Once upon a time it was usual for a perpetual motionist to create within his own mind, a mechanical arrangement which he believed might work, and then bring it to life in a physical three-dimensional real life creation. Then he could study it and perhaps tweak it to try to get the device to begin to spin continuously - or nderstand why it didn't work. It was not felt necessary to introduce mathematical formulae to discover the solution.
Of course whether he knew it or not, maths guided the way his mechanisms moved but Johann Bessler did not need to include it in his research because he simply used his knowledge of organ-building to devise new ways of moving the various parts. But this knowledge was not sufficient to find the solution. It required a spark of inspiration which came to him in the middle of the night - a principle upon which he based his new mental creations and which eventually led to his success. He discovered the correct premise and used it to deduce the correct conclusion.
Of course whether he knew it or not, maths guided the way his mechanisms moved but Johann Bessler did not need to include it in his research because he simply used his knowledge of organ-building to devise new ways of moving the various parts. But this knowledge was not sufficient to find the solution. It required a spark of inspiration which came to him in the middle of the night - a principle upon which he based his new mental creations and which eventually led to his success. He discovered the correct premise and used it to deduce the correct conclusion.
Now I see that the Besslerwheel forum is filled with discussions concerning spreadsheets, simulations, obscure acronyms, modernised metrics, technical jargon that covers subjects which, back in the day, were labelled differently and whose means of calculation would probably be as difficult to understand by today's minds as their own working methods are to those of us who learned it all in a different way many years ago. Fortunately I have never seen the necessity for including all this stuff in my work, as I operate in the same way that I described above and which I believe Johann Bessler did. Visualisation, seeing it in my mind's eye, imagining it, sketching ideas on paper, building a bit at a time and testing the part to check that it works as I envisaged - that is my method.
I've had this basic principle in my own mind for more than three years now and the reason it has taken so long to produce a working version of the wheel is due to the difficulty of incorporating the requirements of this principle in a way that works. Johann Bessler reported that, following the discovery of this principle in a dream, he returned to work with renewed vigour and hope, yet it still took him many months of toil to produce the first beginnings of continuous rotation.
If I'm correct in my own belief that I do have the solution, I don't want to just give the answer away without at least building a proof of principle wheel, not because the concept needs the proof, (it's that simple!) but just for the sheer joy of being the first since Johann Bessler to demonstrate to the public how it works (unless, of course,someone else does it first!)
My new workshop will be built soon, hopefully before Christmas, but if not then, it will be ready in January, and after that I hope to complete my Bessler wheel, video it with a full explanation and publish it here and elsewhere.
Work on the house we moved into in the Summer is due to start next week and we will be staying with my daughter sometimes, assuming that the electricity will have to be turned off from time to time as work progresses and although we have a wood burning stove I think its going to be a mighty cold Christmas, with some walls being taken out and new ones to be built!
JC
Nice to read that you are soon to be dwelling in your new home, John, and busy in your workshop. Too bad the alterations could not have been done before the cold weather set in. I'll be looking forward to anything you have to report, especially any videos. I'm sure after the publication of my Bessler book, I'll be obliged to post a video or two showing the mechanics my research revealed.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that Bessler was not concerned that much with math, but you'll be amazed at the amount of math concerning his secret imbalanced pm wheel mechanics that was encrypted into the two DT portraits. It took me two chapters and close to 60 pages of text to cover it all adequately! Anyway, I'm now working on the last chapter of the book which will contain a handy reference table for the future builder of Bessler's wheels to use that will list the various component parameters for all of the wheels he actually constructed. Right now I'm working on the parameters for his planned, but never constructed "super wheel" which would have been about 40 feet in diameter and, according to my calculations extrapolated from the Kassel wheel, would have been capable of continuously outputting over 6,000 watts of power! That's enough to power a small house and by using about a dozen of these located in sets at various elevations, he could have continuously recirculated the water from the lake at the bottom of Count Karl's cascade right back up about 300 feet to the base of the Hercules Octagon at a rate of 1,000 gallons per minute! Not exactly like our Niagara Falls, but still impressive enough to keep the count fascinated by the possibility.
Mimi here. Good to hear that you are gradually getting back to normal, John. Concerning maths: that is, of course, the accepted tough way of the theoretical physicist. It is the path I am following, as my intuition, so far, has not proven successful when building. Nor have the maths, either, to be honest. If the equations do not accurately desciribe the situation, then the maths is no good. So, I keep iterating between building and calculating. As far as Bessler is concerned, I rather think he did both, as well. I seem to remember that he called himself a "mathematicus". And I have noticed that most of the maths and theories we use today date as far back as his era. It must have been an unbelievably exciting time.
ReplyDeleteCheers Mimi
Hi Mimi and Ken, you each make a good point about the use of maths, and of course Bessler described himself as Dr of Medicine, Mathematics and Perpetual Motion. But I still believe that he needed only his imagination and creativity ahead of any math, to discover the secret. I would love to give some clues but I am determined to build it first before I explain my (currently) hypothesis.
DeleteYes it's good to be back and I can't wait to get back to wheel building again.
JC
For those on the western side of "the pond" (aka the Atlantic Ocean), it's Thanksgiving Day, our national holiday when we take a break and celebrate the things we are thankful for like good people in our lives, a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and, of course, still being alive to enjoy all of these. So don't worry about finding the solution to Bessler's wheels. I can virtually guarantee that it will be known next year and well ahead of the 300th anniversary of the completion of the Kassel wheel!
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving, everyone!
John.... what a treat to find your latest post. We are all happy to hear of your progress and look forward to your next posting. I agree with your comments about the need for experimentation but know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that his work will be confirmed by math. The engineers will rejoice to finally have something to clearly and definitely set the myths to rest. Good luck with getting your home in order, as I too see this next year as being a life changing event for the planet....
ReplyDeleteyou like magnets and pendlums? try this one.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHfQvLG4xR8
boris
When did he have the dream ?
ReplyDeletepage 269 (my page numbering) Apologia Poetica, during his years of researching the wheel.
DeleteJC
Thanks, I will get that pdf next week.
DeleteJohn, I've been wondering for a bit now ......
ReplyDeleteThe Church was a very powerful authority back in the times of Bessler. There must have been some official position toward what Bessler was claiming, given the nature of such a profound discovery.
In all of your studies and research, did you ever find any statements by the Church toward:
1) Bessler's Wheel
2) Bessler himself, as the discoverer of the Wheel?
I'm not aware of an official response although there were some comments about it being the Devil's work.
DeleteJC
Good to read you again, John.
ReplyDeleteThanks Michel, stick around, I'll be writing some more soon.
DeleteJC
Is a gravity wheel considered a perpetual motion machine? Some people say that it's not because it doesn't fit or meet the criteria of a true perpetual motion machine. But isn't gravity perpetual? Besides that question, does a gravity wheel have to work in the vertical position in order to be classified as a true gravity wheel?
ReplyDeleteI have always argued that Bessler's wheel shouldn't be called a perpetual motion machine but instead a gravity wheel. To use gravity as a source of energy - yes I know you all think that's impossible - means that it is the same as any other engine in that as long as it has a source of energy it can run. A perpetual motion machine has run without any external source of energy, something even more impossible than my belief that the energy comes from gravity.
DeleteJC
If and when a working gravity wheel finally arrives on the scene, will it be in harmony with the known laws of physics? Or, are we going to have to rewrite the current fundamental laws of physics? Someone somewhere is going to be very disappointed when they realize that a gravity power wheel is a for sure possibility! Of course that's just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteAll machines that output energy must have a source for that energy because it is physically impossible to just create energy our of nothing. The skeptics of Bessler's day assumed that he had either an external source of energy his wheels that powered them through a hidden crankshaft inside of one of a wheel's vertical axle supports or an internal source like compressed air or several tightly wound up mainsprings created torque on the section of axle inside of the drum. Of course, Bessler's wheels had none of these because, if they had, Count Karl would have immediately realized it and denounced him as a swindler...or worse.
DeleteSo, where did the energy Bessler's wheels output come from? Some have hypothesized that gravity can supply that energy. While it is true that gravity in the form of waves can transfer energy from one planetary body to another, in general, gravity contains no energy of its own that can be tapped. However, mass *is* energy and the moving mechanical components inside of Bessler's wheels had plenty of mass. To me, it seems only that mass could have been the source of the energy his wheel's outputted. How? A bit hard to explain in a brief reply, but, basically, the weights in Bessler's wheels were, on average, dropping a bit faster on a wheel's descending side than they were rising on its ascending side so that the weights continuously lost tiny amounts of mass as they traveled around the axle and the wheel outputted energy to its environment. This approach fails in all wheels other than Bessler's because the number of weights on the wheel's ascending side are always a little greater than the number on the descending side. In Bessler's wheels, however, the number of weights on both sides of a wheel was always equal! Impossible to build such a wheel? You won't think so when I finally reveal the design that the DT portraits have revealed to me.
I respect Ken's right to have his opinion, although I don't agree with it. What I've discovered, Perpetualman, requires no change in "the current fundamental laws of physics". Time will tell who is right.
DeleteJC
Interesting. Well, being that your close to solving this mystery, aren't you the slightest worried that those who run the oil and energy companies will try to prevent you from revealing a free energy machine?
DeleteMaybe things are different in the UK. It just seems that, every time I read about people who try to make these wonderful machines, their either paid off or permanently silenced. How do get around something like that?
I too have ideas for free energy machines. Shouldn't I just make arrangements to sell them to India or China or some other foreign country that won't try to suppress my ideas?
What are your thoughts?
Also, I'm not trying to start an argument with anyone, and I hope that I haven't offended anybody on this website. It would be so wonderful if we could all just share our great machines with everyone without being hampered by rules and regulations of man made laws.
DeleteI can't wait to see the final results of your wheel! You've worked so hard on it for many years and I commend you for your great efforts.
So back to the question that I asked earlier: is it possible for a gravity wheel or gravity powered device to run in the horizontal position? The reason is, I seen a drawing of a device that supposedly spins horizontally. Is that possible?
I don't think the power companies or "Big Oil" will feel financially threatened by the soon coming resurrection of Bessler's wheels. One would need one of his "super wheels" to power a typical home. It would be 40 feet in diameter, weigh about 10 tons, and have a maximum startup power output of about 6.67 kilowatts. But, imagine every home on your street having one of these Ferris wheel sized behemoths in its backyard! Homes are going to be connected to the "grid" for the foreseeable future with the strain being taken off the grid during daylight hours by photovoltaic panels.
DeleteThe weighted lever motions inside of Bessler's wheels all took place in the plane of their drums (there is no "Z axis" motion of any components which makes using a planar graphics program like Working Model 2D idea for simulating them). For maximum power at any speed, the drum's axle must be perpendicular to a planet's gravity field. However, it should also be possible to run one of his wheels without using gravity. Just mount the wheel at the end of a centrifuge's arm so that the wheel's axle is perpendicular to the direction of the centrifugal force when the centrifuge is running. No doubt, some physics doctoral candidate of the future will be performing this experiment as the research for his degree. Anyway, this is will be further evidence that Bessler's wheels obtained the energy they outputted independent of Earth's gravity field. However, using the power from a wheel is far easier when a gravity field is used as compared to using a centrifuge.
Hey Ken,
DeleteInstead of a 40 foot diameter Bessler wheel, how about a 10 foot, self starting gravity wheel that spins much faster than a Bessler wheel and can be up scaled or down scaled depending on a persons power need?
I think it's possible. What do you think?
After all, like Uneqk said: "Anything is possible IF you know the answer" :)
DeletePerpetualman, Anything possible if you know the answer. Like I say its easy if you know.
ReplyDeleteWell said Uneqk, well said.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think a 40ft. diameter wheel may not be necessary, 10 X 4ft. wheels on a common axle may produce just as much power, and if each section shares a "dividing wall", the whole thing would be something like, 6 to 7 ft. tall, by 8 to 10ft. long.
ReplyDeleteAbout the same size as a transit van.
My thoughts exactly Stevo. Several wheels in series on one axle would be more practical.
DeleteJC
I agree that such a wheel could be made more compact, but doing so introduces some unexpected engineering problems. If one reduces the diameter of one of Bessler's 40 foot diameter super wheels by a factor of 10, then he must increase the mass of each of the smaller wheel's weighted levers by a factor of ten to maintain the same torque and power output as the 40 foot diameter wheel. My calculations indicate that Bessler's proposed 40 foot diameter wheels would have used weighted levers weighing almost 800 pounds each, so, to have the same torque and power output, the weighted levers in the 4 foot diameter wheel would each have to have a mass of 8,000 pounds. Since there were always 8 weighted levers in a one-directional Bessler wheel, the total mass of the weighted levers in the smaller wheel then becomes 8 x 8,000 lbs. = 64,000 lbs. or 32 tons. The 40 foot diameter wheel's total mass is only about 10 tons. So, we see that there is a price to be paid for reducing the diameter of a Bessler wheel which is a big increase in its gross mass. And, even if one divides up the smaller wheel into 10 separate wheels each weighing 3.2 tons and places them on a common axle, the total mass of the group does not change.
DeleteThere was another reason Bessler wanted to build single 40 foot diameter wheels aside from keeping their mass as low as possible per kilowatt of power they outputted. A single one-directional wheel contains a total of 40 coordinating cords (or ropes or even kink resistant chains in the case of a 40 foot diameter wheel). If one uses 10 smaller wheels to replace a single larger wheel, then one will have 400 cords in the group of wheels! This then increases the amount of replacement maintenance for broken cords by a factor of 10.
I'm sure Bessler was aware that the size of his super wheels would be a problem if they were used to operate Karl's cascade. Yes, they were almost silent in operation and did not emit choking fumes like steam engines would, but seeing such large constructions running up the side of the hill on whose slope the cascade was located would have been a distraction from the cascade itself. That was something Karl would definitely not want. Solution? Simple mount three such 40 foot diameter wheels on a single massive axle and have the axle bearings at ground level. Half the volume of the composite wheel would then be hidden under ground in a trench dug down about 25 feet. That would only leave 20 feet of the wheel group visible above ground. That part would then be concealed in a small structure to protect the wheels from the weather. This structure would further be concealed behind trees and not visible to visitors to the cascade. Also, it would probably have been a lot easier to just place the pumps and piping at ground level to make it easier to service them in case of a leak developing where the pipe sections where joined together. They would have been hidden behind ground brush and shrubs. With each super wheel providing about 6.67 kilowatts of power continuously, a dozen of them (contained on four axles each holding three wheels) would have provided 80 kilowatts. My calculations show that, even allowing for a 10% loss of power due to friction in the pumps and wheels, Bessler's super wheels could have pumped water from the bottom to the top of the cascade at a rate of about 1,000 gallons per minute or more. Certainly enough to impress the count's visitors. The price tag, however, on such a construction project would have far surpassed the cost of building the Kassel wheel and that is most likely why Karl did not undertake the project much as he would have liked to. He simply could not justify the expense considering the other public works projects he wanted to fund.
Ken, I think that replacing one 40 wheel with a series of 10 smaller wheels on the same axle, or better still one long wheel on the one axle, but of much smaller diameter, would not require a ten fold increase in the size of the weights. You seem to have ignored the increase in torque generated by 10 wheels with ten times as many weights as opposed to one wheel with one set of weights.
DeleteBessler did not say he wanted to build a 40 foot wheel he merely suggested in response to this question:
“Could I undertake to construct even larger wheels - and to what size do I think they could be taken?”
Answer - with the help of good assistants I would have thought that something well over 20 ells in diameter would be possible,
should anyone think such a thing desirable, and if the Lord should
grant me the necessary strength and health."
An ell was 22.3 inches so he indicated about 37 feet in diameter, near enough to 40 feet. But no indocation that he actually intended to build it, just that it was possible.
Please don't write your opinions Ken, as if they were facts; there are no suggestions other than in your mind that Bessler required 40 coordinating chords. I try to express my ideas as speculation if there is no proof, and you have offered no proof to date. I know you believe you have decoded the portraits to discover a wealth of information, but I have found a different path to a solution that bears no resemblance to yours.
In addition your description of where the energy comes from, through a reduction in the mass of the weights, is frankly unsustainable, in my opinion.
I on the other hand remain firmly convinced that it will become inevitable that the only way that Bessler's wheel will become a reality is by accepting that gravity is the ultimate source of the the energy. In support of this notion, I point to the fact that for hundreds of years thousands of people have attempted to create an overbalancing wheel driven by falling weights. Clearly they all thought that it was possible despite the oft stated laws of physics which seemed to deny the possibility.
JC
John wrote: "You seem to have ignored the increase in torque generated by 10 wheels with ten times as many weights as opposed to one wheel with one set of weights."
DeleteI haven't ignored it. If one has 10 wheels, then they will, obviously, have 10 times as much torque as a single wheel. My point was that you can't just decrease the diameter of a 40 foot wheel down to only 4 feet and expect it to have the same torque and power as the larger wheel. That will not happen unless, as you decrease the diameter by a factor of 10, you simultaneously increase the mass of the weighted levers by a factor of 10 if you want the smaller wheel to have the same torque and startup power output of the larger wheel.
I mentioned 40 feet as the diameter for Bessler's proposed "super wheel" because, being a numerologist and obsessed with Bible numbers, he would have naturally selected this value to honor the God he believed enabled him to find the secret of pm. 40 = 8 x 5 where 8 in numerology is associated with completion and perfection and 5, as you've pointed out previously, was one of his favorite numbers. 40 also brings to mind the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years and Jesus in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. It was just too important a number for him to ignore in the construction of what would have been his ultimate wheel.
And, yes, my research definitely indicates that each of his one-directional wheels did, indeed, contain exactly 40 coordinating cords (there's that number again!). Of course, I don't expect acceptance of this reality at this point in time because I have not yet fully revealed the many hidden clues in the two DT portraits that confirm this construction detail. But, that time of revelation is drawing nearer with each passing day!
In claiming that gravity is the "ultimate source of the energy" for Bessler's wheels, you are ignoring the fact that his wheels could have operated just as well in a horizontally spinning centrifuge where gravity would not be acting perpendicularly to a wheel's axle and the wheel would be running solely on centrifugal force. This shows that gravity was not necessary. In fact, any force pulling the weighted levers in a direction perpendicular to the length of the axle would have made a wheel run.
Well, the design that will finally be accepted as "the" one Bessler used will be the one that directly leads to a replication of his wheels. At this point in time, I remain very highly confident that I have found that design.
Update. I'm working on the last chapter of my book and wanted to include a nice neat little table that would summarize all of the parameter values, external as well as, most importantly, internal, that were involved in the construction of the mechanics of the 7 wheels that my research indicates Bessler actually constructed in addition to the "super wheel" he never got around to constructing (that's a total of 8 wheels!). I did the rough draft for the table and then realized that I could not fit all of the parameters into one table on a single page. Well, I finally did cover all of the parameter values, but it took 3 tables to do so! These 3 tables now contain a grand total of 248 values or 31 parameters for each of the 8 wheels. Without the DT portrait clues supplying the extra 21 values for the critically important internal parameters of his wheels, one will never have more than 10 of the external parameters for each of them and, unfortunately, will not be able to duplicate them other than by an incredible stroke of luck. I've gone to the extra trouble of providing this information to help save future builders of his wheels from having to do their own computations and, possibly, making errors that will only slow their progress.
Ken wrote: "I haven't ignored it. If one has 10 wheels, then they will, obviously, have 10 times as much torque as a single wheel. My point was that you can't just decrease the diameter of a 40 foot wheel down to only 4 feet and expect it to have the same torque and power as the larger wheel. That will not happen unless, as you decrease the diameter by a factor of 10, you simultaneously increase the mass of the weighted levers by a factor of 10 if you want the smaller wheel to have the same torque and startup power output of the larger wheel."
DeleteYou still don't seem to get the point that ten wheels in series on one axle will be more compact than a 40 foot one. Adding ten times the weight to each small wheel is simply not necessary because you have ten wheel as opposed to just one, albeit ten times the diameter.
My suggestion that gravity was the ultimate source of energy for Bessler's wheel was merely ruling out the other researched energies such as ambient temperature changes and static electricity etc. Gravity was all that Bessler needed, but since gravity reacts with mass, as does a centrifuge in your example, perhaps we should describe it as a gravity enabled wheel.
JC
John wrote: "You still don't seem to get the point that ten wheels in series on one axle will be more compact than a 40 foot one. Adding ten times the weight to each small wheel is simply not necessary because you have ten wheel as opposed to just one, albeit ten times the diameter."
DeleteIt may be more "compact" as far as diameter is concerned, but certainly not as far as drum thickness is concerned. If the 40 feet diameter wheel's drum was, say, 3 feet in thickness, then 10 wheels on the same axle that were 4 feet in diameter and 3 feet in drum thickness would have a thickness of 10 x 3 feet = 30 feet! That's one really thick "drum"...more like a long cylinder and almost as long as the diameter of that single 40 foot diameter wheel! More importantly, unless the total mass of all of the weighted levers in the smaller wheels was made 10 times greater than the total mass of the weighted levers in the single 40 foot diameter wheel, then the stretched out "compact" wheel would only have 1/10th the torque and maximum startup power of the 40 foot diameter wheel. To retain the torque and startup power of any diameter wheel as its diameter decreases requires a simultaneous increase in the mass of the weighted levers as the physical dimensions of the wheel are decreased.
I like the term "gravity enabled wheel" or, more generally, "force field enabled wheel" because without the weighted levers "feeling" some force acting on them, nothing is going to happen. Interestingly, one could place a Bessler's wheel near a Black Hole, but if the wheel and its weighted levers were massless, no rotation would take place regardless of how powerful the local gravity field was (also any support structures for the wheel would also have to either be massless or strong enough to withstand the gravitational forces acting on them).
Wasn't the 4ft. or so Gera wheel only about 4in. thick ?
DeleteYes, and I still prefer the idea of a series of smaller wheels on one axle. I never suggested that the small wheels had to be the same thickness as the larger one, Ken, I just think the idea is more practical than a 40 foot wheel, but that's just my opinion.
DeleteJC
ken, besslr made giant wheels? that is new one to me. heres guy who did same thing but not as big as bessler.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV5PCtUBOSI
boris
He never built them, boris. He only planned them. Btw. Thanks for the link to that giant wheel. I like builders who "think big" and it's too bad it did not work...or did it?!
DeleteIf Bessler just used weights to power his wheel, why didn't he just increase the weight instead of making such a huge wheel?
ReplyDeleteHe never actually built the 40 foot diameter wheel, only planned it. The reason is as I stated above. A 40 foot diameter wheel, according to my best estimate, outputs 6.67 kilowatts by using 8 weighted levers with a mass of about 800 pounds each. With a wheel only 4 feet in diameter one needs 8 weighted levers that are 10 times or about 8,000 pounds each to get the same torque and startup power output from it as one would from the 40 foot wheel. One can then spread the required increased weighted lever mass out among 10 identical wheels on the same axle so that each of the 10 wheels has weighted levers with a mass of 800 pounds, but then one has a wheel that's shaped like an elongated cylinder and there is no reduction in the total mass of the smaller diameter group of wheels. Bessler would have been aware of this problem and that, imo, is why he planned single large diameter wheels. To pump water up through an elevation of 360 feet from the lake at the bottom of Karl's cascade to the spout of the Hercules Octagon at the top would have required the power output of a dozen of these 40 foot diameter wheels. That's 80 kilowatts! It was certainly technically "doable", but would have been an expensive project requiring the team work of dozens of craftsmen.
DeleteHow's about scaling the 40ft wheel down to a 3ft wheel with the same number of weights but have them weigh less? If it rotates, then build a bigger model of it.
ReplyDeleteBesides John, has anyone made progress in actually building a real wooden or steel model of a gravity wheel? (NOT A SIMULATION WHEEL) but an actual wheel?
I've built a few and they all had the same results....They didn't work like I had hoped. But then again, Edison found many ways how not to build an incandescent light bulb, but he only needed to find one way to make it work.
I think this is the track that we're all on....Isn't it?
"How's about scaling the 40ft wheel down to a 3ft wheel with the same number of weights but have them weigh less? If it rotates, then build a bigger model of it."
DeleteThat is exactly what Bessler did. In early 1712, a few months after his "invigorating" dream, he had constructed, at his rented home at Richter's House in Gera, Saxony, a small 3 foot diameter, one-directional wheel that could be put on a small stand and then placed on a tabletop. The dimensions of its little levers and the mass of its small lead weights are indicated in the second DT portrait (if you know where to look for them!). In my forthcoming "ultimate" Bessler book, I give complete plans for the construction of this first working prototype wheel that Bessler built. It was merely a "proof of concept" model intended to be a construction guide for larger and far more powerful versions. It can be constructed with simple hand tools, stock pieces of wood, and glue. But, it's power output is very small and only about 1/10th of a watt. That's just barely enough to create continuous rotation and allow slow acceleration up to a drum rotation speed in excess of about 60 rpm's. Still, a string attached to a nail on its short axle can, when it's running at full speed, lift a 1 pound weight almost up to its axle before the wheel comes to a complete stop. Note that this first 3 foot diameter prototype wheel is often confused with his second 4.5 foot diameter Gera wheel that was far more powerful (because of more massive weighted levers) which, on at least one occasion, he took out of his home for an outdoor public demonstration in Gera.