Things are taking longer than I anticipated due to other factors not associated with Bessler’s wheel. Mainly it concerns my granddaughter Amy. I don’t wish to divert attention from my Bessler occupation but we received some generous funds from kind people on our crowdfunding page a while back and by way of a thank you, I thought I would just provide a link to an update article in the Guardian newspaper. Thank you.
But here is brief update on my build.
I’ve mounted the wheel on a simple axle which I can drop into a couple of receivers as I call them. They weren’t designed to be part of a set of bearings but they do the job, I’ve used them before. There will be a little resistance or friction, but if the wheel works as I hope, it will be able to overcome it because it is designed to do work, so overcoming friction is the least of my concerns. This method of attaching the wheel to the support structure works well because it is easy to remove the wheel to work on it when it’s lying flat on the work bench. I can simply lift it out without opening the bearings.
The wheel is currently almost perfectly balanced but once the mechanisms are attached that will probably lead to some unwanted imbalance even if they are locked in place to prevent any of them acting. In my experience these are problems which can be easily resolved later. Maybe the amount of imbalance won’t affect the action anyway.
The first five pivot points are fixed and working. I think their positions relative to the axle position and the edge of the wheel are correct, if there is some adjustment needed, there are two options; one is to move the pivot points inwards or outwards, the second is to reduce the size of the mechanisms. I don’t think this will be necessary.
There are things to be sorted out once all five mechanisms are fixed and their action is as I intended. Placing of two pulleys for each mechanism will require a certain amount of trial and error. I know where they need to be but I may have to deal with avoiding obstruction by certain parts of the whole assembly. I’m confident that although these are potential problems I’m anticipating, I’m confident they will be simple to resolve.
This next bit is the most interesting to me. I can picture how it all works and I can’t wait to test it. From a lifetime of experience in this field of endeavour I know that not everything will immediately turn out perfectly but I feel as though I’m on the final furlong.
I’m sure that most people think I’m kidding myself and that most of my code breaking is wrong or meaningless, and that if, as they suspect, it won’t work, then my plans to share what I know won’t be worth a penny. But I think many people will be amazed at the amount of information Johann Bessler left for us, and I plan to publish all of it, with or without a working model.
But I’m confident that it will work.
JC
