Mythbusters tonight "Free Energy Devices"

[Kissing Lettuce]

Anyone see any of those so called "free energy devices"
especially the ring oscillator and the radio antenna thing?

 

[David L. Jones]

Anyone see any of those so called "free energy devices"
especially the ring oscillator and the radio antenna thing?

I wonder if they got their money back on the kits?

Dave

 

[Parmin]

Kissing Lettuce <[email protected]> while reading the
NewsGroups, found courage and express out opinion in

Anyone see any of those so called "free energy devices"
especially the ring oscillator and the radio antenna thing?

I have a gripe on the propane wheel experiment. I have done this
experiment (using a much smaller and lighter disposable propane cans)
and found that it works really well.

The dude who did the experiment should have painted the cans MATT
BLACK. Having shiny white propane cans coupled with using only low
power (compared to the energy from the sun) electric light for this
experiment shows that the idea was not being given a fair trial. Nor
did the dude understand the concept of the wheel correctly.

There are very efficient engines (models) that runs from the heat of
human hand and some even works down to tempreature difference of 0.5
degree celcius. These engines are called the Stirling Engine.

Stirling engine water pumps have been made for irrigation of arid
areas in some places (cant remember where) and they are running
"free" from the power of the sun. These pumps could easily be
replicated and used anywhere.

I think the Mythbuster crew screw up in this experiment.

Par.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Kissing Lettuce <[email protected]> while reading the
NewsGroups, found courage and express out opinion in



I have a gripe on the propane wheel experiment. I have done this
experiment (using a much smaller and lighter disposable propane cans)
and found that it works really well.

The dude who did the experiment should have painted the cans MATT
BLACK. Having shiny white propane cans coupled with using only low
power (compared to the energy from the sun) electric light for this
experiment shows that the idea was not being given a fair trial. Nor
did the dude understand the concept of the wheel correctly.

There are very efficient engines (models) that runs from the heat of
human hand and some even works down to tempreature difference of 0.5
degree celcius. These engines are called the Stirling Engine.
http://www.stirlingengine.com/ecommerce/product.tcl?product_id=31

Stirling engine water pumps have been made for irrigation of arid
areas in some places (cant remember where) and they are running
"free" from the power of the sun. These pumps could easily be
replicated and used anywhere.

I think the Mythbuster crew screw up in this experiment.

Par.

Thanks for the explanation. Apparently the Mythbusters crew could have
bought any number of ready-made kits. I like this one that runs on ice
water or a cup of hot coffee:

"MM-1 Coffee Cup Stirling Engine"
http://www.stirlingengine.com/ecommerce/product.tcl?product_id=21


- Franc Zabkar

 

[Kissing Lettuce]

Thanks for the explanation. Apparently the Mythbusters crew could have
bought any number of ready-made kits. I like this one that runs on ice
water or a cup of hot coffee:

"MM-1 Coffee Cup Stirling Engine"
http://www.stirlingengine.com/ecommerce/product.tcl?product_id=21

- Franc Zabkar

True but what they were trying to bust were the myth of
so called "perpetual free energy" energy machines in that
their claims far outweigh what they can actually do....

 

[Terry Given]

Kissing Lettuce <[email protected]> while reading the
NewsGroups, found courage and express out opinion in





I have a gripe on the propane wheel experiment. I have done this
experiment (using a much smaller and lighter disposable propane cans)
and found that it works really well.

The dude who did the experiment should have painted the cans MATT
BLACK. Having shiny white propane cans coupled with using only low
power (compared to the energy from the sun) electric light for this
experiment shows that the idea was not being given a fair trial. Nor
did the dude understand the concept of the wheel correctly.

There are very efficient engines (models) that runs from the heat of
human hand and some even works down to tempreature difference of 0.5
degree celcius. These engines are called the Stirling Engine.

Stirling engine water pumps have been made for irrigation of arid
areas in some places (cant remember where) and they are running
"free" from the power of the sun. These pumps could easily be
replicated and used anywhere.

I think the Mythbuster crew screw up in this experiment.

Par.

I have worked on a piece of equipment that contained a 3kW stirling
cycle engine, powered by a burning block of Lithium. It ran for about 35
days, charging up a 3MJ flywheel. When the flywheel was fully charged,
it drove a 50kW piezo transducer for about a minute to produce a long,
loud sonar ping. The room in which the engine was tested had 2' thick
walls, and many scars. They had copper powder fire extinguishers to put
out the lithium fire......

Cheers
Terry

 

[Keithr]

I have worked on a piece of equipment that contained a 3kW stirling
cycle engine, powered by a burning block of Lithium. It ran for about 35
days, charging up a 3MJ flywheel. When the flywheel was fully charged,
it drove a 50kW piezo transducer for about a minute to produce a long,
loud sonar ping. The room in which the engine was tested had 2' thick
walls, and many scars. They had copper powder fire extinguishers to put
out the lithium fire......

Cheers
Terry

That is a seriously weird system. What design considerations led to the idea
of using a block of lithium as fuel?

 

[Mr.T]

I think the Mythbuster crew screw up in this experiment.

So business as usual then.

MrT.

 

[Terry Given]

Terry Given wrote:




That is a seriously weird system. What design considerations led to the idea
of using a block of lithium as fuel?

beats me. These are built into torpedo tubes, and are basically an
underwater GPS. Rather than a sub sending out a ping, these devices sit
above the sea floor and emit the pings subs use to track things. So they
have to run continuously for a month underwater. That seriously narrows
the range of fuel sources. radioactive heat sources were discarded as
they are real nasty, and hard to turn on.

The tricky part of the overall design was in accumulating the stirling
engine output. The flywheel spun at 43,000 rpm or so in a vacuum, and
was smaller than a beer keg (the vendor spent years developing it).
Squeezing it into the torpedo tube was a good trick, but there was
plenty of room for the 50kW SKiiP pack.

The 350kW drives we then built (totally custom design) were the same
size as the 50kW assemblies from Semikron, but took a lot longer to get
going. Modifying sensorless vector control software to run at 750Hz
wasnt easy either

OTOH it was very easy to cool the device.

Cheers
Terry

 

[Mark Harriss]

beats me. These are built into torpedo tubes, and are basically an
underwater GPS. Rather than a sub sending out a ping, these devices sit
above the sea floor and emit the pings subs use to track things. So they
have to run continuously for a month underwater. That seriously narrows
the range of fuel sources. radioactive heat sources were discarded as
they are real nasty, and hard to turn on.

The tricky part of the overall design was in accumulating the stirling
engine output. The flywheel spun at 43,000 rpm or so in a vacuum, and
was smaller than a beer keg (the vendor spent years developing it).
Squeezing it into the torpedo tube was a good trick, but there was
plenty of room for the 50kW SKiiP pack.

The 350kW drives we then built (totally custom design) were the same
size as the 50kW assemblies from Semikron, but took a lot longer to get
going. Modifying sensorless vector control software to run at 750Hz
wasnt easy either

OTOH it was very easy to cool the device.

Cheers
Terry

What a seriously cool engineering job!!

 

[Terry Given]

What a seriously cool engineering job!!

the guys at Penn State were easily the smartest mechanical engineers
I've ever met.

Cheers
Terry

 

[Parmin]

Kissing Lettuce <[email protected]> while reading
the NewsGroups, found courage and express out opinion in

True but what they were trying to bust were the myth of
so called "perpetual free energy" energy machines in that
their claims far outweigh what they can actually do....

No, They look at "FREE" energy by harvesting existing energy of
different spectrum.

The only perpetual stuff they tried is the generator garbage, which
any self respecting engineer could see that there are a lot of energy
wastage on the transfer (heat of the coil in the motor, loss in
friction of the motor bearing etc.) to make it an impossible dream.

Par.

 

[Parmin]

Terry Given <[email protected]> while reading the NewsGroups,
found courage and express out opinion in

I have worked on a piece of equipment that contained a 3kW
stirling cycle engine, powered by a burning block of Lithium. It
ran for about 35 days, charging up a 3MJ flywheel. When the
flywheel was fully charged, it drove a 50kW piezo transducer for
about a minute to produce a long, loud sonar ping. The room in
which the engine was tested had 2' thick walls, and many scars.
They had copper powder fire extinguishers to put out the lithium
fire......

Cheers
Terry

Way cool job Terry.. any vacancy ? It sould like you are working
with the Swiss Navy Stirling Submarine!!

Ah yam happy nuf wiff mah job, but ah man gotta look fer bettah
ones

There is an experiment done on eastcoast of USA in where they use
Radium the size of a matchbox to heat up a stirling generator,
which in turn light up a sea buoy for over 3 years non stop!

There are also pacemaker made using some radio active stuff.

A NZ company WhisperGen made some 3000 Watt multi fuel 4 cylinder
stirling generator that is targeting sales to remote farmhouses.
They could operate from any type of fuel, diesel, kero, petrol,
gas, coal, chopped wood, methane, Phil Alison's fart and dried
horse shit. Imagine! (I may be a bit exaggerating )

Then, the Philips company does stirling engine experiment on a city
public bus. They pulled out the V12 diesel engine and replace it
with a V12 stirling stuff on the original block. The engine runs
for 5000 (or was it 50000?) hours without any service (aside from
oiling some shafts and gears) No tune up, no injector cleaning ...
AND, it uses only 25% fuel compared to its best behaving cousin
buses. Then, before you know it, they pulled out from the game
without any explanation.

I am not into conspiration theory but, a man got to think about it
deeply.



Par.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Terry Given <[email protected]> while reading the NewsGroups,
found courage and express out opinion in


Way cool job Terry.. any vacancy ? It sould like you are working
with the Swiss Navy Stirling Submarine!!

Ah yam happy nuf wiff mah job, but ah man gotta look fer bettah
ones

There is an experiment done on eastcoast of USA in where they use
Radium the size of a matchbox to heat up a stirling generator,
which in turn light up a sea buoy for over 3 years non stop!

There are also pacemaker made using some radio active stuff.

A NZ company WhisperGen made some 3000 Watt multi fuel 4 cylinder
stirling generator that is targeting sales to remote farmhouses.
They could operate from any type of fuel, diesel, kero, petrol,
gas, coal, chopped wood, methane, Phil Alison's fart and dried
horse shit. Imagine! (I may be a bit exaggerating )

Then, the Philips company does stirling engine experiment on a city
public bus. They pulled out the V12 diesel engine and replace it
with a V12 stirling stuff on the original block. The engine runs
for 5000 (or was it 50000?) hours without any service (aside from
oiling some shafts and gears) No tune up, no injector cleaning ...
AND, it uses only 25% fuel compared to its best behaving cousin
buses. Then, before you know it, they pulled out from the game
without any explanation.

I am not into conspiration theory but, a man got to think about it
deeply.

From my reading, Stirling engines are regarded as unsuitable for
intermittent work due to their thermal inertia. If true, then how did
Philips make the engine responsive enough for use in a bus? Did they
use a continuously variable transmission? Hybrid engine?

See http://travel.howstuffworks.com/stirling-engine4.htm


- Franc Zabkar

 

[Terry Given]

From my reading, Stirling engines are regarded as unsuitable for
intermittent work due to their thermal inertia. If true, then how did
Philips make the engine responsive enough for use in a bus? Did they
use a continuously variable transmission? Hybrid engine?

- Franc Zabkar

yep. the corollary is for fixed loads its pretty good, so odds on its
running a generator (just like the sonar device) in a hybrid.

Cheers
Terry

 

[Parmin]

Franc Zabkar <[email protected]> while reading the
NewsGroups, found courage and express out opinion in

From my reading, Stirling engines are regarded as unsuitable for
intermittent work due to their thermal inertia. If true, then
how did Philips make the engine responsive enough for use in a
bus? Did they use a continuously variable transmission? Hybrid
engine?

See http://travel.howstuffworks.com/stirling-engine4.htm


- Franc Zabkar

Yes I believe it is Hybrid.

But back to the original topic, I am still a bit pissed off by the
MythBuster show on which they dismissed offhand the possibility of
getting energy by harvesting unused (waste) energies floating
around us.

The energy available may be small, but hey, little ants make
anthills. And the main thing is that we are minimising waste
instead of adding to it.

They may ruin the chance of some future inventors or investors,
just because they did not grasps the concept. They have a popular
show and although some of the watcher are scientifically minded, a
great number of them are the "believers" that thought having
"facts" spooned to them, means there are no need to explore other
possibilities. These people are sometimes the "money people" who
invests in "technology" or even children who we hope to better our
future.

Hearing some "Famous" figure in TeeVee, dismissing the possibility
of harvesting unused energy, they could believe that it is true,
thus ruin the chance of them who may try to prove it wrong.
I think I am rumbling now...

But think about bumblebee.. "scientific" studies proof that they
could not fly, but luckily them bees never watch MythBusters...
Otherwise, we would never have honey.

Par.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

But back to the original topic, I am still a bit pissed off by the
MythBuster show on which they dismissed offhand the possibility of
getting energy by harvesting unused (waste) energies floating
around us.

The energy available may be small, but hey, little ants make
anthills. And the main thing is that we are minimising waste
instead of adding to it.

They may ruin the chance of some future inventors or investors,
just because they did not grasps the concept. They have a popular
show and although some of the watcher are scientifically minded, a
great number of them are the "believers" that thought having
"facts" spooned to them, means there are no need to explore other
possibilities. These people are sometimes the "money people" who
invests in "technology" or even children who we hope to better our
future.

Mythbusters has scant regard for proper scientific method. My overall
impression of the show is that it has become a vehicle for two
pyromaniacs looking for excuses to blow things up.


- Franc Zabkar

 

[Mark Harriss]

Mythbusters has scant regard for proper scientific method. My overall
impression of the show is that it has become a vehicle for two
pyromaniacs looking for excuses to blow things up.


- Franc Zabkar

Well..... it is what they do for a living though, there is some
attempt to make measurements and obtain relative comparisons of speeds
etc., like they did with the "cards of death" card throwing segment, but
the show is just trying for a simple proved/disproved result for an
urban myth. At least now their budget allows for some qualified experts
and some chicks to help dispel any speculations on their sexual
orientation.

 

[Gary R. Schmidt]

Franc Zabkar wrote:
[SNIP]

Mythbusters has scant regard for proper scientific method. My overall
impression of the show is that it has become a vehicle for two
pyromaniacs looking for excuses to blow things up.

You say that like it was a *bad* thing.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

 

[Mr.T]

Mythbusters has scant regard for proper scientific method.

I wouldn't give them that much credit.

My overall
impression of the show is that it has become a vehicle for two
pyromaniacs looking for excuses to blow things up.

Yes, that is the whole purpose for them and their viewers.
You have to give them credit for being able to get paid for it though.

MrT.