I completed the 'improved' version of my wheel and I thought I'd got it, as it began spinning of its own accord . It completed five turns before stopping and reversing a little. I found one of the mechanisms had 'overshot ' its stop and become locked. I freed it and repeated the experiment and it turned the five or six turns before it locked again. My design concept seems ok but delivery is not so hot. I'm redesigning the way the mechanisms work. They will accomplish the same end in the same way but the rotation of the mechanism allows to much lateral sway and the stops don't always capture the moving levers and stop them.
I know you haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about but I thought I'd let you know that it still doesn't work, but I'm on the case and confidence remains high!
I've lost count of the number of times my workmanship has proved not up to the task required, but this time I took my time in assembling the parts, but sometimes less haste is difficult to maintain and I admit I rushed the final assembly and to my chagrin, the quality has been less than adequate. Karl's comment on the simplicity of the design may give the impression that it was easy for a carpenter's boy to make, but it does not preclude the possibility of a ham-fisted mental genius cocking it up, not that I am that either - a mental genius.
If all else fails I will, in the end either publish my design or probably get help in making it, but I haven't reached that stage yet.
JC
You're not alone John,..I've just tested a two weight wheel configuration that also turned for a bit and stopped.I felt it was a most valiant attempt because it had all the ingredients logically of being a success.
ReplyDeleteWhen ever I swung the pendulums it would turn very positively climbing up jacob's ladder which should have maintained the pendulum swing,just like the kiiking principle, but alas slowly the pendulums came to a stop.
I think Bessler had found a way to maintain their swing.
I need to solve this problem!
The fact that it starts of its own accord, probably accelerates for a while and then completes a number of turns is indicative of a very promising design, John. How much money would you need for a professional build? Laser-cut parts, precision bearings, rigid all-metal construction - the lot?
ReplyDeleteI'm fascinated.
Trevor, why not "cheat" for now, maintain the swing with a electromagnet (or similar) for now and prove the principle?
ReplyDeleteAndre,.I need to be sure that the ammount of work required to excite the pendulums is less than the output power of the wheel.I do know that Bessler first attempt seemed as if it would hardly go at all,so maybe we are close.
ReplyDeleteAndre, just for fun, I read the two papers dated May 5 '11 and August 4 '10.
ReplyDeleteThe '10 paper tries to show the vertically moving pendulum is generating a "gravity shield". Please. Come on, Andre. Picture 2 looks like something a 10 year old thought up.
The '11 paper 's relevant points are the underlined ones. On page 4, at the bottom, note he says "If a pendulum could be made to move full circle"... This is a red flag. When analysis resorts to "ifs" then the analysis moves from concrete to speculation.
Page 5 is where he begins to attempt to show "overunity", i.e., the moving pivot point of the pendulum is generating energy. Consider the first sentence: "The important thing to perceive is the fact that centrifugal force is decreasing when the pivot point moves downwards". What does that mean? It sounds like a bad thing to me, if you are trying to generate energy. He goes through a lot of impressive calculus, but at the top of page 6, he says "Centrifugal force is doing over unity work because of movement of the
pivot point and it is equal to product of centrifugal force Fc and path passed by the force Δr". This is not only impossible, It contradicts his previous statement from page 5. At the top of page 11 he says " and any change of gravitational constant will not be important anymore". We all know constants don't change.
His conclusion doesn't help his case. He points out that if you don't have a water pump attached to the device, that it has a bigger quotient of efficiency. Well, that's obvious. He says the reason is partial oscillation of energy. And what does that mean?
It means the energy is oscillating back and forth. where? In the ends of the lever.
It's just a balanced lever.
Doug, I think you should re-read those papers. The gravity-shield story is clearly only meant as an illustration for the fact that energy can only be generated from a conservative field (the gravity field) if a way to create a dipole, a potential difference, can be found. It's quite clear from the description and actually quite accurate. You are making a mockery out of a very good and accurate example. To be fair, these are actually quite rigorous and sound analysis, not the rantings of some dazed soul tying to create "gravity shields". The wording and the English is a bit odd and broken in places but that is to be expected.
ReplyDeleteThe paper you are citing by the way is an analysis of a variety of pendulum with *moving pivot* (illustrated with real-world examples, even) intended to optimize the coefficient of performance (COP>1) under load, and scientifically quite correct. Read it carefully. I checked the theory and the math to my satisfaction, and I replicated the basic experiments. So have many others. The device is simple enough, the forces are not, especially not with a moving pivot.
I can assure you it is sound. It works, there is no denying the obvious and powerful amplification, or whatever one might call it. I say, it's an mechanical amplifier. It does indeed output far more tangible, useable force than is required to keep the pendulum going. And that's all that matters. I don't care if it's a lever or inverted quadrofoloidwhatsamadoodah to the power of twelve. It does what it does, and brilliantly so, in a extremely simple embodiment.
As Karl said, so simple that a carpenters boy could construct it. A device which, incidentally, violates Newton's Third Law. One of these hallowed laws, remember. Quite amazing. I think it's an extremely important part of the machine.
But even if that is not the case, and Bessler didn't use it, then it still is an very useful and unique device. I intend to build a contraption using this device with the IMS, as a mentioned before.
And that's not because I think it doesn't work. It's because I know it works.
Actually, if you think about it, it's a wonderful validation of Newton's third law, not a violation. That's what so many inventors don't understand; forces always have a paired, opposing force. So do the forces in this device. Think about it. It's basically a see-saw. If you made the weight heavier on the left, the lever doesn't move, the pendulum's pivot doesn't move, the pendulum just swings. If you make the pendulum heavier or increase the length of the beam the same thing happens: the weight doesn't move the pivot, and the pendulum just swings. So the weight of the two have to balance, like two kids on a seesaw (sitting underneath the board). Your intuition should tell you that when at the top of the swing the pendulum becomes weightless, and the weight on the other side drops down. When the pendulum swings back down, it's (balanced) weight, plus the acceleration of gravity adding momentary force, unbalances the lever to the pendulum's side, and the weight is lifted in the air. But the magic ends there. When it repeats this cycle, it's shifting everything (with the momentary gravitational acceleration on one side) back and forth across the beam.
ReplyDeleteI'd be more impressed by an analysis from someone not from Milkovic's home country, maybe an American physicist or lab. I sense a bit of "support the home team" going on.
I'd be interested in hearing how your contraption turns out.
The debate here about the Milkovic device has inspired/annoyed me enough to make and run a computer model of it (in silux). So I'm off now to his website to get the data to make the model. I'll post again when I have a result.
ReplyDeleteYes,..I would like to see that Arktos,it should be interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason why it works so well is because the inertial phase delay of the heavy beam weight tends to help maintain the pendulum swing.
Trevor, that's right, the reason it rocks back and forth is because he found the right combination of weight, beam length and pendulum period.
ReplyDeleteThanks John for adding the delete comment feature! And the sign in save feature!
Thanks,.at last we agree on something!How do I access this delete comment feature,I see nothing.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just a see-saw Doug. See-saws (or levers) don't use pendulums to gyrate, and that's the whole point. The pendulum part is the key here and changes the properties and forces that come into play considerably.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, one of the persons claiming that this device indeed does violate Newton's Third Law incidentally is an American, Doug. P. Lindemann, D.Sc., is his name. An official opinion from him on the machine can also be found on the site. And, like I said, there's more.
Lindemann correctly observes that the movements of the pendulum part are completely within the constraints of conserved forces, in accordance of all laws of classical mechanics. However, the movements -the up and down gyrations- of the balance beam are another matter entirely, and this is where, as a result, Newton's 3rd law is seemingly violated.
Paraphrasing him a bit he says what I and Trevor meant to say too: - namely that with the pivot point of the pendulum free to move, the centrifugal force of the downward swing is free to act on the beam, while the countering centripetal force remains a constrained force within the arm -or side- of the beam where the pendulum is hanging from. The useable force at the output side of the beam is NOT countered by an equal and opposite reactionary force in the device.
Neither the lifting of the output beam, nor the forceful drop of it, nor the removal of work from the movement of the beam impress any forces on the pendulum that would completely damp out its free oscillation. We are talking the fixed-pendulum pivot variety here.
Lindemann concludes that this device apparently creates a special condition where Newton's 3rd Law of Motion does not apply. I tend to agree.
If you would characterize this thing as just a lever, or a see-saw, one is seriously oversimplifying things.
One could also say that the Saturn V, the most powerful machine ever built in human history, is just a simple rocket, a brilliant invention by ancient Chinese scientists. Keep moving, nothing to see here, folks.
There are some interesting differences however. Given the fact that each fuel pump of each F1 engine in the Saturn V main booster required 35.000 horsepower to pump the fuel, so as to enable each F1 engine to generate 200 million horsepower - and there were 5 of those for a completely staggering total of 1 Billion horsepower! - shows that it's a completely different ballgame. Not to mention the advanced gyros, the inertial guidance systems, the computers, telemetry, actuators, turbine pumps, sensors and what all.
The basic principles resemble each other somewhat. But that's where it ends.
The delete comment feature is a little trash can icon next to the date under your comment. At least, it's on mine; I don't know if your's is showing it.
ReplyDeleteAndre, Peter Lindemann is self educated. He never finished engineering school. His comments on the device don't prove anything one way or the other. He didn't measure the output. He's just speculating in his mind how it could have 12x the energy output. This is not science. But you can agree with him that it violates the law of motion, I don't.
Rockets are also validations of motion laws. The fuel particles come out the tail end and the force of the exhaust creates the opposing thrust force that makes the rocket lift off.
No Doug,..I don't see it.What program are you using?
ReplyDeleteAs regards the 12 times energy gain;Have you watched Melkovic's experiment using one hand powered dynamo torch to excite the pendulum,while the rocking beam has enough power to physically light 12 dynamo torches.
What's your explanation there.
My browser is google chrome.
ReplyDeleteI see in his first video how the flashlight under the weight is being charged, but it's only one flashlight.
Okay that explains it.I'll try Google chrome.
ReplyDeleteThe video I saw had ten or twelve torches and they all lit up with each lever compression.
Come on, Doug. There's more Americans too. I have a Taiwanese, Serbian, Russian and a Chinese physicist in reserve too. Plus a crazy Dutchman (myself). So far I've refuted each and every argument you had against it. Do some research before you make these statements. 22 awarded international patents should tell you something too, unless you will now tell me that patents don't mean anything either and all patent officers are suspect.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's video's of far more than just one flashlight, whole banks of them. On the same site where you saw one flashlight being powered. Come on, be honest. The power of the device depends on how its setup, and of course if can power more than a single flashlight.
Don't try to ridicule the person if you can't refute the data. Lindemann (engineer or not) is not an idiot and his article is quite objective and his reasoning scientifically sound.
I'm curious how you see it - why the absence of a reaction force does NOT violate Newton's 3rd law.
Trevor, Firefox shows the trashbin symbol too, next to the time and date. At least my copy (version 4) does.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, guys, what happened to our friend Suresh?
ReplyDeleteI don't know Andre.I think Suresh got tired of sparring with Doug.
ReplyDeleteOh, poor Suresh.
ReplyDeleteI watched the 9 flashlight demonstration. Bigger lever, bigger pendulum, more hand force required to keep the pendulum swinging than in the one-flashlight setup. That still doesn't equal 12x more energy out than in.
Imagine removing the pendulum. Now get a very long piece of metal or wood board , maybe 8 feet and attach it where the pendulum was.The distance has increased, but the mechanical amplification has increased as well, so with one finger on the end of that board I can keep 9 flashlights going.
I'm not agreeing there is an absence of an opposing force, I'm saying Lindemann is wrong. The laws hold for this device.
Patents have been granted on similar inventions for a long time, but all those inventions are gathering dust somewhere.
My arguments haven't been proven wrong, just as yours haven't been proven right.
The results from my silux computer model of Milkovic's oscillator are that this model at least doesn't work as an energy amplifier. There was no net gain of energy over time. Although there is indeed an increase in the sum of mechanical energy over the first few cycles, that comes from a compensating reduction in potential energy.
ReplyDeleteOverall there is just energy swapping between kinetic, rotational, and potential energy of the two active components, i.e. the massive lever and the physical pendulum. Gradually this total energy diminishes, from losses at each impact between the lever and the anvil. (These impacts were modelled as 90% elastic/10% plastic, which is probably a bit better than what could really be achieved). Ultimately the pendulum keeps swinging at a constant moderate amplitude, but with the massive lever resting against the anvil.
For anyone interested in the details:--
I made the model to scale from the first image on Milkovic's /OscilacijeEng.html#analyses page. The massive lever was 2250mm long x 500mm high. The physical pendulum was 250 x 125mm, with its center of mass 425mm below its pivot. With the lever horizontal there was an 80mm gap between it and the anvil. I used standard gravity (9.80665 m/s²).
The first problem was to "tune" the model to get one lever-to-anvil impact at each amplitude extreme of the pendulum, as occurs in Milkovic's oscillator_animation gif. This is impossible long-term: the device is obviously "chaotic" (in the strict physics sense). I got a reasonable start for:-
Lever mass: 50kg
Pendulum mass 4kg, starting from a vertical position, with the lever momentarily at rest at its maximum distance from the anvil, at Vx = -2.5m/s, so its ω = -5.88235rad/s.
(With the lever held stationary, these values gave a vertical force of between 98.0 to 3.25N at the pendulum's pivot as it swung, which compares with the pendulum weight of 39.23N plus an added 48.2N that would have been needed to keep the lever balanced).
The total mechanical energy at the start of simulation is 12.95 joules, all from motion of the pendulum. The graph of mechanical energy vs time oscillates, reaching its highest value of just over 18 joules after 2.132 seconds of operation. But as said, this gain is only from a corresponding drop in the lever's potential energy.
I know, no computer model can ever be a full substitute for a real model, but personally I don't think I'll bother doing any more work on this device.
Good work,Arktos!This is what I call constructive collaboration.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you say John?
I'm impressed with anyone who can run computer-based tests to check the viability of a design, and it's certainly not something I could do.
ReplyDeleteThe Milkovic oscillator did attract my attention at first, but I felt that its concept was too far away from what I was working on and I dismissed it as a potential model for Bessler's wheel. I don't know if it could be used as part of a future mechanism, but I'm confident that it wasn't part of Bessler's.
Interesting discussion guys. Even if I mostly don't take part I read all of it with great interest.
JC
Doug ,..I don't need to remind you in,applied mechanics,that if you use a long arm on the lever you're leverage will increase and make it easy to use one finger but the work done is the same because the distance travelled is greater.
ReplyDeleteW=FxD.
Constructive collaboration indeed. Great work Arktos, and thanks also for the excellent details! This more or less confirms my simulation. However, the build is more promising than the simulation, I found, when one or two small modifications are made. I assume you had the simulation pendulum run from start to end until the oscillations dampened out to measure it?
ReplyDeleteMy observations were also that especially immediately after start - when the beam is gyrating up and down most forcefully - the effect is most pronounced. This requires a full swing. The effect can be varied a bit by modifying the pendulum bob's weight. It is important that the swing continues forcefully. Obviously a heavier bob has more potential and kinetic energy, and requires more to get started in the first place.
Therefore the second modification I tested was a moving pendulum pivot. Only very small horizontal, abrupt movements are required when the bob swings backward, away from the output end of the beam. This can be achieved in several ways, both mechanically as well as electromechanically. I found the latter way much easier to implement and control, and also more precise. I used a springloaded solenoid to move the pivot, which wasn't very efficient, but nevertheless did the job very well. Pulsing the solenoid at the right moment using a simple photobridge it was easy to keep the pendulum going at full swing, maximizing the initial effect on the output beam.
The solenoid required short, sharp pulses consuming 6 watts DC input (4 amps at 1,5 volts) from a standard regulated laboratory supply. With power supply losses taken into account this amounted to around 10 watts. I did not collect back-emf. Power consumption can be reduced to a fraction of that using a bifilar toroid coil placed at the attracting end of a spring-loaded permanent magnet attached to the pivot sliding mechanism. Unpowered the permanent magnet keeps the pivot stationary easily, however when the toroid is briefly pulsed it causes a temporary magnetic monopole, causing the magnet-spring combination temporarily to shift under the load of the spring. The pulses have to be very short and sharp, and not powerful at all so as not to saturate the core of the toroid. The back-emf of the collapsing magnet field after switching off the power can be harvested too, improving overall efficiency.
To the output beam was attached, through pusher-rods, a 2-kilo flywheel with a 1:3 geared DC motor used as a generator or dynamo, with a heavy-duty resistive load. This setup wasn't able to rotate the flywheel completely so it merely yanked back and forth (also mechanically very inefficient) but yet it was able to generate 5 amps at 9.8 volts, about 49 watts. So, still, even with this crude and inefficient setup a COP of nearly 5 was obtained.
Obviously, this entire setup is crude and very inefficient. The key here of course is to optimize the movements of the beam and maximize conversion of the mechanical movements into rotation, preferably high-speed rotation of a considerable mass. I expect that the IMS will do just that.
Although the entire setup with IMS in no way resembles Bessler's invention, it should do the job. I'm excited about that, especially since the timing issues are much easier to control. Get the IMS up to speed, collect maximum power, decouple, and repeat. Efficiency and power generated should be much higher.
I have ordered some parts for my next experiments, and that is, to try incorporate electrostatic discharge power,i have to admit electricity is not really mine domain,only basic.Fortunately my wife is electrical engineer graduated from Pilsner university,help will be at hand.I now that most of you will disagree , my personal opinion suggest that there is sufficient evidence to look in to that matter more deeply (Bessler's wheel).Gravity& electrostatic.After all my failed project's, it is time to try something different.Andre is open for such possibilities and that is nice,in Bessler's time,The Hague (Netherlands)was cradle for electrostatic experiments and build devices.Interestingly i was thinking couple days ago,what happened to Suresh.
ReplyDeleteActually, Vincent, if you construct a wheel with two counter-rotating discs (plastic material), you can create extremely high electrostatic voltage potentials, such as in a Wimshurst machine. Modern motors are high-current, not so much high-voltage devices, but if you can change that, you are on to something. You could have a look at Nadin's replications of Newman-type motors, which runs of high voltage, and very low currents.
ReplyDeleteAndre - Yes, I ran the simulation for roughly half a minute of elapsed time, which involved about 35 pendulum oscillations. Throughout this I measured (graphed) pendulum angle, lever angle, force at pendulum pivot, and total mechanical energy. As said, it was the massive lever oscillations that damped out; in the model the pendulum had no friction at its pivot, or other losses, so it would then still keep oscillating, but only at an amplitude insufficient to produce enough centrifugal force to move the lever off the anvil.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be saying you're close to success! Of course you'll have to feed back some of your generated electrical output to your electrical pivot-shifting device, and so create a stand-alone machine before you will finally convince even a friendly skeptic!
I must have "come in late" but what is IMS?
Yes Andre I will look in to it,one Wimshurst machine is already on the way,I have book's witch i am studying, one of them is from A.D.MOORE'S it is fascinating subject,my experiments will include many materials one of them is,for example Lead,surprisingly, collect as much static electricity as cat fur.I know, it is all blind experimentation.If you look carefully Bessler's portrait in his workshop tel me what you see.(Das Triumphirende)
ReplyDelete@Arktos, thanks for your great work on this simulation. My (open-source) simulation software is a bit crummy, and I only looked at the initial effects. Your work obviously is far more elaborate and complete. Thanks for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteYes, I intend to use the power generated to "close the loop" by powering the electronics to control the pivot. But I'd like to scale it up and optimize it further, since there's plenty of room for improvement without elaborate engineering. The IMS (inertial mass swing) system is a simple but smart mechanical device converting centrifugal force into rotation. It's an expired German patent, but it's quite nifty with some smart tricks. Once up to speed, only remarkably small movements from the axle connected to the sungear are required to keep the entire planetary gear assembly rotating at remarkably high speeds. This should be able to drive a standard generator in pulsed mode or generate electricity directly by passing permanent magnets over a set of coils.
@vincent: Good luck with your experiments! I did study the portrait you mentioned; I don't see much special unless you see Leyden jars in the shelf behind and left of him, and perhaps on the floor what could be interpreted as Volta-piles?
John, if your wheel self-starts and completes at least one revolution, then surely you have proven the principle, or am I missing something?
ReplyDeleteRegards RM.
I agree with that, Anon. One full, completed revolution self-started from a full stop already proves the principle is sound.
ReplyDeleteNo unfortunately, Andre, the wheel happened to release at a point where it was already out of balance. Two of the mechanisms had a greater overbalancing effect than the other three and if I started it from a different point of the rotation it did not complete a single rotation.
ReplyDeleteFor me the wheel has to accelerate to a certain speed and maintain that rate for at least say, five minutes. I think any observer would grant the experiment was a success if he saw the wheel rotate in that way.
I know that some recommend prony brake tests to measure the work rate but for me that comes later. First lets get the five minute test acccomplished.
JC
I see, John - there are "dead spots" which the wheel, as it is constructed now, so that once running, it has to overcome these "power gaps" by momentum alone. Under considerable load, that could be a problem. I was under the impression that it self-started from any position.
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder how much different his first designs (unidirectional) must have been in terms of the driving mechanism.
Maybe his first designs (which were thicker, and looked more like a barrel? Or am I mistaken?) simply doubled the mechanisms (10 instead of 5), one mounted behind the other, so their effect was more overlapping without overbalancing gaps? In his day, he was accused of hiding clockwork mechanisms in the unidirectional designs, and that's why he designed bidirectional wheels - in our day, a fully selfstarting (from any position) unidirectional wheel would possibly be more efficient for power generation.
How times change.
I might possibily have to revise my personal conviction that Bessler had five mechanisms. I'll say more upon my return from Spain.
ReplyDeleteJC
Arkos, may I bother you with a request?
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned Silux as your simulation software, which works well. It runs under Windows, I noticed on their website. Although I absolutely despise Windows, I can run Windows locked up in a virtual machine "bottle" on my systems so that it cannot cause too much damage and mayhem.
I tried to download Silux (2D) for Windows, but apparently their website (server) is also running under Windows because it crashed immediately. So no download for me.
Are you aware if any (other) site or resource from where I can download Silux? And would be you be so kind to allow me to use the simulation model you developed for my experiments?
Thanks in advance for any information you may have.
That's Arktos, not Arkos - sorry for the typos in my previous post.
ReplyDeleteAndre, Sorry to hear about your problems with downloading silux. I did my download back in 2002 (after registering as required) without problems -- the program comes as a zip file which of course has to be unzipped etc.
ReplyDeleteI don't know of any other source for downloading the program. Maybe it's out there as a torrent, but I don't trust those sites.
The silux business model is to allow free downloading of the program plus three PDF documents, then if you want full documentation, you buy that. (I did; it cost 180 Euros in 2002). I dealt with Pierre Freymond at silux, his email is freymond@silux.com. You could also try info@silux.com.
I'd be happy to send you the model I used, as a .slx file, but of course you'll need to get the program to be able to run it. (You'll find that models can be built quickly; it only took about 20 minutes to build that one. It's the computer time taken to run them that is much longer).
Thanks for the info, Arktos. The site still crashes (immediately after registering); looks like a programming bug to me judging from the error message displayed. Those email addresses will come in handy, thank you very much! I will contact them and see what can be done. I'll buy the PDF's as well, but first let me see if I can get the program.
ReplyDeleteThanks again!
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI had a problem with the registration page of the Silux website also, but I was able to find the direct link to their download page on Google.
It's: http://www.silux.com/software_download.cfm
On that page are the download links to the program zip file and three pdf files.
I downloaded the program but was not able to get it to install on my version of WINE and Linux, so I haven't had a chance to evaluate it yet.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
Dwayne
Dwayne, that is great info too! Thank you very much, I will certainly try it. Good tip btw to try and run it from WINE. It's certainly worth a try, I rather have it running under Linux and WINE as well.
ReplyDeleteDwayne, it downloaded just fine together with the documentation files. Thanks for your great tip. I'll try to get it installed now under OpenSUSE 11.4. I'll let you know how it runs, maybe I'll have some tips for you how to get it running using WINE. Worst scenario is that I'll have to install it under Windows running in a virtual machine.
ReplyDeleteThanks again!
Hello Andre,
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome.
I've not used Windows for years, so I certainly would prefer running Silux in WINE on Linux if possible. I currently don't have the latest versions of either, however, so that may be the problem with Silux. I now have Slackware 12.2 with WINE 1.1.17.
I am able to run some of my favorite (free) Windows programs with my current setup without any problems, though. Most of them are graphics related like the 3D modeling and animation program OpenFX, the easy to use spline based modeler Hamapatch (maybe my favorite of all) and the image viewer Irfanview.
Please do let me know if you can get Silux running in WINE and I'll try upgrading to a newer version. Otherwise, I may have to try installing my old Windows 98 in a virtual machine also.
Oh, I tried using freeCAD which has Linux, Mac, Windows and Unix versions found here: http://www.ar-cad.com/ar-cadPHP/freecad/
It will do simulations, but I found it a bit cumbersome. I think it is lacking in some of the build tools, so I had a hard time trying to model anything very complicated. Anyway, just wanted to let you know of another option.
Thank you, too!
Dwayne
Hi Dwayne - tomorrow I will dedicate the day to operation Silux-under-WINE. In case you hear muted rumbling, screaming and occasional violent explosions in the distance, that'll be me fighting Windoze installers. I will let you know what happens, and whether tricks, if any, are needed.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the additional tips!
Hey, Andre. Ha ha. I thought I might have heard you this morning, but it was just a storm passing through. Thanks for making the sacrifice. I'm not sure if I'm feeling up to such a task these days. Good luck. Talk to you later.
ReplyDeleteDwayne
Dwayne - a quick update on Silux. I've been offline for a while due to technical difficulties with my provider, but in short it boils down to this: I only was able to get it working well under native Windows. I couldn't even get the installer to run properly under Wine. I therefore "bottled" Windows in a virtual machine. Use XP pro, with the latest service packs is important (otherwise it's unstable). Thanks for your help, and good luck!
ReplyDeleteHey, Andre. Glad to have you back. I wondered what happened to you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the effort and the info. It's too bad Silux won't run in WINE. I don't have anything past Windows 98, however, so I may be out of luck. If I ever do reboot into my old hard drive that has my Windows installation, I may still give it a try, though, just for the heck of it.
What do you think of the program itself? Think it would be worth the effort?
It seems there was another simulation program I stumbled upon years ago, but I've now forgotten the name. Maybe I'll find it in the other hard drive (though I may have run it in WINE on an older version of Linux? ...hmmm...).
Anyway, thanks again.
Dwayne
Hi Dwayne,
ReplyDeleteI don't mind sending you a copy of my (legal) version of Windows XP Pro if I can help you with that. I bought several copies in the past and why shouldn't I be allowed to give one away, I only use one anyway and only "bottled up" in a virtual machine.
Yes, I think it's worth the effort. In fact in the samples that come with it are a number of rather impressive simulations, including planetary bodies colliding, or a complete working clockwork. Quite nice and, as far as I can see, very accurate.
I do have some (native) Linux (opens-source) simulation software installed on a massive parallel cluster, but it runs on a single (or multicore) processor as well. I forgot the name and is somewhat crummy (it's alfa or beta development stage, so I forgot the name) but it does work. Want me to find it and send you a link?
Cheers, Andre
Hello Andre,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I'd like to apologize for having taken so long to respond (even before John turned off the comments). I have some chronic pain problems and this has just been a rough time for me.
Anyway, with that said, it certainly sounds like Silux is a program worth having and, wow, thanks for the offer of one of your old copies of Windows XP Pro. If the offer still stands, far be it from me not to accept a gift. That's certainly nice of you. I would probably do like you and just use it in a virtual machine, then, or if my older and slower (main) computer just can't handle that, maybe put it on a separate drive partition for occasional use. I already have several partitions set up anyway where I was trying different flavors of Linux other than my usual Slackware.
I don't know if spam would be a problem on this site or not, but I guess I should make a throw-away e-mail address to exchange initial contact information - unless you already have one. I'd also certainly be willing to send you some money through Paypal to cover shipping costs and your trouble.
Oh, about the parallel computing, I've experimented a little bit with that. Several years ago I saw on ebay an auction for a lot of 27 used Dell desktop computers from the Windows 98 era. The seller wasn't going to ship them and I was only a three hour drive away from the place, so I thought I might have a good chance to get a really good deal and I did - winning them all for just under $200!
Believe it or not, 27 desktop computers will fit into an old and small two door Honda Prelude - but just barely. I had computers filling the trunk and the front floorboard and stacked to the roof in the rear seats and in the front passenger seat, but I managed to get them home.
Now, these were mostly Pentium II and Pentium III machines with speeds between 250 and 350 Mhz, but I found that with adapter cards they could be upgraded to much faster Pentium III Celerons. So, after a bit more money and several bulk lot auctions I began upgrading them. I currently have 20 of the machines networked together and installed with Open Mosix patched Linux kernels with a total processing power of about 15 Ghz. ...which may not be too bad even today for the cost of just a few hundred bucks. With further modding and using some Tualatin processors that I've already bought in bulk, I could possibly bump my total processing power to over 30 Ghz. (I have plenty of extra old processors, btw, if you need any. I think when I added them up I had about 121 Ghz worth!)
Anyway, it's certainly not a gaming setup, but I have some number crunching ability if I need it. I initially experimented with my own little render farm and found it was usually best to just let each computer work on an individual frame and send the job through bash scripting rather than relying upon Mosix to distribute the load. I've not really tried a program, though, that was specifically compiled with multiple threads so that it would fully take advantage of the distributed computing of the OpenMosix kernels. If your old alpha level simulation program would, that might be fun to play with even if it is a little buggy. So, if it's not much trouble I guess I would like that link.
ReplyDeleteOf course, though, I can only justify running my cluster in the wintertime when I can include the operating cost in my heating budget. ...lol.
Oh yeah, a few weeks ago I found a pretty nice 2D physics simulation program called Physion (at http://physion.net) that uses the physics/game engine Box2D (found at http://box2d.org). I don't yet know how it would compare to Silux, but it may be the best free program of this type I've seen so far. There are both Windows and Linux binaries available, also, and with both 32 and 64 bit Linux versions.
The program seems to be pretty powerful and easy to work with. You can even interact with the simulations as they are running - whether to modify a design on the fly or just to move objects around. The program also allows for running your own javascript routines which can apparently also be added to what can be set up normally using the gui. All in all it seems like a useful program and I would recommend giving it a look.
Okay, I just set up a temporary e-mail address at silux@earthlink.net that I can delete later if spam becomes a problem. You can use that to send me your contact information if you want. I can then send you my private e-mail address and snail mail address.
Thanks,
Dwayne
Hi Dwayne, thank you for your very extensive reply. I will email you at the address indicated, and of course I'll answer in (far) more detail. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Dwayne, I emailed you at the address indicated (silux@earthlink.net), did you receive it?
ReplyDelete