2096 An Unusual Spring Motor 

A pendulum is another good mechanical analogy for a tank circuit. It stores energy as Gravitational Potential and Kinetic. It even has a resonant frequency.

Without the spring it would spin even longer!

It has to run less time than just the wheel alone because of the friction you're adding.

A proper flywheel tank circuit would require the wheel to come to a stop and change direction of rotation. A good example can be found in mechanical wrist watches that employ a balance wheel and coil spring.

For greater efficiency, I would suggest a roller bearing in place of the solid round stock for your drive pin. Also, in the end where you show your version in action, you rotated the flywheel in the wrong direction. Because of it's mechanical nature you have to take into account levers. The drive pin on your flywheel needs less force to bend your "spring" when it's farther from the fulcrum and your "spring" can return more energy to the drive pin when it's closer to the fulcrum. Yes, it kinda ran, but you could see it losing potential rapidly in the clockwise (for the viewer) direction. Now, if you were to use a straight lever with a counterweight instead of a spring mechanism, I believe the opposite would hold true.

I see the creator spun it in the right direction. Lol.

You're spinning it the wrong way, the cam must push on least resistance end 1st, then as the cam travels along the spring the force increases which gives a better kick upwards. Doing it in reverse as you are means the cam enters into springs most tensioned area and at exit on top on spring it's a weaker kick upwards!

A ball bearing race on the contact cam would increase efficiency

Im not sure the spring adds anything to that system apart from some mechanical losses. The flywheel should spin for longer without the spring I’m afraid.

I can't see it being as efficient as simply letting the flywheel spin unhindered. Fun thought for a mechanism regardless. Maybe it can be altered to serve as an alternative output for a secondary device.

Nice Rebuild! Great that you give Background Info and Explanations, i know this Video for Years and always wondered about it, your replication does answered some queszions i had, One day we will see an Ovwerunity Device on this Channel!

This is so cool. Thanks for the demonstration. What an innovative way to make a flywheel too, using a barbell weight, thank you, your videos are amazing

But shouldn't this slow down more quickly simply due to the added friction? I don't get the point in adding the spring....

The magnets are needed for the coil in the frame to add energy to make up for frictional losses using a battery in the base or a 2'' hole in the table so you can move it around a bit to show their are no wires,

Wouldn’t it help if the pin which strikes the spring had a small ball bearing fitted to eliminate drag on the spring ?

pushing the spring down requires energy which you don't get back so it will slow down fast than without the spring no free lunch

What would the difference in rotation time be between the unit with and without the spring?

It'll eventually stop spining. Because of the size of the weight and the amount of initial spin it'll take a couple minutes, but it WILL STOP!

Don't you have to spin it in the other direction as the push on the longer lever will require less force ?

Not bad, but if you turned the fly wheel the other way, I think it would be more effective.

could you show what a 'bad' tuning is, and how to achieve a good tuning? or is it just "the longer it spins, the better the tuning"? would putting a bearing on the lever pressing the spring improve performance, since there wouldn't be the friction of the arm dragging across the spring, as the bearing would simply roll along the spring surface instead of dragging?

this can allow a flywheel to not spin that fast while accumulating the same energy in the system

A flywheel with extra friction, great...

Turning it the other way might be better, the initial push will be on the far end of the lever traveling down and coming closer to the anchor point of the spring which in turn will turn it up with more force since the spring is shorter now. The way you're doing it should also work, but I hear a loud tap every time it hits the shorter stiffer part of the spring first which means energy are lost through sound and thus more friction on the spring. As a test of my theory it would be interesting to see a timed experiment to either side and verify if I'm right or bonkers 🤣

I have a solution looking for a problem. I have now learnt FreeCad, and have mastered 3D printing. Now I have an almost infinite making capability. Nice.

how effective is it? it looked like it slowed down as much as you'd expect without the spring.

Instead of a spring. What about a bi metal strip like in an old indicator? Supply a voltage to the strip and the fly wheel with a brush and when it contacts it heats up through resistance and clicks on giving a small kick to the wheel.

In a tank circuit you've got cap impedance 1/2(pi)fC and inductor impedance 2(pi)fL. You fix one and adjust the other so that they cancel at a specific value of "f". It's an amazing thing to watch in circuit simulation software. Mechanical analogs would be mass, "springiness" and rotation speed, I'm guessing. Without giving it much thought because it's late, I'm half lit and probably shouldn't be posting RU-vid comments.

It is awesome, and so are you. Thanks

Place that in a vacuum, difficult but would reduce a lot. This I love though. All about the timing.

It's amazing, thanks for sharing this motor-machine with us!

You did it I knew I picked me a winner I wish you the greatest of success.

Thank you for your work Robert 😁👍. I think if I had a teacher like you at school I my have stack around 😏

Nice. Have you measured the time of the rotation, i.e., from initiating the flywheel to its stop, with and without the spring.; of course you should have the same energy to start the flywheel which is quite difficult to do manually but with a "starter rope" it can be quite precise. What do you think ?

The original video shows the "engine" clearly speed up during the last take, so, as I guessed right away, there has to be an electirc motor in the axle "bearing". You could hide tiny speaker wires under the paint.

Robert, could you explain in more detail why this would have any advantage to just using a flywheel by itself? This one has the added friction of the peg rubbing on the spring with each turn. I don't see what you get out of this vs. just a flywheel; in this case, the flywheel is giving energy up to the spring, which then gives it right back, but with frictional losses. So what is gained by this? Two questions about possible variations: 1. Is there a lower-friction way of pushing the spring? Perhaps a crank slider arrangement so the friction is at individual pivots rather than a peg rubbing on a strip of steel might work better? 2. This arrangement only stores and releases energy for the bottom 130˚ of rotation. Is there some way to arrange this so that more of the rotation of the flywheel is employed? Would that confer any benefits? 3. Is there any way to utilize an escapement like valve or something to gradually tap out energy from some stored source (elevated reservoir of water, sand, or even an elevated weight) to keep the wheel turning at a fairly constant speed? That might actually be useful.

Great vidio, got ta build that for a tiki bar toy. Thanks for the morning coffee...

Now all you need for the "RL TANK CIRCUIT" Is super-conductivity. A thermoacoustic heat engine is kind of the same thing, just a heat oscillator.

With magnet bearing that thing would spin for ages.

Great video Robert. Many thanks

Robert, please show the difference of rotation 'Duration' with and without the spring, to illustrate the theory

Looks like fun, in the first demo the peg was hitting the spring further away from the fixed end (clockwise rotation), In your demo of your printed one it hit closer to the fixed end first (anti clockwise) I'm wondering if this makes any difference?

What about setting a coil around the magnets? Could the resistance of the coil/magnetic flux be tuned out? I might try this. Thanks for the inspiration.

We know Flywheel is equivalent to Inductor and Spring is equivalent to Capacitor but like electric circuit we cannot make mechanical circuit to make tank circuit, everytime you are bending the spring you are adding energy from flywheel to spring and not other way round, as *energy is conserved*

I may be wrong about this but I would think that the optimum position of the tuning magnets would depend to a degree on the rotational speed of the flywheel, so some sort of position governor might give some small benefit provided the additional friction does not impact too much.

Some ptfe or Teflon coating on the contact point of the blade might help reducing friction. Furthermore, you could pile up magnets below the counterweights magnets but with upside down polarity, it might help maintaining the rotation longer

Spin the wheel in the other direction. The cam push down easier and get more lift coming up.

To reduce the friction a bit. put a small bearing on the bar that touches the spring blade. Thanks!!

Maybe a better outcome with four springs. One on the down stroke and the up stroke as well as on both sides of the flywheel🤙🏻

Amazing indeed!

the reason why it works is the cam pushes the spring further away from the fixed or pivot point when the cam moves down at 0 degrees, when the cam moves through to 180 degrees, the point of contact is closer to the pivot point this increases the force applied to the cam pushing it up .. the small weight for tuning balances out the energy required to keep it oscillating ... is the cam had a bearing .. less friction it would improve the operation . However one would have to increase the counter weight on the cam to balance the system. ... something to bear in mind ... the more perfect anything is made the less chance it will work ... equal and opposite forces cancel each other out ..

Everyone forgets that... There's nothing in physics that says perpetual motion is impossible. The caveat is, you'd have to eliminate all friction and resistance and part wear/degradation and if you've managed that somehow you have a machine that will operate in perpetuity - that's an engineering problem to solve. Of course, physics steps back in once you've got that machine that runs forever and gently reminds you "that's very cool, however, if you take energy from it, it will stop... Thanks for playing".

👍 Awesome, 73

Imagine building a beefier version using a flywheel from a wood chipper and an automotive leaf spring! Perhaps that could drive a modest electricity generator?

Rare Earth magnets can be used with inductor to create voltage and current to power motors

I believe if you spuun it the opposite way the spring will have more effect as the length of spring will shorten as it drags along it, this in turn will increase the springs resistance causing it to add energy to the system.

Matter tank. I love it!

The magnet is attracting to the steel peg giving resistance use a different weight. Spin the well in the other direction takes advantage of the levering force of the spring.

Watching this, I had a thought for a generator. Essentially have 2 magnet holders on the spring that drop down (like how he had the magnets), but have them facing toward eachother and have it move up and down some copper wiring. Go from a flywheel spring motor to a flywheel spring generator.

Fascinating as usual 👍

Everything is resonant.

Thank You!!! It's like I can remember the technology of Lemuria from ages ago, and the technology was not all that different, and was really very simple technology, like your video!!!! but I also recall that what is missing in today's society, ya! what we don't have, but what Lemuria Did Have was a way to electrify the air, and make these simple devices operate all the time, effortlessly. Everyone take a deep breath, and Everyone relax, The Day will come when Lemuria will be here once again, and the skies will not have a single drop of carbon in it, from fossil fuel motor's/engines. Kelly - The Empress Mary of Ancient Temple Lemuria!!!

Another tank circuit for you: - you store potential energy in a rotor as electrostatic attraction and repulsion between the rotor plates and stator plates - the stator plates are electrically connected to each other so that charge can redistribute between the stator plates - If there is a load on the electrical line connecting the stator plates, then the load will limit the speed that charge can redistribute with - when the rotor is rotated to the highest energy state, directly in the center between both stator plates, where it has the most potential energy, it could fall into one of two lower energy states: - It could be rotated backwards and the polarity of the stators would be equal to the starting state - It could be rotated forwards and the polarity of the stators would be opposite to the starting state - either way: the force of electrostatic attraction, provided there is enough capacitance and applied voltage on the rotor plates, will cause the rotor to "spring" into it's lowest energy position If you have enough capacitance and applied voltage, you could use this spring action to "power" 1/2 of the rotors rotation in 1/4 rotation segements

The flywheel needs to be balanced or it is a double pendulum with extra steps, hard to "tune" to a desired frequency. The beat frequency of wheel pin and spring will make it stop prematurely due to sudden static friction at zero crossing.

I feel like it should have to go back and forth to be a proper analogy. With the spring stopping the wheel and pushing it back.

nice motorized desk toy

A tighter analogue to the tank circuit would have the flywheel reciprocating to-and-fro, almost a full revolution, between the extremes of spring deflection. The LC oscillator is, after all, an AC device.

Good switch too, thank you!

you are the best, thanks so much for sharing so many projects that cause us to think a little bit deeper into our reality

You just invent Perpetuum mobile! Congratulations!

I would want to graph the freewheel time to stop vs the spring implementation. You'd need a tachometer to ensure you're starting from the same rpms. I'd also want o see if a touch of lube help or hinder the whole setup.

Absolutely beautiful!!!!!

Thanks for posting

The flywheel will eventually stop. You have friction and the heat generated by the compression of the spring. If a magnet is involved, it will use up the magnetic field energy until the magnet is 'dead'.

A torsional pendulum is probably a more direct flywheel utilising analogy to an LCR resonator. The spring constant is the C, the moment of inertia is L and the friction losses R. A simple spring, mass, damper system would be very similar, just no rotational inertia, a linear one instead. The direction of rotation (current) reverses like AC current does in a tank. With the mechanical system here the flywheel rotates only in one direction and the loading and unloading of the spring is transient (i.e non-sinusoidal) which means it has harmonic distortion. Its cool, and relatively efficient, but not as efficient as just the flywheel and its bearings if energy storage an motion for a long time are desired. The closest electrical analogy to this system is probably a switching converter that is switching an otherwise shorted inductor charged with a large current periodically (briefly and synchronously twice per cycle) in series with a tank circuit. The spring cantilever is the tank resonator and the flywheel is the large shorted inductor. The inductor may as well be a capacitor connected periodically in parallel if that is easier to think about - you could consider it as an electrochemical battery too and the posts contacting the cantilever as active switching devices which periodically recharge the cantilever from the battery/inductor/capacitor whatever. This is a lot like a clock escapement, with the flywheel being the power source and the cantilever resonator being the frequency determining element. There is one additional complexity however which the electrical system wouldn't model unless it was a bit more complex. The period of the cantilever and the rotation of flywheel force each other via the periodic coupling of the pin which is physically attached to the flywheel. This means the forcing period is inversely proportional to the current stored and the amplitude of the cantilever response will vary as the flywheel discharges, in fact as it decays it could scan across the cantilever resonance if started above resonance and its amplitude would peak and then decay as its slows. If the energy stored in the flywheel is very large with respect to the cantilever at least, if they were closer to on par you have something like a coupled resonator system and the behaviour would be complex, even chaotic for some tunings.

It is rotating the wrong way! It would work better the other way due to the leverage of the spring.

Amazing! It is a ressonant phisical device

How does its motion compare to that of an unhindered flywheel? I assume it slows down more quickly because there will be some additional losses in the spring but perhaps this "tuned circuit" will maintain a constant speed for longer because of the resonance.

This seems like a mechanical analog of a magnetic V gate motor.

Did you test which direction spinning the wheel lasted longer? Did you test putting a small bear and small wheel on the pin so as to minimize drag when it hits the spring (or lubricant or both?)?

And, most mechanical watches have an oscillating wheel, which gets a tiny kick from a spring driven system...spring plus flywheel, plus energy source

When I see these kind of things It always seems to me that a Geared Mechanism might be the solution to a longer running mechanism

You made me think about a time when a coworker told me about a shop he had visited. The old man had a huge flywheel that was moving like that. He had that flywheel powering the whole place! No wind necessary!!!

it would spin longer without the cam and spring. The spring/cam is set up to minimize losses, but still has a minimum loss due to friction. Perhaps greasing the spring would help...lol

Very Cool brother ✝️🇺🇸😀

What an awesome device. I suppose the more accurate the parts, bearings, flywheel, and smoothness of the cam and spring...it will run for quite some time. Maybe a shot of some silicon spray on things will help as well. Awesome!

Reminds me of the odl tractor one stroke with big flywheel

A mechanism like this would make a very interesting escapement in a clock.

You could take that a step further and put a bearing on the pin to help reduce the friction from sliding across the spring.. Just a thought . May or may not help . But i guess that is why it's called experimentation.

Does it make a difference, where the original design has a flywheel whose weight is concentrated at the circumference vs your design where the weight of the flywheel is uniformly distributed across the radius?

You invented perpetuum mobile again

I never knew about these. I always thought that spring motors always had to be rewound but this is great. What are some modern applications?

Rob, this is a great demonstration of an asymmetric motor. The weight on the spring adds a dimension example of parametric oscillation. It would facilitate conversion as a springboard to creating a battery in plain sight. It's a motor that can run a very long time with very little additional power input. Fun to experiment with. Love it! Thanks for sharing!

The machine you tried to copy was oscillating although the video did not make that totally clear. It was essentially the same as a balance wheel in a watch which is a very common mechanism. What you actually made was rotating and totally not a tank circuit.

Unrelated but electricity transmission lines cost 20x more than oil pipelines per unit energy transmitted, i read today in one review paper

the wheel weight spins faster and longer without extra stuff attached

Add a small air coil under the magnets and see how much it generates!

A simple machine. I wonder how efficient it could be with a low torque motor on bigger applications. Use the motor to basically keep it moving. But not use as much power as you would to just run a fly wheel. I know we have gone far past belt driven machinery in shops atleast. But there is potential

It's a nice demonstration for a science class. Sure, we could put in a vacuum and give it magnetic bearings, including the contact point. It will make it last longer. Plus, as soon as we put a load on, it will slow down faster, proving it's not perpetual. It would be a cool science experiment to show how much of the initial rotational energy would have been recovered if a generator was applied. It'll be less than input due to bearing losses and such, but I'm curious.

A bearing over the tab will reduce the friction while striking the spring