Update on my reconstruction of Johann Bessler's Wheel.

Although I am unable to do any work on my wheel currently, I thought I'd update you on the situation as it is.  I'm still working with five mechanisms for reasons I have explained on my web site at http://www.besslerswheel.com/

You will also see that I am committed to the parametric oscillation theory in which a weight passes downwards in an outer position, relative to the axle, and then at six o'clock flies upwards in just the same way that a 'kiiking ' rider straightens his legs at that point in order to raise his centre of gravity towards the axle.

I am currently striving to get the weights to operate in the way Bessler described, shooting upwards at that point.  I completely understand why they must perform this part quickly and I can make each one ascend gently, but not actually shoot upwards and the result is that the lift is a too late.  

The idea is that once the wheel has completed a fifth of a turn, the next mechanisms acts in the same way to continue the rotation, however without a quick lift, the next mechanism doesn't arrive at the position in which it has to rise!  I believe I know how to improve the speed of the lift and make it shoot upwards and once I've constructed it and proved to myself that that part of the mechanism works, I should in theory be able to move on to the next bit which is constructing a fully working wheel.

The chief problem I have encountered over the last couple of years is getting the mechanism adjusted correctly.  I know that is an excuse everyone uses, but in truth, copying a working wheel might have seemed easy to Karl, who suggested it was so simple a carpenter's boy could make one if he was allowed to st udy it for a short while, but trying to get it right from scratch with nothing to guide you except some misleading clues is another matter.  In my case I have had to fall back on trial and error and it is a lengthy process but I remain confident that I shall get there eventually.  As before, once I know imy work is not going to result in a working model, I will release all my designs for public consumption.

By the way, the delay in wheel work is due to members of my family moving in to our house for a few months, but hopefully once the move is completed in the next couple of weeks, I can get back to work on my wheel.

JC

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The law of energy conservation proves that a single weight can't drive a gravitywheel.

Time to turn my thoughts to gravity again. Today's blog is a two parter but each is connected with the other.

Firstly, some say that Bessler never used the word 'gravity' in his writings, therefore he did not ascribe his energy source to gravity.  But the reason for its non-appearance is because he used such words as 'preponderance' and 'weight' instead.  Preponderance simply means 'a superiority in weight', in other words, heavier than something else.  

The apparently missing word, 'gravity', comes from the Latin word, 'gravitas'.  In Newton's time, Latin was the language used by the learned, and books on academic and scientific subjects were written in Latin so that they could be read by people in all the European countries regardless of the reader's native language.  Newton's use of the word, 'Gravitas', meant 'heaviness' or 'weight'.  But he suggested that 'weight' should no longer be regarded as simply a property possessed by a 'heavy body', but that a body that seems to be heavy is being attracted by another body with mass, in this case, the earth.  Thus the force of gravity was born.

The word for gravity in German today is 'Schwerkraft' but that did not come into common use for many years after Bessler's death.  So just because the particular word 'gravity' isn't there doesn't mean that Bessler wasn't referring to it in his writings and the circumstantial evidence is clear enough that that is what he meant.  If he could do it, then it can be done

Secondly, we've been taught that gravity is a conservative force and therefore it cannot be used as a source of energy.  I have repeatedly pointed out that the forces of wind and water are also conservative forces and they provide excellent sources of energy.  You can't have it both ways; either a conservative force cannot be used as an energy source.... or it can! 

In relation to our research, the law of conservation of energy only defines what happens for a single weight mounted on a wheel and driving a gravity-enabled wheel.  Picture Bessler's horizontal windmill, the one he was building at the time of his death; the wind acted on both sides of the vertical axle and with a number of sails or scoops, it was designed to rotate in the wind. if there had been just one sail or vane or scoop, it  would have made half a turn and stopped - it needed several of them to work with each side on either scooping up the wind or deflecting it, to make a full rotation.  

The same goes for an overshot water wheel for example.  If it had just one bucket it would stop after half a turn.  It needs a succession of buckets to make a full and continuous rotation. 

A Savonius windmill still requires a miniumum of two blades or scoops to allow it to rotate and there are designs using three or more blades.  My point is that even though gravity is a conservative force that does not rule it out as an energy source - as long as there are sufficient weights in complementary action.  

None of the above wind or water driven designs will work with just one blade, unless of course, as in the case of the former one, it is designed to operate face-on to the wind. The different designs mean that the wind and water wheels use surface-changes to their vanes, scoops or sails to interact with their relevant forces to gain mechanical advantage, whereas gravity-enabled wheels use position-changes of their weights to interact with gravity for a mechanical advantage.  

Horizontal windmills, or Savonius windmills present a larger surface area on one side of their axles than the other, which gives one side more leverage and makes them turn.  It's just the same with gravitywheels, they present the weight on one side further from the axle which gives one side more leverage and makes them turn

The whole argument against gravitywheels is based on the calculation of one weight operating the wheel and not several.

I've said all this before, on my other web sites and on the forum but I will repeat it and repeat it until someone listens and makes the required paradigm shift.

JC

Johann Bessler's graphic clues to the mechanisms in the Orffyreus wheel.

Someone grumbled that I haven't posted any interesting clues lately, well I can't give out any hard and fast clues yet, but here are some pointers to how I interpreted some perceived clues and got their meaning 

As I've said before, the most useful of Bessler's clues are those which show the actual mechanism.  They are contained in a few illustrations. That being so, how come no-one has been able to build a working model based on those clues?  The answer is, because Bessler deliberately confused the simple interpretation of the drawings by omitting some features, adding unecessary pieces and moving others into the wrong position, and pointing out what he had done, in other drawings.  

One particular example can be interpreted by re-orientating the drawing to the position in which the mechanism would naturally respond to gravity.  If you study the drawing, one part of the mechanism is semi-detached, and consequently by re-orientating the drawing, and allowing gravity to act as if it was a real mechanism and not just an illustration, thus changing the position, the item then shows itself in its correct position.  Reversing the orientation of the drawing again does not mean that the item discussed should return to its former position as this would then be incorrect for the functioning of the mechanism.

It is this kind of encoding that permeates Bessler's clues and requires a certain amount of lateral thinking.

One drawing is, as I have mentioned before, not showing the wheel in its true dimensions, but this advice was dismissed as wrong or irrelevant, which is of course the reader's prerogative.

Another one shows the two positions of the mechanism and how they vary in their connections with other parts of the same mechanism, during their range of movement - the connectedness principle.

Yet another drawing provides corrective information about a particular item in a different drawing and this can be established with a fair degree of certainty once you know what to look for.

There is one drawing which also hides the principle which I have described, but encoded, at the end of each post on this blog. I even described the clue on my website, www.theorffyreuscode.com, although I did not understand what it meant at the time. I stumbled on the principle by chance and then had it confirmed by the clue in question. This principle is the one which Bessler says he found where everyone else looked.  It is the one thing you need in order to build Bessler's wheel.

I can't put it better than Bessler did, "no illustration by itself contains a description of the motion; however, taking various illustrations together and combining them with a discerning mind, it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and, finally to find one in them."

I apologise if people do not find this helpful, but I wish to retain what I know for my own build.  Of course I might be completely wrong and I wouldn't want to lead anyone else up the wrong path.  There is much more to be learned from Bessler's drawings and they would not have been so carefully drawn and included for our consumption unless they were there to aid reconstruction, but, to the casual eye, they offer nothing of use to anyone seeking the answer. 

JC

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A sawmill such as Bessler's wheel would have powered.

Bessler probably acquired his timber from a sawmill and yesterday I came across this amazing saw mill built in 1673 at the Willermershof farmstead in Schwarzenbach, this 'Knocking' Saw was in use until 1963 when it was moved to Vogtsbauernhof in south-eastern Germany. 

You can see from the video that it is driven by a waterwheel which uses precisely the same 'three tusked cams', or lifting arms, fixed with tenons, that are evident in one of Bessler's drawings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0teYGke_Lc

From the above video, "farmsteads operated their own saws when the property had a considerable amount of forest area. They cut their own timber for private use as well as to sell commercially. Contracting the saws out to other farmers was also an additional source of income. There was a widespread use of 'knocking' saws in the Black Forest starting in the 16th century. The technique originated in the 13th century.

The 'knocking' saws is driven by a middle-shot water wheel. This turns a shaft axis that has three tusked cams, or lifting arms, fixed with tenons. When rotated, these cams knock against the overhead saw frame, thereby lifting it. With each turn of the water wheel, the saw frame is hit upwards three times. 

This hitting motion creates a knocking sound that can be heard from quite a distance away. When the frame has reached its highest point, it drops down suddenly. Upon falling, the saw blade cuts the trunk. The trunk is fastened down to a sled. By dropping, the saw frame sets a mechanism into motion shoving the sled towards the blade of the saw.

Trunks measuring up to 20 ft in length could be cut. Sawing a 20 ft board or plank takes about 45 minutes. Generally, boards and planks of a thickness from 3/4 to 3" were cut. Squared timber, such as used to build houses, had to be clouted with an ax. Boards and planks were needed to build houses, furniture, and wagons."

Boards of 3/4 of an inch  still sound a little on the thick side for Besslers' wheel but I guess they could be trimmed down some more - or even sliced in half.  Teuber described the Merseburg wheel as being covered by thin deals which I presume would have been thinner than 3/4 of an inch

It seems clear that a similar mechanical arrangement could have powered other kinds of mills.

NB More clues to come in next post.

JC

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Petrol from Air!

This morning's news reveals that a British company is making petrol from fresh air!  There are a number of articles about it, for instance this one http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html

'The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier. The company, Air Fuel Syndication, then uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.

Company officials say they had produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside.

The fuel that is produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become “completely carbon neutral”.

The £1.1m project, in development for the past two years, is being funded by a group of unnamed philanthropists who believe the technology could prove to be a lucrative way of creating renewable energy.'

At first sight this looks as though it might spell doom for Bessler's wheel, however, the process has to be a viable commercial operation to succeed and to produce just 5 litres in 2 months does not seem too awe inspiring, but then this is just a test facility and something much larger looms on the horizon.

Can they produce petrol at a better rate than the current rate for a barrel of oil (42 US gallons and about 35 UK gallons) which is currently between $92 and $112 per barrel?  Possibly, but the governments will still tax it to death.  Of course the same goes for Bessler's wheel but it is the greener option, despite the claims that this new process is greener than anything so far produced.  The carbon-neutral aspect of it could be supplied by Bessler's wheel and an electricity generator.

We must await developments meanwhile, on with the build!

JC

Johann Bessler's wheel was ahead of its time.

We routinely discuss the various tests that Bessler's wheel was subjected to, such as the 70 pound lifting test, the translocation to a second set of bearings, the 54 day endurance test and the turning of the archimedes pump. Plus, the ability of the latter two wheels to turn in either direction... and there were numerous examination carried out over the twelve years or so, most likely executed by persons determined to prove the alleged scoundrel a fake, but no one succeeded, hence our view that he was genuine.  

I was considering what other tests Bessler might have included to try to prove his machine was genuine and I couldn't think of any.  In Gründlicher Bericht he describes the possible uses his machine could be put to, such as driving a mill wheel, cable making, glass or stone polishing, alloying, laundry and bleaching, in clocks and machinery associated with hydraulics; pumping water for various uses. I don't think that any of these could easily be added to the ones he demonstrated at the castle.

I have always assumed that during his two meetings with Gottfried Leibniz, Bessler asked what tests the latter could recommend he arrange, and perhaps the endurance test would have been suggested, along with the advice to ensure the wheel bearings did not seize up, perhaps by slowing the wheel down. They might have also discussed the ones described in the previous paragraph, but I think they were probably dismissed as unworkable or not worth the trouble?

As far as I can see the only additional possibility available to him, was to find a man of unimpeachable reputation for absolute integrity who, having seen the interior of the machine, could vouch for its validity  - and Bessler found that man in Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel.  

This leads me on to another thought.  In those suggested uses Bessler provides in his Gründlicher Bericht, there isn't really one that could be put to beneficial use in place of the existing methods used at that time.  Pumping water out of mines seems to me to hold the most potential but there was competition in the form of the steam engines of Savery and Newcomen.  But Savery's engine was limited to a depth of 10 meters (just over 30 feet) and Newcomen's, operating huge pistons, eventually prevailed.  

But these machines were steam driven.  It is hard to imagine Bessler's wheel drawing up much water by means of an archimedes pump!  No wonder Karl did not buy it for his cascade.  All cascades and fountains of the time were gravity-fed from a number of reservoirs on the top of the hill ... how ironic!

I think that Bessler failed to sell his machine for the simple reason that his invention was ahead of its time. Many inventions are conceived simultaneously by several different persons because the time is "right", meaning that a technical and scientific foundation exists and that there is demand and business potential for the invention, but Bessler's wheel came at a time when there was no way of using it to pump water.  Piston pumps using one way valves had existed but they were few and far between and too small for Karl's cascade. Now, however, the conditions are perfect for Bessler's wheel as an electricity generator  and all the other things we can imagine; I suspect it will be discovered simultaneously by different individuals from many different places, because the conditions for its entry into the modern world are right.at last.

JC

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Parametric oscillation applied to Bessler's wheel.

I recently posted a response to a comment, pointing out that I had been recommending the study of parametric oscillation as an aid to solving Bessler's wheel, on the undermentioned web site for some years.  I was surprised therefore, to receive a number of emails telling me that they had never been to the website as they didn't know about it!

This has surprised me, as all the links to my websites are there in the side panel to your right as you are reading this.

I guess that the problem lies in the similarity of the domain name with Scott Ellis's besslerwheel.com website, which is an excellent site with a forum dedicated to Bessler.  People may have thought it was a link to his web site and having been there already, ignored it.  My domain name has an 's' on the end of 'Bessler', and his doesn't.

So just to be clear,  the website details my theory about how Bessler's wheel worked using parametric oscillation, or swinging, and I describe 'kiiking', an Estonian version of swinging which in my opinion provides additional information.

www.besslerswheel.com/

JC

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Bessler's wheel was not just a toy.

I think it's time to question the apparently widespread assumption that Bessler's wheel, which, while it might make an interesting toy, could not generate  any useful electrical power because it would be too puny.

The Kassel wheel was just over eleven feet in diameter and eighteen inches thick and, with a rope wrapped around the eight inch axle, it could raise a box of stones weighing seventy pounds.  The Merseberg wheel, which was a similar diameter but only one foot thick could also raise the same weight of seventy pounds. Both wheels could turn in either direction but the Merseburg turned at 40-50 RPM whereas the Kassel one achieved a maximum of 26 RPM.  

Wolff describes how the Merseburg lifted the 70 pounds through a pulley which had to be reduced more than four times, making the lifting quite slow. Now on the face of it this would indicate that the wheel was barely able to lift the seventy pounds, however it may also indicate that Bessler wanted a slow lift to make more impact on his audience.  At 40 - 50 RPM the lift would be over too quickly and would require him to lower it and relift it too often or too soon.

If, as I have often suggested, in the two-way wheels, the driving mechanisms are mirrored within the wheel to provide rotation in each direction, logically the one-way wheels had more power than the two-way versions. This is because the redundant mechanisms in the latter, would have to be turned in the wrong direction and must therefore have added resistance to rotation.

The narrower Merseburg wheel was designed to spin faster than the larger Kassel wheel, and yet was capable of raising the same weight of seventy pounds, aided by the load-reducing pulleys - there was no record of the pulleys being used on the Kassel wheel.  .I suggest that Bessler deliberately designed the Kassel wheel to turn more slowly, and I have argued previously that this was done in order to allow it to complete the long endurance test with out fear of it stopping prematurely due to wear and tear. It seems reasonable to assume that the internal design of each machine differed in some way, and it will be recalled that Bessler mentioned in Apologia Poetica, "if I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but on the contrary, if I arrange several bars, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolved muster faster." So perhaps the Kassel wheel had fewer cross-bars but then Bessler added more weight to compensate for the reduction in power.  These would be added in line sideways or horizontally, leading to the increased depth or thickness of the wheel.

The second wheel was nine feet in diameter and only six inches thick and yet it turned at 50 RPM too - as did the first one which was only four feet wide and four inches thick - it seems as though 50 RPM was the normal spin speed.

Bessler said that he could design his wheels to turn fast or slow with greater or lesser power.  We can believe him because he showed it with the four wheels he exhibited, and of course he hadn't sold one at the time of writing, so his integrity would have been called into question if he could not do as he claimed.

It's worth pointing out the limitations within which Bessler worked.  70 pounds was probably the most he would want to handle during his exhibitions. Also the rope used to lift the weight had to be thin enough for use in the pulleys and yet have sufficiently high breaking strain to lift 70 pounds, probably not a problem.  He repeated his lifting and translocation demonstrations many times and most likely tried to make it as easy for himself as possible, hence the extended slow lifts.

One more thing; any engine can be scaled up to produce more power and this applies to Bessler's wheel just as in other instances.  This being the case it stands to reason that there is much more potential power to be had from Bessler's wheel than anyone seems prepared to admit.

JC

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Looking for a modest investment with a guaranteed return? Look no further than Bessler's wheel!

Occasionally, it suddenly hits me, what a massive wall of scepticism faces us in our determination to convince others that Bessler' wheel was a real machine.

To me the evidence is clear, but convincing anyone else is not so much an uphill climb, as a verticle ascent of the severest difficulty with a multitude of overhangs, loose rock and perilous falling boulders - in bare feet!

I think we all understand the difficulties of explaining how it is possible to have a wheel turn continuously, purely from the falling of weights which have to be lifted again at every revolution - we can't ....yet! Hopefully, if you are here, then you probably believe it is possible to achieve this without violating any laws of physics.  You are not alone - I have received, over several years, many emails in support of my contention that gravity-enabled wheels are a legitimate source of power for charging batteries and driving mechanical systems.

Three of those emails have come from professors who were openly supportive of the idea, but left it to me to discover how! Others came from people who wanted to express their support in writing but could not be seen publicly expressing their approval.  Then there are the hundreds who have over the last sixteen years (my goodness, has it really been that long!) supported my efforts and agreed that there is something worth looking into.  The fact that these people are educated and familiar with the laws of physics has given me some optimism that at least a working model would be accepted by them, but what I would really like is for some large company with a decent research budget to take a look at the evidence and put some money into finding the solution.

The amount of money being spent on alternative energies which don't include gravity-enabled wheel is huge and doubly frustrating when our own efforts which cost peanuts in comparison, could revolutionise the energy market overnight once the correct solution is known.

Here are a few figures gleaned from google.  There is, for instance, the failed solar company, Solyndra,  which received $535 million in federal aid before it went bankrupt in 2011, what a waste!

In the California Valley Solar Ranch, a 250-megawatt utility project is being built by NRG Energy on more than 4,000 acres of dry, sun-drenched land in San Luis Obispo County, northwest of Los Angeles. The ranch's 1 million solar panels will provide enough power for 100,000 homes, but at the cost of $1.6 billion — nearly all of which, according to the Times, will be paid for by government subsidies.

Last year, global spending on new renewable energy projects hit a record of $195 billion. According to the analysists at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, annual spending on new clean energy projects will not only surpass that amount in the coming years, but double it. By 2020, annual investments in adding clean energy capacity will reach $395 billion, driven largely by fast-paced growth in solar and offshore wind. Spending levels will grow to $460 billion by 2030, the group said in a report released today.

When is someone going to direct their attention towards Bessler's wheel and inject some of that money to prove that it works?  I know the answer of course, not until someone produces a working model!

JC

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