Terry wrote:
Now, things may have changed since then. However, at that time, he was
confident in it (effectively) self running. If that still stands, it would
make verifing his claims somewhat simpler...
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Indeed it would!
The problem has been finding a low speed efficient generator.
In the previous message, he discussed running it for hours with the
energy stored in a capacitor. Running from a small battery or a
capacitor would be nearly as convincing as full self sustained
stand-alone operation, because one can estimate approximately how
much energy it takes to run the thing, and the amount of energy in a
battery is known with precision.
Rather than moving on to a full self-sustaining mode, I suggest he
should do a demonstration on video with a battery or capacitor. An
ordinary dry cell one-use (non-rechargeable) battery would be best, I
think. The trick would be to demonstrate approximately how much
friction and air resistance the thing is encountering. There should
be some simple first principle method of doing that. I would start by
spinning it up by hand and letting it coast until it stops, then I
would spin it with an ordinary electric motor and monitor the power
consumption, to calibrate.
- Jed