Theoretical Static Electricity Generator

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

I participate in People to People International, and the last Global Youth forum was on the environment. While there, I developed a concept for a magnetic powered car engine, that runs on no fuel.

This idea, was crap. The engine itself would basically be a rolling E.M.P., and would disable all electrical devices near it…:frowning:

However, I needed a way to power such a thing. That is how I came up with my design for a static electricity generator. The picture below is a very rough visual of the design.

The device uses principles similar to a VanDegraph generator. It is composed of two parts, one based on a vandegraph, the other based on a tesla coil.

The first part(pictured below) is comprised of 2 tubes, one inside of the other. The innermost tube(A) is negetivly charged, and the outter tube(B) holds a positive charge. This part works much like a Vandegraph generator, by rotating the tubes, however, in my design instead of a band wrapped around two rollers, I use the tubes, which turn around eachother in opposite directions. Tube A’s negetive charge begins to repel any negetively charged particles on tube B. Because tube A rotates faster, tube b cannot repel the negetive charge off of tube a. Because tube b now has no negetively charged particles, tube a begins to attract the positivly charged particles from the space around it.

At this point, the air around the generator is stripped of its positive charge. Tube a begins to pull the positive charge from the air, but because tube b is already positively charged, the new particles are suspended floating on the surface of tube b.

Touching tube b is a brush apparatus©. The bristles on brush c hold a negetive charge, and the tips are coated in a positvely charged material. The positively charged tips draw the negetive charge to the end of the brush, which then picks up the suspended positive charge coating tube b. This creates a positive current of electricity(in theory), which is then sent through wires to the second stage of the generator. Also, a reverse of brush c(brush d) is located opposite brush c. This brush pulls the remaining negetive charge from the air, and sends it to the second stage as well.

you may want to read how a tesla coil works http://www.stargazing.net/Astroman/Theory.html

Here’s where it gets iffy. The second stage is somewhat based on a tesla coil. In theory, the first stage produces around 500 volts, which will need to be alternated to create the proper current. Using a neon sign transformer, the current builds up across the circuit, and then, like a tesla coil, creates a spark across the gap in the wires causing it to discharge back and forth until the charges are in resonance.

The difference with my design though, is that I use three large coils of wire wrapped around eachother in a manner similar to the tubes in stage one of my generator. In theory(and I’m not entirely sure about this) the chrage should bounce around between the three coils, until it spikes and discharges into the waiting pack of wires located at the end of the circuit.

So? What do you think? Could it work? Keep in mind that this is only a simple theory, and I have tested none of this. I do plan on building this generator, but only when I have time and resources to do it. The way I see it, there are three things that could happen…

1: the generator is a huge success and my theory is correct
2: the generator is a total bust and I waste my time
3: the generator works too well, overloads the circuits, and electrocutes me

hopefully it’s not the last one

I would really appreciate any help or suggestion people have to offer. I am by no means a scientist, or qualified to even say i know what im doing.

Any comments will be helpful

Attachments

static gen.jpg751×496 15.2 KB

2

How often will the bristles need to be replaced, how well would the positive/negative charge coating stick?

Just how would it generate more electricity than it uses, and would it be affected in high humidity (since static electricity season is always during the Winter when the air is drier or has less moisture content)?

3

I’m not sure how often the bristles would need to be replaced… considering they don’t really experiance much wear, and will be made of some kind of metal, i guess they wouldnt need replacing very often.

It can(in theory) produce more energy than it uses, because it borrows the charge from the air. It uses it’s own static charge initially, but then begins to pull it from the air.

I suppose it would be effected by hummidity… hadn’t thought of that one. As for the temperature, I forgot to say that a fan system is involved to funnel more air into it, because it strips the charge off… that keeps the temperature somewhat cooler. A Vandegraph is limited because of air quality, but my design will be filtered, and use cleaner air…

I think the coating would stay on fine…it’s not going to use abrasive materials or anything…

4

I’d post the design for the engine that lead to this idea, but it won’t work… I have no money for magnetic shielding, so basically it would E.M.P. all electrical devices anywhere near it…

it was a good concept, just not possible…

5

a real emp generator is far more useful/marketable than a static charge generator.

sometimes you get pulsating currents in things like switching voltage regulators, but the best that can do is put out lots of noise in the radio band. If your thing can actually disable nearby electronics, patent it and sell it to the government :eek:

6

aww, I thought this was a vandigraph generator for blender … that would be pretty cool :smiley:

7

aggH grass hooper you kung-fu is not strong enough to violate the laws of thermodynamics.

I think what you are trying to invent is know as a perpetual motion machine and it currently violates the second law of thermodynamics. You are extracting energy out of air cooling your enviroment and doing work with this energy. This is as absurd as a dropped egg spontinously reforming as if it was video reel played backwards.

8

Aww… But it has already been done!!! A man in florida invented a generator, and built it, that produces more energy than it uses… It could power 3 walmarts and hav energy to spare.

My device works like a Vandegraph, which does pull energy from the air. It does not however run on its own energy, and will
Therefore run down its battery. The generator, unlike the massive one built in florida, is very small.

As for using my magnetic engine idea as a weapon… I might do that!!

Also, simply because something is a scientific law, does not mean it cannot be broken…

9

I would bet every penny I had that it is bogus. Physics is incomplete laws are rewritten all the time but the laws of thermodyanmics partically one and two that rule out over unity machines are so deep and fundamental that to break them would render all modern physics and a great deal of mathematical theory moot.

A machine that draws produces more energy than it uses breaks the law of the conservation of energy. That law underpins a great deal of science seeing as I did mech engineering I can tell you it appears in thermodynamics, fluids, material sciences to mention a few examples. I am sure several blender users who are either engineers or scientists will tell you other fields of study that law appears in and perharps where the second law appears.

10

Also, simply because something is a scientific law, does not mean it cannot be broken…

them be fightin words ;), thermodynamics does not treat non-belivers well at all XD

also, a tesla coil requires AC current and i believe your ‘device’ will be generating DC current (although even this is iffy as converting static electricity to current electricity is not easy)

11

hmm you know after properly reading your first post and some of my own I reliesed that I said your machine would not work without really saying way.

There is a rather simple flaw in your machine you can set a charged body 'your cylinders into motion gaining energy but for these same cyinders to return to their starting position you will have to do the same equal amount of work on them.

an easier to understand analogy for this would be a ball bearing at the top of an incline. Release it and it will roll down giving you your intial gain in energy to take the ball bearing back to its intial position you will have to do work on it by picking it up and lifting it back to the top of the incline.

12

Why is it so hard to believe that someone could break a law of thermodynamics? Yes I realize that behind these laws are tons of theories, facts, sciences… but that’s not to say they are set in stone. Is it not change and experimenting that lead to these laws in the first place? People used to think the Earth was flat(some still do :P), but we all know that it is most definatly not flat. Granted, you can look at the earth from space, but still science is an ever changing subject.

Also, like I said this is simply a theoretical design. I have not even begun to work on building it, just working out the design. But you can’t say all of it is wrong… even if there are many parts that need to be rethinked, there are a few that are good. I don’t think you are understanding that a Vandegraph, although not remotly practical, does similar processes to my design. It does pull the energy from the air around it, and does create a current from that energy… it even charges its own battery.

If you have any ideas on how to make this design work, or how to fix this design so it’s completly plausible, then post them!!! This is just a design, and I’m open to suggestions.

Oh, and sorry to quote your own signature Tyrant Monkey, but
“You have 500 bad drawings in you before your first good one”
Thomas Edison failed miserably thousands of times, trying to make the lightbulb… but, in the end he did it. Yes, this initial design is a bit out there… but if it’s wrong then that’s one less way to fail!!

13

I’ve been trying very hard, yet I don’t understand your reasoning at all. Care to explain it a bit more?

14

Ok, so one tube is negetive, the other positive… they both rotate in opposite directions, but the tube inside the larger one rotates a bit faster. This causes The larger tube, to give off any negetivly charged particles, and the smaller tube to attract the postive charge from the air around it. But because the larger tube holds a positive charge, the particles from the air cannot reach the smaller tube, and cling to the surface of the big tube. These particles are then picked up by the correspondingly charged brush.

I’m working on a better picture of the design… I realize the one I posted is crap.

15

I guess the best thing to do here is to watch him build it and see if he fails or not (since he says he has the means of building the device).

If you do achieve unlimited energy, patent it, make millions off of it, and use part of it to fund Blender development. If you don’t, don’t say no one told you it may not work.

16

ganomestudios - some years ago I “messed” around this type of engine before throwing in the towel. I designed a vehicle firstly, and got stuck in the “engine” bit last. while electricity has been around a long time, it is still one of the great unknowns, and hence there is potential. Some time ago, and quite recently electricity for the umpteeth time was describe as pressurised water so I could understand it better, flowing from one tank to another. and in the same vein, how inefficient it was at storing and transmitting energy from one point to another when compared to other fuel sources. sorry to throw you a bit off track, but i think your energies would be spent better to use a tradition fuel source like diesel, and work on a gearing system that is more efficient, and then work your way to making an engine that produces more than a third output from fuel used. I think your fandangled approach could merge well this. sorry I can’t get into it now and help you, but i did many a hot sleepless night try to disprove the perpetually motion theory. Mayhaps, I out to have worked on me English grammer instead.

17

Why is everyone automatically hating my idea? It’s not like I didn’t research this!! I’ve spent a long time looking into whether or not this is possible, and i think it is, maybe not with this specific design, but I’ll keep trying. At the moment, no i do not have the resources to build this, I never said I did. But I know what I’m doing. I know how to build it, I just don’t have the resources to build it.

I’m not trying to flaunt my intelligence, or make myself seem smart, or whatever you think I’m trying to accomplish. I just thought I’d post the design and see what people thought, and quite frankly I’m regretting it.

I am disturbed by the fact that noone is willing to consider that scientific law, whatever it may be, can be disproven!! Not everything we are told is fact… especially in science. Yes, it makes since when it is discovered, and it may seem to be fact at the time, but there is always a chance that something will be developed or discovered, that says otherwise.

I don’t care if you’re an engineer, physicist, scientist, or the smartest person on earth, you cannot say that something is absolute law, and will never change. Nuclear fusion is supposed to be immpossible, yet the sun does it!!!

Look, I’m not saying that my design is perfect, I’m not saying that it will work… All I’m saying, is there’s a possibility that it will work, and it couldn’t hurt to try.

also, kbot… The device I’m currently disscussing isn’t the engine I designed… I should have been clearer on that. This is the generator I designed to power the engine, but decided to not work with the engine cause it was really bad.

Basically, the electromagnetic field that would be created by the engine would be so big that anything electronic, including other cars, would be disabled.

18

Is there any way to delete this thread? I thought i had spare time to discuss this topic, but I don’t really, and i need to get back to my other projects. Also, the more arguments i get into, the less help I’ll get from the community, so yeah…

I’m a bit stuck, because nobody has posted in my threads for awhile, and I’ve been asking for help in all of them. Not sure why noone is replying, but I’d like to get back to my work.

So if anyone knows how to delete this thread… please tell me.

19

Ahh . . . so the oil companies got to you ? How much did they pay you ? An island in the pacific ? A job with them ? A state of America ? How can you be so cheap ?

20

So you’re basically building a capacitor, the inner tube being negatively charged and the outer one being positively charged. Thus you create a radial electric field going from one tube to the other.
If you start making them rotating you’ll just also create a magnetic field, which will be axial, like in a coil, so it won’t accelerate any charged particle radialy. What is the point of the rotation then, centrifugal forces?

Also, if the inner tube is negative and the outer tube positive, the inner tube won’t be able to attract positive charges from the atmosphere as the outer one will have a screening effect.

And finally, the magnetic fields might trigger a magnetic brake-like behavior, thus you’d have to pump energy into the system to keep it rotating, have you taken this into account?