10 HP engine - refrigerant working fluid

[strantor]

Did anyone look at the youtube videos of the working models? Repelling magnets will move by them self without other help*1. The magnet motor is not a perpetual motion device since the magnets will give up at some point*2 hence the law suit to get his patent.Paul

I've watched the youtube videos. I've been following this whole magnetic motor thing for long time. Can't seem to let it go, even though I know its bogus. See, I had this idea all on my own as a kid. I explained it to my parents and it sounded so intuitive that they both got excited. They bought me some magnets to play with. I went on the internet, to the messageboards, and started posting my poorly drawn "plans" and asked questions about what type of magnets would be best & etc. I was viciously flamed. I was told things like "you're not the first idiot to come up with this". There was one person who took the time to explain the physics to me though; he introduced me to the term "perpetual motion machine", recommended some library books, and explained exactly why the magnetic motor wouldn't work. I tried building the thing anyway and found that what benevolent messageboard guy explained was exactly the case. So I gave up. Then around the time youtube came online, and I saw videos of these things. Against my better judgement, I let myself get excited again. I had to go learn that same lesson again, and accept that the videos were a hoax.

*1 yes, if you were to align the rotor of the magnetic motor so that it was in high opposition to the stator of the magnetic motor, it would move to a position of lower opposition. That position would be somewhere between the position of high opposition that you aligned it to, and the next position of high opposition. Then it would stop and lock up. Imagine a cog with sawtooth gear teeth; you jab a screwdriver into the side of one of the teeth, the cog turns slightly, but without you pulling the screwdriver out and repeatedly jabbing the screwdriver into the side of each successive tooth, it won't magically continue rotating.

2* even if you could somehow make the thing turn in circles, since you are not pulling energy from any real source, you must be pulling it from the magnets. Magnets can be thought of as batteries, albeit very inefficient ones. It takes a lot of electrical energy to create a magnet that isn't very powerful - once that magnet is created, it can be undone with much less magnetic energy. When you hold magnets in opposition, it quickly weakens their magnetic field. Given that it actually turns in a circle (which it doesn't, under its own power) this HOJO motor could not even run through the night. Permanent magnet electrical motors do not suffer this demise because the electrically generated magnet field is working with the magnets and not against them.

 

[7HC]

Did anyone look at the youtube videos of the working models? Repelling magnets will move by them self without other help. The magnet motor is not a perpetual motion device since the magnets will give up at some point hence the law suit to get his patent.
Paul

Please don't be offended, but "I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true!" is just the present day equivalent of "I read it in the newspaper, so it must be true!"; and it's just as much a fallacy now as it was then.

A video on YouTube is just that, a video, a moving picture, and is no more proof of a functional magnet motor than a YouTube video of a UFO is proof of alien life.

If the magnet motor concept actually worked don't you think it have been commercially developed by now?

IMO it falls into the category of the 100mpg carb (supposedly bought out by 'big oil' interests so it would never see the light of day), or the invention of the combustion engine that runs on water who's inventor mysteriously died in a car crash days after he went public ('big oil' again I guess).


M (always cynical since finding out the truth about Santa Claus )

 

[strantor]

If the magnet motor concept actually worked don't you think it have been commercially developed by now?

I suspect that the whole "patent lawsuit" story put forth by the perpetuators of the HOJO hoax is meant to explain away why it hasn't been commercially developed. But if it worked, the industrial fires of China, who cares nothing of our patents or silly notions of "intellectual property," would surely be fueled by HOJO magnetic type generators. especially since the "plans" are so readily available.

 

[pjf134]

I found out a long time ago that nothing is impossible. The earth is not flat and you can drive a horseless carriage more than 15 MPH and breathe. People are making magnets better and yes so is China. When someone makes a magnet that cost less you will see it put to good use. Maybe when the earth stops rotating we can use it for that since there is no such thing as a perpetual motion device or when the sun goes out. Since a perpetual motion device will last forever we will never know. Lets all tell the company's that invest a lot of money in making better magnets that it won't work. Let me know what they say. If we can make electric from sun light or from moving water we can do anything. I have magnets stuck to my tool box for over 40 years now and earned it's price many times over and will be sad when they no longer work. lol
Paul

 

[Walt]

Back in the mid-70's I worked on a project for NASA to develop residential solar powered air conditioning. This was back when NASA was doing development work for DOE. The contract team I was working with (Honeywell, Lenox, Barber-Nichols) developed a 3 hp turbine system that used R-113 for the working fluid. We built about 8 demonstration units that were installed in various government locations around the country. We also built several 25 ton water chillers. The residential system used a small turbine that was geared down 60:1 to 1800 rpm to turn a Ford automotive compressor running an R-12 cycle. The system actually worked quite well, plus it generated electricity when there was not a big cooling demand.

The purpose of the project was to use "off the shelf" components to get the total cost from the aero-space realm down to something the average consumer could justify. The cost part was never successful. There are just too many heat exchangers, controls, gearboxes and and lube systems to get to a viable cost. Another contractor group led by GE used R-12 in both the power cycle and the refrigeration cycle. They used a piston engine instead of a turbine The engine looked very much like a refrigeration compressor. The turbine, of course, ended up being more efficient, but the GE system worked as well. Note: both R-113 and R-12 are being phased out because of their ozone damaging issues, but there are many other fluids that can be used.

The selection of the working fluid is based on what pressure you can stand to operate, whether you are using piston expansion or turbine expansion, and other considerations like corrosion, lubrication, flammability, health safety, etc. The system has to be evacuated (as in a refrigeration system) to remove all air and water vapor before the working fluid is added. Residual oxygen in the system is always a problem, as is any remaining water vapor - both lead to corrosion problems. The system has to be air tight (like your central air system) to keep the working fluid in and the air out. A high quality shaft seal is required on the gearbox or engine to keep the working fluid in the system. The early refrigeration pioneers used nasty fluids like ammonia, ethyl ether, and hydrogen sulfide before the days of the halogen (Freon type) fluids. There are a number of newer halogen fluids that have been developed to replace the older, ozone depleting fluids.

A couple of things to keep in mind with a closed Rankin cycle (these are the cold blanket items):

1. A heat engine needs a hot sink and a cold sink to run. The cold sink is usually the problem. Unless you have a cool river or stream, you are stuck rejecting heat to the atmosphere. Cooling towers and evaporative condensers are two ways to get the cold sink down to about the ambient wet bulb temp. In the SW states, the wet bulb temps tend to be lower and you can get a lower sink temp in Arizona and places like that. Otherwise the lowest temp you can usually come up with is the ambient dry bulb temp - which is usually in the 80 - 100 deg F range in the summer.
2. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that the efficiency of a heat engine has to be less than the theoretical Carnot cycle operating at the same temperatures. These are fancy words that say if you only have 100 or 200 deg F between the hot sink and the cold sink, you will be well under 18% efficiency, probably in the 8 - 10% range. This means that to come up with even one horsepower, you have to process a LOT of heat. Makes for big heat exchangers (boilers, condensers, solar collectors, etc.) This is where the high cost comes in.
3. To give you a rough idea, it takes about 500 square feet of solar collector operating at 180 deg F and a condensing temperature of 80 F to come up with 3 hp on the shaft (mid-day with clear skies).

Another option is to skip the Rankin cycle and use a Stirling cycle which uses air (or another gas) as the working fluid. There have been high hopes for this cycle ever since Robert Stirling proposed in back in 1816. The Stirling cycle can theoretically more closely approach the Carnot efficiency limit than the Rankin cycle. The problem is that it takes a lot of area to transfer heat from a solid to air. That's why the radiator in you car and the coils on your home air conditioner are filled with fins. There are kits for small Stirling engines that run off the heat of a cup of coffee or even the heat from your hand, but they only develop enough power to overcome their own internal friction. Just like the Rankin cycle, with only 200 deg F or so between the hot and cold sink, it takes huge heat exchangers to develop any amount of horsepower.

There were a number of Stirling engine builders in the late 19th century that supplied engines for pumping water on the farm. You can still see these running at threshing demonstrations and other museum venues. These engines burned wood or coal and developed about 1/2 hp. The wood fire provided a hot sink temp of 500 deg F or so, and heat was rejected to the ambient air. A typically 1/2 hp machine is about the size of a 5-drawer file cabinet.

Sorry for the long dissertation. Guess I got on a roll.
Its a long answer for why you don't see any engines running between low temperature differences.
Its tough to compete with the power companies - they have 1000 deg F or more between their hot sink and cold sink.
Keep at it.

Terry S.

Thanks very much for sharing your professional knowledge. This is a topic I've thought a lot about, but I lack the basics to ask the right questions. Would you care to speculate whether an electrical co-generation unit coupled with a home furnace and water heater might be more practical?

My uninformed guess is, the larger difference in temperature (between the furnace burner and ambient air) would make the heat exchanger size more realistic, but the total amount of energy available would be too small to bother with.

Walt

 

[Walt]

I found out a long time ago that nothing is impossible. The earth is not flat and you can drive a horseless carriage more than 15 MPH and breathe. People are making magnets better and yes so is China. When someone makes a magnet that cost less you will see it put to good use. Maybe when the earth stops rotating we can use it for that since there is no such thing as a perpetual motion device or when the sun goes out. Since a perpetual motion device will last forever we will never know. Lets all tell the company's that invest a lot of money in making better magnets that it won't work. Let me know what they say. If we can make electric from sun light or from moving water we can do anything. I have magnets stuck to my tool box for over 40 years now and earned it's price many times over and will be sad when they no longer work. lol
Paul

Well, good luck with the magnets. But in my experience, there are no free lunches. The examples you quote of wrong conventional wisdom are in a different category than overturning a well established principle like entropy that has been checked, and rechecked by people who would gain a lot by disproving it, and is supported by many different lines of evidence.

The 15 mph limit for horseless carriages? Just because somebody said that doesn't mean that most people believed it, certainly not the people building them. Flat earth? The diameter of the Earth was calculated to a fair accuracy back in classic Greek times. Conventional wisdom isn't the same thing as a well-established scientific principle.

Magnetism is a wonderful thing. It is truly amazing that something can pull against gravity for years and decades without any energy input. Unfortunately, the most fundamental ideas we humans have about how the world works rules this amazing phenomenon out as a source of energy. Sorry. It would be a lot more fun if it wasn't so.

Walt

 

[pjf134]

The Earth is a magnet with 2 poles north and south with magnet north that changes every year by a little, which is amazing to me and don't know why it does that. Solar energy is free for now at least and so is wind, so there is a free lunch. People invent things all the time and some do make a lot of money and some never make it to market. If a company makes billions of dollars each year and you come up with something better that would put them out of business you might get a knock on your door and might be the last sound you hear too, people get killed for less. In today's market if you make something to last then when everyone has one you will be out of business. I do think we got off topic on these posts, sorry.
Paul

 

[7HC]

..........Solar energy is free for now at least and so is wind, so there is a free lunch...............Paul

Solar energy, wind energy, water energy (waves, tides, hydro-electric), are no more free than any other type or source.

The expense is in the materials and energy that are required to extract it. That applies just as much to the sun and wind in the sky as it does to the oil, coal, or uranium in the ground.

The only sense in which solar or wind energy is free is when the sun shines on your naked body and warms you, or the wind blows and cools you down.

Water energy could be free if you jump in a river and float with a current from point A to point B. However, once you use a boat there is a cost involved in terms of materials and energy for the construction of the boat.

There's a cost involved to virtually everything in life.

M

 

[pjf134]

After powering my outside electric lights for over 20 years and switching over to solar for a couple years I most likely paid off the cost of the units by now, so from now on they are running for 0 cost, that's the way I see it. I did not do the math, but should be close. Got to go soon HLS from Cincy is picking me up soon and will be gone for awhile. I have to open some windows to let the free warmth in today so the furnace won't run and maybe save enough to buy lunch. LOL
Paul

 

[wrongturned]

I know this is an old thread but just in case anyone is interested I thought I would post. There is a book called, " The Power of Light" author is Frank T. Kryza.
The book centers largely around an engineer named Schuman who built low pressure steam engines powered by solar heat in the early 1900's. He was able to do so without modern refrigerants or heat pumps. And the book gives detailed pictures and drawings.