Can I just throw in an idea to make a Homopolar Generator self-driving? Sorry if this is old-hat.

We can use the generated current to create a circumferential magnetic field around the rim of the copper disk.
This can be done easily with multiple radial loops of wire, as in the attached image.
The wire loop "basket" can be fixed to the surrounds, using brushes to get the current from rim of the rotating disk, and returning it via the axle.

Next, a series of permanent magnets are attached around the rim of the disk. These magnets would move through the wire loops as they interact with the loop's magnetic field.

Now the reason I think this setup might potentially be overunity, is this:

Say it requires a force F to keep the HP generator spinning at a given speed, overcoming friction, while generating a current I which results in circumferential magnetic field B.

Now, for a given circumferential field strength B, the magnetic pushing force f which pushes the rim magnets around is dependent only on the strength of those magnets, and so can be set almost arbitrarily high by selecting very strong magnets.
So if the magnetic pushing force f exceeds the required force F to keep the disk spinning, could we have overunity?






 

Rather than brushes, try using mercury. Less drag and no wear.

Yes, it should work if the configuration is right. It's a form of frame-dependent torque, which I discussed here:
http://open-source-energy.org/?topic=2859

Here's another thread about what I believe is frame-dependent torque:
http://open-source-energy.org/?topic=2950

I wonder what would happen if that self-looped motor-generator in the second thread above, rather than using discrete coils, used a toroid with two diametrically-opposed, inward-facing 'detours' of the wire to take the place of those two inward-facing coils? I'd make a graphic, but I have no artistic ability.

When my wife and kids go back to Taiwan for vacation, I plan on buying some wire and doing some experimentation... I've been out of commission as regards doing any experimentation, first because my midnight-shift job just took everything I had and I didn't have enough 'roundtoit' to do much after work, and for the past year, severe foot pain has sapped my energy... walking as much as 20 miles a night in steel-toed boots, hauling 20 pounds of tools and PPE and equipment, tends to mess up one's feet. I'm back on day shift, and my feet don't hurt as badly as they used to, so it's time to get back to working on my scooter and to start experimenting.

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. Your mention of frame-dependent torque reminded me of something else I was pondering - while laid up in hospital after a hernia operation two weeks ago (I wonder if our run of bad luck is just plain chance) and that is: instead of the radial coils forming a fixed stator, what if the current was taken out of the rim of the copper disk and into one end of a toroidal coil fixed to the copper disk's rim, enclosing the magnets?

If both the toroid and magnets are fixed together to the rotating disk - would the disk still spin when current flows in the toroid?

I think the answer is Yes, as long as when the current flows back out of the toroid, it is brushed off into a stationary load circuit.

Since the toroid coils are fixed to the magnets, you would think that the equal and opposite forces on each would just cancel. But perhaps the electrons in the coil themselves can take momentum, giving the magnets and toroid something to push back on, much like a rocket pushes on the escaping exhaust gases to gain forward thrust.

I think this would be a simple thing to test, just with a coil and a few magnets stuck on a wooden disk. If it does in fact work, it would greatly enhance the circumferential magnetic B field.
In addition, the circumferential current of the toroid could be arranged so that the magnetic field it produces enhances the homopolar generator's copper disk axial field.

Quote from captainradon on May 16th, 2017, 04:24 AM

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. Your mention of frame-dependent torque reminded me of something else I was pondering - while laid up in hospital after a hernia operation two weeks ago (I wonder if our run of bad luck is just plain chance) and that is: instead of the radial coils forming a fixed stator, what if the current was taken out of the rim of the copper disk and into one end of a toroidal coil fixed to the copper disk's rim, enclosing the magnets?

If both the toroid and magnets are fixed together to the rotating disk - would the disk still spin when current flows in the toroid?

I'm not sure, but I don't think so... there has to be a discrete and unconnected set of frames of reference for there to be frame-dependent torque. If there's only one frame (besides the observer's lab frame), no frame dependent torque can occur, unless the lab frame somehow can cause that torque, which shouldn't happen... the observation frame should be independent of (unentangled with) the process being observed.

By the way, what graphics program do you use? I'm stuck with Paint, I've tried GIMP, but that's a pretty complicated program. I need something I can draw basic shapes in pseudo-3D to convey an idea, not a full-fledged artist's workstation. I have OpenSCAD, but that requires programming the shapes, and takes a lot of programming just to get basic shapes.

I really must try to understand this concept of frames of reference, or just how they affect EM phenomena.

I tried to figure out a way to have a stationary, fixed-to-the-surrounds toroid to push the disk rim magnets, but the geometry just doesn't seem to allow it. Even thought of a distorted toroid with a C-shaped cross-section, but I don't think the field can be external to the current loop.

Oh, well, if the fixed-to-the-disk-toroid+magnet doesn't work, it should still be possible to generate a B field using the radial half-loops with brushes as in the first picture.
I used Blender to do up these pictures. It was a huge struggle; it is definitely not an easy program to use, but it's free and is very capable. That's something I set myself as a challenge this year, to master Blender.  By the way, have you tried SketchUp? Much easier than Blender and great for basic shapes. I did some Architectural models using it. I use Linux, however, and Sketchup works best on Windows.

:-[ Oooops...
The pushing mechanism won't work, come to think about it... 
A uniform field inside a toroid can't push a bar magnet around inside parallel to the field.  Is that absolutely correct?

But a bar magnet can interact with a shorter length of solenoid field, as in those videos of the "Simplest Electric Train" toy, eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9b0J29OzAU ?
 Perhaps each bar magnet in my proposed machine could make electrical contact with only the loops of wire in its immediate vicinity, as the "train" does, so it won't be a complete uniform "ring" field, but rather, discrete sections of dipole field following the magnets around.

Quote from captainradon on May 15th, 2017, 05:24 PM

Can I just throw in an idea to make a Homopolar Generator self-driving? Sorry if this is old-hat.

We can use the generated current to create a circumferential magnetic field around the rim of the copper disk.
This can be done easily with multiple radial loops of wire, as in the attached image.

Hi, Captain.

It was your idea which prompted me to flesh out my idea for the same sort of mechanism.

I had a rough idea in mind, but the way I was envisioning it wouldn't have worked, so I dug into QM to flesh out the idea and ensure it didn't violate any principles of QM or GR.

Some will try to call it "perpetual motion", not understanding that they're referring to a closed system (the only type of system where perpetual motion is impossible), whereas we're not in a closed system by virtue of the Quantum Vacuum, which can and does transfer energy to/from matter. The everyday events you witness all around you would be impossible without the Quantum Vacuum, up to and including the existence of invariant matter.

Physicists must, nowadays, admit that electrons in orbit about their nuclei emit Larmor radiation in the form of virtual photons (magnetism), which is why all matter exhibits diamagnetism. The requirements for Larmor radiation are: a charge undergoing acceleration. An electron in orbit about its nucleus is a charge, and the curved path of its spherical orbit about the nucleus is, quite literally, angular acceleration.

Due to electron valency configurations of certain matter, paramagnetism or ferromagnetism overrides the inherent diamagnetism in some material, but that diamagnetism is always there regardless.

To get around their decades-long denial of the Quantum Vacuum, those physicists still in denial of reality hedge by stating that electrons in their lowest orbits have a "net zero emission"... while conveniently forgetting that their admission also tacitly admits that electrons in orbit about their nuclei absorb energy from the quantum vacuum to balance out their Larmor radiation emission, via the process of vacuum polarization (a geometrical transform of sinusoidal motion to circular motion, the sinusoid being a circular function, after all).

Boyer first wrote about it in 1975, when he showed that the hydrogen atom in its ground state (ie: lowest orbit) would be in a state of equilibrium between Larmor radiation and absorption of QVZPE at the correct radius for a classical Rutherford hydrogen atom. NASA had this to say about the Quantum Vacuum:

Quote from NASA

A thing to note is that the integral of the perturbation of the quantum vacuum around the nucleus for a given atomic number Z and quantum number n is exactly equal to the energy level of the electron in that state. The energy level of the electron is a function of its potential energy and kinetic energy. Does this mean that the energy of the quantum vacuum integral needs to be added to the treatment of the captured electron as another potential function, or is the energy of the quantum vacuum somehow responsible for establishing the energy level of the "orbiting" electron? The only view to take that adheres to the observations would be the latter perspective, as the former perspective would make predictions that do not agree with observation.