Update for October 2020

 Decided to post this little update just to draw a line under the last blog which was getting longer and longer and looooooooooonnnnnnnnggggggeeerr.......But I love lots of comments so keep them coming!

I think some people will think I’m depressed or dejected after wubbly's sim showed me my design would fail, but far from it.  No matter how confident of success a design may seem, in ones own mind, there is always the possibility that it will fail.  You can’t build prototypes for 50 years and not meet failure on an almost weekly basis, and get used to it.  I was always good at acrostic crosswords and the harder the better, it’s no fun if it’s too easy and I think that underlies the attraction in trying to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel.

Although I have a clear idea in my mind and on paper, of the direction my build should go, I have been co opted, (is that the right word?) by my wise and wonderful better half, to remove a thirty year old fitted wardrobe and repair and repaint the wall prior to assembling a new wardrobe to take its place.  She has a list of small jobs (she said, “it’ll only take a day or two to get these done!”) to finish before I can return to my wheel.  The onus is on me to hurry it up.

My design was perhaps more complex than it needed to be so I’m keeping that in mind as I build the new wardrobe, and my mind is awhirl with new ideas as I work. 

I should thank wubbly twice over, because not only did his sim reveal my error, but it gave me fresh impetus to solve this long standing puzzle. Pun?

For several years I have believed that Bessler’s logo, often used as his signature, held a simple rough copy of the design within his wheels.  You can see it at the top of this page. 

JC

Bessler Collins Gravity Wheel Part Three.

Having rejected the idea of using computer simulations just because I always believed that a hands on build was the only way to be successful in this enterprise, I’m now forced to admit that they do have a role to play, albeit at the end of an unsuccessful build.  Wubbly’s sim of my design revealed a weakness which would have kept the wheel stationary.....perpetually!

Despite this setback I’m not discouraged.  There are a number of separate elements which I think will be needed within a successful machine and I’ve already designed on paper a potential solution.  I have been encouraged to take advantage of sims and I’m giving it some consideration.  Unfortunately my favourite windows pc is becoming rather old and slow and I’m not sure if it could deal with any software which might be too complex.  I do have an iMac but I’m still getting to grips with that but I’m sure it could handle anything.  I think I’m the problem, not the computer!

I would not have known of this problem if not for wubbly’s swift sims, and if I hadn’t bitten the bullet and shared some of my design no sim could have been made, and I would still be stuck in perpetual stillness in my workshop! I’m so grateful, but it’s back to the workshop for now and possibly some sim education if the winter gets too cold for me to stay in there!  

I’m certain that for some clues my interpretation is correct and they will be used in my new version of Bessler’s wheel, and they are as listed below.

Five mechanisms, five weights, ten levers, ten pulleys, five cords, connecting levers, ten pivots, numerous stops.  The information I used was found in GB, AP, DT, and the Toys page in MT. It was graphic and textual.

I’ll be sharing more information in future but for now I need to test this latest design.

JC

Bessler Collins Gravity Wheel Part Two

 I'm adding some more drawings just to try to clarify what I've posted already in Part One.  I hope this helps although I know the drawing with both red and blue levers looks confusing!

I have added two green arrows to indicate the two mechanisms which actually provide action rather than a response to rotation.  In the first picture the green arrow shows the direction of motion generated by the red lever in the mechanism at the six o'clock radius.

Note that the red initiator lever shows two weights, this is to demonstrate its two positions before and after its action lever. Those with only one weight show their position at that time and position.

The second picture shows what happens at the same time to the mechanism ahead of the six o’clock mechanism. The blue lever is lifted by a cord attached to the short arm of the red lever.

Obviously there are levers not shown which propel the blue lever anticlockwise, and the cord which lifts the blue lever in the leading mechanism up sharply.  Below you can see the pattern suggested for the cords and pulleys.  This same design appears in two of the drawings in Das Tri.

I will post details of the mechanism by which red lever pushes the blue lever horizontally anticlockwise in  my next post.

JC                                   Copyright © 2020 John Collins.

Bessler Collins Gravity wheel Part One

I’m going to share what I know about Bessler’s wheel and the design I’m building.  I will post the same on my blog as on the Besslerwheel forum, but the drawings and photos may be more accessible on the blog, but I’ll do my best to get them on both.

I’ve called the thread ‘‘Bessler Collins Gravity Wheel’ because it is based on my interpretations of the many Bessler clues, codes and hints he left.  I believe that the design is entirely his, hence his name first in the title of this thread, but my name is there too because these are my interpretations of the information I extracted from his works.  My wheel is not finished because there are difficulties in getting mechanisms perfect but I believe the theory is correct.  I hope there will be several attempts to simulate what I post here.

This is a brief explanation of some clues and where they are.  It has proved impractical to get this all down in one post but I will provide more detail as soon as I can get it written.  I will now describe some of the actions and mechanisms involved but I haven’t got the pictures ready yet, but will post them as soon as I can. I’ve added some at the end of this post which should go some way to supporting my claim to have found the secret of Bessler’s wheel.

In my blog on 4th November 2013 I posted my belief that all the information needed was to be found in the six drawings to be found in Bessler’s works Das Triumphirende (DT) and Gruendlicher Bericht (GT).  If you search my blog for word ‘drawings’ you will find more of the same information which I’m going to post here.

First I believe that the ‘T’ shaped pendulum shown in Bessler’s (DT) and (GT) is in fact ‘L’ shaped.  The two long arms of the pendulum show the starting and finishing positions of its range of action, but more on that later.

The wheel has a pentagram drawn on a disc or backplate to which everything is attached.  The five segments of the pentagram each contain one mechanism and its complete range of movement.  Although all the five mechanisms operate independently there are always two mechanisms working together.  

The following description assumes that the wheel will turn clockwise. I include a colour reference to each lever for ease of reference for when the new pictures are posted.

Each mechanism includes two main levers and each has a weight on its end.  All the weights are of equal mass.  One lever, which I call the (red) initiator lever, is the one which starts the action. It could be thought of as the prime mover. Each lever’s pivot is positioned on a radius line. 

The (red) initiator lever pivots roughly half way along the radius when the radius is at the six o’clock position.  The exact position of the pivot is simple to calculate from the information which follows.

It falls 90 degrees from a position approximately 18 degrees to the right of the vertical six o’clock radius line.  It lands close to the rim of the wheel, at an angle sloping downwards about 18 degrees.

The second lever in each mechanism, which I cleverly refer to as the (blue) ‘secondary’ lever, is attached to a pivot on the same six o’clock radius but it is positioned just below the centre of rotation (CoR).  This (blue) lever is the longest one, stretching all the way to the rim. It’s weight is attached to the end of the (blue) lever. When the (red) initiator lever falls it pushes the (blue) secondary lever and its weight, 30 degrees to the right from its position which also starts 18 degrees to the right from the vertical radius.

The (red) initiator lever is ‘L’ shaped, having a short stub for the short leg. It’s pivoting point lies at the junction of the two arms of the ‘L’. When the (red) initiator lever falls, it pulls a cord which is attached to the short leg.  This cord runs around two pulleys and its other end is attached near the end of the (blue) secondary lever in the preceding mechanism. The (red) initiator lever lifts the (blue) secondary lever in the preceding mechanism 30 degrees by pulling on the cord.  This moves the weight at the end of the (blue) secondary lever upwards and clockwise from a horizontal position 15 degrees below the CoR to a horizontal position 15 degrees above the CoR.

This lift reverses the action caused by the (red) initiator lever currently at the six o’clock position which pushes its own (blue) secondary lever anti-clockwise.

The clues which provided some of this information are all in the first drawing in (DT) and (GT).  There are  other helpful drawings which are in DT and in the Toys page in Maschinen Tractate (MT). 

One of the written clues came from Apologia Poetica (AP) known as “The great craftsman” passage.  This is a heavily abbreviated version of what I published on my blog back in November 2017. The omitted pieces are indicated by several dots or  periods.

“What follows is my interpretation of the “great craftsman phrase”.  In his Apologia Poetica, Bessler included many clues…..

He wrote, “a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls a quarter, causes four pounds to shoot upwards four quarters.”  …….

Note that within the quote he mentions that there are five weights, one plus four, and each one is equal to one pound.  Secondly, one pound falls a quarter.  How do we define what he meant by a quarter? In this case he was referring to a clock - something he also included in the first drawings in both Grundlicher Bericht and Das Triumphirende - and a quarter of an hour or fifteen minutes covers 90 degrees…..

 We saw in the first part that the word ‘quarter', referred to, not just 90 degrees but also to a clock.  In the second part the word ‘quarter' also refers to a clock but this time he has confused us by using the words ‘four quarters’. ‘Four quarter’s equals ‘one whole hour’.  Each hour on a clock is divided into 30 degrees, so the words ‘four quarters’ meaning ‘one hour’ as used here equals thirty degrees.  To paraphrase Bessler’s words, “a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls 90 degrees, causes each of the other four pounds to shoot upwards 30 degrees.”  

You might also think it would have been better to have said that “one pound falls 90 degrees, causes one pound to shoot upwards 30 degrees”, but that would have removed the information that five weights, and therefore five mechanisms were involved, so it had to be four weights plus the one.  

This 90 degree fall by the (red) initiator lever generates enough mechanical energy to drive three actions.  The first one causes the wheel to rotate 30 degrees; the second one moves the (blue) secondary lever 30 degrees anti-clockwise; the third one lifts the (blue) secondary lever in the preceding mechanism up 30 degrees.  The cost in mechanical advantage is spread unevenly between the three actions.  Clearly the swift lift is the most expensive.

These actions break the symmetry which has always prevented a successful reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.

More information, clue interpretations and drawings to follow asap …. hopefully. Here are some illustrations to help the above explanation, BUT this is only half the picture!

 

 

 

  

 

JC

Copyright © 2020 John Collins.

Bessler Collins Gravity Wheel Preface

The end of September is nigh and I must honour my commitment to share what I know about the design 

of Johann Bessler’s wheel. I also promised to reveal the details of my own reconstruction attempt whether it worked or not. It doesn’t work yet but that’s because it isn’t finished. I have known the design for several months but assembling the mechanisms has been difficult. So I shall continue working on the wheel until it’s finished even after I have posted a picture of it.

I have written a full description of the wheel and its mechanisms and actions and it is way too long for one post and I haven’t even tried to include pictures at this point, so I’ll probably publish details piecemeal.

As for the Besslerwheel forum, I’m wondering how to show everything on the forum? I could possibly add it all to one of my websites and place a link to it? Or I could simply provide a link to my blog? I can post pictures of anything on my blog, but I’m not so sure about Besslerwheel forum. As far as I can tell you can’t post a picture to look at on the actual post, they all seem to link to a separate page which you get to by clicking on a link in the post? Is this the only way to post pictures, I’m sure in the past people have posted pictures which were visible within a post on a thread, but perhaps I’m mistaken.

JC

Bessler-Collins Gravity Wheel

The time is approaching for me to finish my wheel and show that it works (or not!) and share my design with everyone. Obviously I hope it will work, but if it doesn’t it will be my fault.  As I’ve said before, my skills as an engineer have long since withered so-to-speak, it being some 45 years since I worked at Rolls Royce aero engines and before that British Aerospace on Concord, and I did five years in the Royal Air Force, so I have struggled somewhat to get to grips with one piece of the mechanism.  I know how it works and what it does and I can explain its function, but getting the pieces to work as required was proving difficult.

I’ve called my design the Bessler-Collins Gravity Wheel because I believe that it matches Bessler’s design concept 100 per cent and the actual construction is perhaps 95 per cent similar.  I’m sure this is correct because I obtained the design by finding and deciphering Bessler’s codes.  I cannot claim to have discovered the design myself, because I could not have found it without his amazing wealth of clues. I am referring to it as a gravity wheel, because calling it a perpetual motion machine conveys the wrong impression and attracts negative responses.  It may not be using the force of gravity directly, but that force enables the machine to run continuously.  

Karl the Landgrave of Hesse, described the machine as simple.  I’m sure he understood exactly how it worked having seen it in action, but believe me when I tell you that it has a number of tricks up its sleeve which are not readily apparent to the observer. I’m not even sure how it can be simulated but I’m no expert and I know people who do know about sims, so I hope they can replicate the machine on a computer if only to prove my design concept is correct.

JC

The Solving of Bessler’s Wheel.

The search for the secret of Bessler’s perpetual motion machine continues unabated.  It is impossible to prevent the same wrong ‘solutions’ being found time after time, it is in the nature of this occupation that people tend to work alone and therefore there is every likelihood that each one will travel the same path as the previous one, making the same discoveries and the same mistakes.  But there some basic assumptions routinely made which I believe will turn out to be wrong.

The physical laws which we are told, prevent the possibility of Johann Bessler’s wheel working as he claimed, are correct in general, but the fact that the established laws are correct doesn’t mean that we can’t use the falling of objects of mass, caused by gravity, to generate rotation and thus electricity ultimately.  We keep muttering the same phrase, “gravity is not a source of energy” parrot fashion, but this stark fact implies a number of assumptions which overlook the ramifications of this force or field - the terminology is confusing and confused. I’m sure it is correct that gravity is not a source of energy, but despite that, we use it as an energy source every day, everywhere in the world.  Running water to drive any number of energy consuming devices and weight driven clocks.  Of course you have to have a plentiful supply of water, or the ability to raise the weights again. Strictly speaking it doesn’t supply energy to these forms of motion, but enables them to move in its presence

In 1841 Julius von Mayer stated that  “energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but it can be converted from one kind to another”, of course gravity is not an energy source and we haven’t found a way to turn it on or off yet but its action can be converted into energy of another kind. What about magnetism?  Magnetism can be described as a force or field too. but it has no energy of its own.  It is extremely useful for converting energy from one form to another.  Most of the energy derived from fossil fuels, nuclear and hydroelectric energy and wind comes from systems using magnetism in the conversion process.

Gravity too, can be described as a force or field and has no energy of its own, but it is also widely used for converting potential energy into kinetic energy - by enabling things to fall.  Magnetism requires motion to move electrons along wire, so we use spinning turbines for instance to push the electrons through circuits past magnets.  To make the turbines spin we use running water, courtesy of the effect of gravity.  So even though magnetism is a vital ingredient of our electricity we still need falling water, or wind etc., to turn the turbines.

So the ingredient necessary to all gravity operated motion is available to us, but so far we have to rely on an inexhaustible supply of water, for example in our hydroelectric generators.  Where gravity supplies potential energy, we have to rely on either a huge falling distance - or something or someone repeatedly lifting the weights back to their starting position.

My point is that there’s no reason to deny the possibility of using gravity to generate electricity, we just need to find a way of lifting the fallen weights back up again.  It’s no good saying it can’t be done, we know Bessler did it, we know Karl validated his machine and we know, instinctively that there is a way. We have even know what the solution needs to include - a design which breaks the symmetry which has always maintained a stranglehold on every design we have come up with.  

JC

Johann Bessler Videos

I’ve have added one or two videos to this blog because I think they are informative and interesting  .... and one of them is mine!

The latest one is by wubbly on Besslerwheel forum.  It shows the comparative sizes between Johann Bessler’s four recognised wheels, or perpetual motion machines. 

https://youtu.be/l1PEs1Jcg1s

Other examples of hypothetical perpetual motion machines have also been simulated by wubbly here.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClhx8haHQn-9zgoZKzYss0A

I am also a fan of Valeriy Ivanov’s work, the man behind the Visual Education Projects who produces videos of apparently working versions of many hypothetical perpetual motion machines.  Each are beautifully demonstrated with perfect models, but which are discretely driven by hidden motors.  You can see his work here.

https://youtu.be/rnKjv9hnepE

My own videos include this one which I made many years ago which goes some way to pointing out the coded material and giving a brief account of the legend of Bessler’s wheel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BWVKtpuzn0

A few years ago, I was invited to be interviewed in Rome for RAI TV for a documentary about Johann Bessler, but although I was interviewed at length, most of my contribution was cut and my remaining words dubbed in Italian.  The main object of the film was to introduce various ‘experts’ who dismissed my point of view and suggested that Bessler was a fraud, not too surprising given the long established view of majority.  Here’s a link to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpCRxk4YPaI

There are many other videos which I could link to, but these are some that I like. I have not linked to any simulations here, partly because there are so many, but also because none of them prove anything, other than a particular design concept doesn’t work.  Simulations are popular, and I’m told they can save much time in constructing mechanisms and testing them, but for me they remove the intense personal hands-on experience and intuitive understanding which can only be gained by building everything with your hands.

If anyone can point to an interesting video of Bessler’s wheel maybe showing interesting mechanisms, I might be inclined to add it to this blog.

I have been working on deciphering and interpreting Bessler’s codes and hints for several years, but no working wheel yet.  During this journey I have frequently put together a mechanism I ‘got’ from Bessler and it failed but just by moving it by hand and making alterations I learned stuff which would never have occurred to me if I just relied on sims, with the result that I have the whole design concept in construction right now.  I use pencil and paper to work out an arrangement and then I  build it. Having a build right in front of you gives you the opportunity to make alterations, both minor or major and leads towards deeper understanding.

As for my own reconstruction, I’m ploughing on with it, slowly but surely and I’m still aiming for completion in September, only four weeks.

JC

Update - More Clues Deciphered.

I guess I owe an update on my mission to finish my reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel and publish the result in September.

Frustratingly, I discovered the solution to Bessler’s wheel more than two years ago, but it was just the concept and not all of the detail. In fact I didn’t ‘discover‘ it,  I found it in Bessler’s clues.  Although I had managed to extract much of the design from his clues, that is where I got stuck. I thought I had identified all of the clues I needed and yet there were problems making some parts of the mechanism work in the way I had planned it, according to the concept I had found. I knew if I was right then Bessler must have provided useful hints for every problem encountered, by providing clues showing the correct solution, but it was a struggle to identify more clues and interpret them correctly, it was like pulling teeth! But slowly, bit by bit I found them and got to understand their meaning and eventually I knew I had the whole thing worked out and ready for assembly.

Under the best conditions the design calls for skills and equipment I no longer have, but I’m carrying on with my amateurish efforts and I’m hopeful that I’ll finish soon.  Even with the clues there are still  occasions where trial and error are necessary, and progress happens in fits and starts.  Some clues don’t become meaningful until the build has progressed to a certain point, and then realisation suddenly illuminates one’s mind.

According to the solution certain actions needed to take place but try as I might I was unable to make one movement in particular, act as I expected and it has taken me until this year to understand how it works. It works in a counter-intuitive way, but I had unconsciously applied assumptions to its action which turned out to be wrong and prevented my seeing it moving as required. My own thoughts or preconceptions had guided my expectations which blinded me to the truth and obstructed the desired result.  But I got there in the end.

One thing is certain, I would never have been able to conjure up this design myself, it is no wonder no one apart from Bessler has ever succeeded. Karl the Landgrave’s opinion that it was very simple is misleading; if you watch a mechanism working you can get an understanding of how it works,  but, although Karl clearly understood what he was seeing, he had never actually made something himself so may not have understood how difficult it would be to build. . Watching Bessler’s mechanisms in action would be fascinating (and will be I hope!) but to see and realise all the complex interactions that occur very quickly could take a lot longer than a few minutes of study. 

Finding and decoding all of Bessler’s clues requires patience and imagination, something I’m not so well equipped with at my age, and although I am sure I am right, in the end I might make a mistake, a simple error, which is why I’m so determined to get all of this work out into the public domain. You can be the judge. Of course I hope to have a working model to prove my work, but if it fails I’m sure there will be enough information for someone to succeed.

I know I’ve said this before, but anyone who thinks we’ll never know how Bessler’s wheel worked can think again, he left information about every aspect of his wheel. To us it looks obscure and ambiguous, but clearly Bessler was worried that someone might easily understand his clues if he made them any easier, so he placed a number of clues in various places and styles and then hid them under an invisibility cloak!

One more thing.  Many people have suggested that a sim would prove once and for all whether the design I’m working on would work, that may be so, I have little experience of them, but I think that a sim of my design would prove quite difficult to make.  I can’t remember seeing any sims with such complex actions. Perhaps a more sophisticated software or experienced simulator could manage it.

Still seeking donations for Amy’s crowdfunding page at
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-amy-to-walk-again

https://gf.me/u/ymprif

For news and videos of my granddaughter Amy who is suffering from CRPS, FND, PTSD and unable to walk and who’s left hand has suffered from fixed contracture you should take a look at her TikTok page. She has over 28,000 followers and climbing!

She is improving, particularly in her attitude to recovering from this nightmare disease.

NB Today, 24 August, just three weeks since I posted this blog, Amy now has over 50,000 followers, and 1.2 million likes!

                                               https://www.tiktok.com/@amyepohl

    https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-amy-to-walk-again

JC