At 12:35 PM 12/15/2009, Mark Iverson wrote:
Its explained in the YouTube video,
"Steorn Orbo Technology Launch 2009"
The lower two rotors are a motor with PMs on the rotors and small
coils (electromagnets?) on the
stator. The EMs obviously require some DC electricity. The topmost
rotor is a small generator which
produces AC. To charge the battery they run the AC thru a "very
simple rectification circuit".
So, yes, the motor part does require power, but apparently (much)
less than they can generate, so it
should be easy to demonstrate that this thing could be kept running
for weeks, months when it should
draw down the battery in a matter of days...
That's not a demonstration of over-unity power. Suppose what the
battery does is reduce friction in some way, reduce the heat losses,
making it run longer. No, if they are claiming that they can generate
energy, then we'd want to see the energy from the battery monitored
and the generated energy monitored, and, frankly, I'd want to see the
generated energy used to charge the battery.... Sure, it might take
start-up power, but then what?
From the Toy, I get the idea that they are moving magnets in and out
of the path of a rotating magnet and if you time this just right you
might be able to sustain rotary movement, but it does take energy to
do that. That might allow a rotating magnet to rotate for longer, it
seems to me. But it would still just be trading stored energy for
rotational energy, unless they have discovered something truly new.
And I just don't see room for that, based on all that has come down.
I'm not going to reject Steorn just because it flies in the face of
solidly established theory, and it certainly does that far more than
cold fusion -- which really just contradicted a poverty of
imagination, not actual conservation of mass/energy or momentum --
but that doesn't mean that I'll dump these theories because of the
publicity-generating behavior of some seemingly slick characters.
Steorn smells like donkey smuggling, not science. Nothing wrong with
smuggling donkeys, in general, though they can be smelly, but someone
who thinks there must be something valuable in the saddlbags is going
to be disappointed.
Okay, there can be something wrong with it, if one lies about what
one is about.
