum so I could get the feedback from smarter people like yourself. :)

I'm just fumbling in the dark here. ;)

[chillspike]

25. BTW, if anyone wants to try to build this for themselves

You can't use a purely ferromagnetic string of beads. There has to be non ferromagnetic space between each bead or the magnet will recognize the string as one whole object and it won't spin.

What I did to get the spool to spin was use fishing line and tie the beads to the line at about 1" intervals. There has to be a non ferromagnetic break (the fishing line) between beads so the magnet is fooled that each bead is a separate entity being pulled into the magnet.

Also, for your first model, I wouldn't use one bead at each interval. The magnet won't sense them if they are too small. I tied short strings of beads like this ooooooooo (nine in length) at 1" intervals along the string and that did the trick. The magnet was better able to sense them and their weight (i set the spool so the line run down to the magnet on the floor) assisted pulling the string down into the magnet. It was a little more messy because the shorts strings of beads just kind of dangled there but it did work and the magnet pulled the string to its end with no problem.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. Alright, I've streamlined the design and scaled it up.

[chillspike]

33. You spent all this time on that picture

when you could have built the damn thing already.....lol.

ok, that is funny even if the joke's on me. :)

somehow reminds me of my favorite moment from the hudsucker proxy pictured below.



"you know, for kids." :)

[pokerfan]

44. The best way to watch Hudsucker

is to never see the DVD cover which spoiled the entire joke.

[chillspike]

45. When he pulled out that drawing in the mail room

like it was the holy grail and all it had on it was a circle and the old man was just looking at him like he was out of his mind: Classic. :)

[Codeine]

42. The new Juggalo 5000. nt

[chillspike]

34. I just wanted add something

Statistical gave the pin wheel example as a way of saying the motor would be too weak. I agree a pin wheel can't power a vehicle. And neither can a water wheel.

But look at how human ingenuity have extended and built upon both seemingly weak energy sources and concepts. The pin wheel has evolved in to wind turbine capable of powering thousands of houses. And the water wheel has evolved into giant hydroelectric power plant that also convert great amounts of energy to power.

A wind turbine can't directly power a vehicle nor can a hydroelectric plant but they are both viable energy converting methods used today and the electricity they convert can go into batteries to power electric cars.

[qazplm]

35. and those batteries

have more energy in them then a strong magnetic field can hold.

Like I said, if a strong magnetic field could be used as a power source, it already would be. It's simply too ubiquitous.

[chillspike]

36. Answer me this:

What is the difference from harnessing falling water over harnessing falling ferromagnetic beads?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

37. Falling water is powered by sunlight.

[trotsky]

39. Which in turn is powered by electricity, of course. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. Oh, you.

Fukken magnets.

[semillama]

38. Scale, for one thing

There is tremendous force involved with falling water. How large would your magnets/beads construct have to be to even come close to the power generated by a simple waterwheel?

[caraher]

41. To sum up...

The reason this thread attracted a lot of snark about perpetual motion, etc. is that it's routine for people claiming to have invented such things to use magnets in similar ways (summed up nicely in HFPS' silly cartoon of the magnet car).

Cillspike, I appreciate your sincerity and your admission of a limited technical background. Suffice it to say that the reason those of us who DO have that background are not off refining your idea and doing detailed calculations on the energy storage potential for your idea is that it's clear that no, this doesn't offer anything special as an energy storage scheme.

A really easy, negligible-math introduction to these concepts is in Chapter 1 of this textbook, which I use in a course aimed at students who are not science oriented. (The chapter on Climate Change is a bit controversial; I think the author spends too much time nitpicking "An Inconvenient Truth," but he does make it clear that global warming is very real.)

[chillspike]

43. You mean...

...if you sincerely thought my idea had serious potential you would be "off refining {my} idea and doing detailed calculations on the energy storage potential"???

I love you, man.

I'm gonna read that book for ya and try not to make crazy motor suggestions again.