Select Your Favourite Invention

I really like the idea & the rendering of the various components.....

Here's where I throw out a bit of reality.

around here you couldn't bolt aluminum panels down hard enough to keep the tweekers [crystal meth addicts] for stealing them to sell for a fix.

would the light weight panels stay in place during high winds, blowing snow....

one of the most important aspects of this community is to bring different perspectives.

The panels would be great to cover with the amber colored transparent plastic for use in a fab [welding] shop. Wheels [casters] added for use by the maintanance guys in factory floor settings, for quick repairs [welding, cutting, grinding]. Osha gets picky about blinding people with UV rays. A tricky way to join em that overlaps would be cool too. Standard welding partitions are made from really thin steel tubing & get mangled far too easily. Being able to nest 2 or 3 for easy movement & storage would also increase the value.

lol, ya, they would have to be secured.

As far as the welding screens go.. good idea. The ones we used had blue plastic, and were just 1/2" steel pipe with welded feet or casters. but that would eliminate the ability to conform to rough terrain. In the design above, the horizontal wires do not connect directly to the vertical wires, and so the parallelogram is free to move, if you catch my drift. that allows one pole to be 2 feet above the preceding one.

that being said, I do think welding panels is a good idea for the same factory to make with potentially the same extrusions.. just a different design.

Chris

Sorry about this one Chris:-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180231186003&cguid=9cc07d8511d0a0e202900200ffc17d27

I bought some for surface mount work as soon as I saw them.

The one I got even had the fold away magnifying glass.

thank you

Hi Chris

I haven't forgotten about the drawing of the "surgical tool". I thought I would use your suggested links to create it but I just not have the time to pick up on it. The dude is working on his recording studio and is full on. I have a little knowledge of DWG and DWF and that took me days if not weeks to get my head around.

I am the kind of guy who still hates using the courser to move things up and down only to find that down is up and up is down. The same goes for left and right.Yes I have some dyslexic tendencies some times but usually I get away with it.

Your turbine (The outer tube structure) could be used in my invention

"None surgical minimal invasive kidney stone removal"

and I wonder how much time it took you to put it in place. My device is dealing with flexible tubes and negative and positive pressures. Could these be shown with your program? Could it show movements?

If it is easy for you to create let me know. If I then send you the drawings and functions we could combine our efforts and help a lot of people in a lot of pain. I do not want to go into the details of this but when I had them I some times wished I was dead.

Also there could be some one to tell me it will not work. Or tell me that it was done 3000 years ago by some shaman in Whatsthename. I had built a proto type from sausage skin and other improvised materials and it worked. I used my mouth for suction and pressure. Not on a human but in an over sized experiment. Grabbing a marble inside a tube and removing it sort of a thing.

We could then post it on CR4 medical and see what happens. It is quiet easy to understand just needs a bit of "twisted" thinking to get ones head around it. That is, if you only see the drawing. With a 3D moving parts and all, anyone can see and understand how simple it would be. Any GP could do it. I am already looking forward to being blasted off the planet by the Faculty. Harley Street bring it on. Never mind, we can only try.

Maybe even yourself could tell me it will not work after seeing the drawing. I think I have thought of every thing but then again..........

If I had the parts, which would need to be made from surgical rubber and a pressure/suction source I would perform it on my self. If I had kidney stones that is. One would do any thing! Trust me on this.

The alternative can, and in my case was, very bloody. Never again. No more drinking milk when thirsty can be one of the courses.

I am putting this forward not knowing how hard it can be to realize so please forgive my ignorance.

I forgot to mention in the OP that when you talk to investors, or the like, you are not supposed to come up with more than one idea. They make it a rule. They don't get it, that we just do it because we have to and love it. (Well some times hate it). We can even have a bit of fun on the side, were as, they are counting beans. That financial discipline and well trained top management are important and rule the roost, is a given. That we have to understand all that they are doing but they have no idea of what we are doing is the point I am trying to make.

A bit of respect is what I am missing some times. Like, I really respect my accountant and I could even call him a friend. But how ever hard he tries to understand an idea he is just flattened. He has that "bit" missing. On the other hand, if he explains the $ side to me I can follow the principles until the last cent.

I have found that if you tell people that you are an inventor, especial professionals, they have this certain look on their faces. Know what I mean?

Hope this goes on for ever, Ky.

Hi Ky,

Ya I know what you mean.. I'm a bit compulsive about it myself. Thats part of the reason I'm giving away inventions, so I can get back to focussing on the things I should... boring.. but a 'must' in life. Inventing new things gives me a high quite unlike anything else... and leads me into areas of learning by the back door, so to speak.. In this way, I continually expand my learning.

I will send you an email with my email address, and then you can forward your sketches to me, and I'll see what I can do with them.

Chris.

Hi Nat

This is from the OP

If you are an injection molder you could take over the part of making a dye and receive the manufacturing rights for the future. The only investment would be setting up the dye. If you can contribute in designing a circuit, that will be your responsibility. If you are a Patent Attorney, you might decide to do a pro bono or a free patent search. What ever you specialize in could become your contribution and make you a partner in the idea in the future. My contribution could be in the design or proto type development and others, depending on the invention.

Your reply and the other one relating to the tweezers are what I meant with sorting out prior art and not having to rely on the professionals in the field. Chris seemed very happy that it was already "the real thing" so no more worries for him. One dud seed less in the basket.

We are having all kinds of power supply problems at the moment and I am loosing a lot of time due to that. If I should not reply in time you know its not my laziness but related climate problems.

Here is something I did for the kids. They loved it down the beach in a stronger breeze. My 4 year old grandson seemed to think he was going to lift off.

Not much hi tech here but fun to be had. Hope this goes on for a long time.

Greetings from the Sunshine State, what a joke, Ky.

If anybody needs anything drawn, drafted, rendered, 2D or 3D.. or spreadsheet automation.. thats my specialty.

Chris

I was writing this (bellow) while your were typing yours. 6 degrees any one?

Your good at it.

I used to use Flight Simulator, and Combat Flight Simulator,(1, 2 and 3).

Open source, and some people have done some excellent work, between the artwork, and flight dynamics:

Bigger photo's at the web site:

http://www.simviation.com/menu.html

sweet!.

my favourite plane is the C17 Globemaster... the sound is amaaaazing. and the flight is smooth and easy.. best on FS I tried. I haven't made any aircraft for FS.. but I got X-Plane for xmas.. its supposed to have a modeller.. but still haven't done anything with it.

Chris

I've decided to give being self employed a shot... so I've moved any promotions to the commercial space.. of course I'll still volunteer to create one-off images for my friends for free, if it is non-commercial.... all you gotta do is ask.

Chris.

Hi Chris

The bad news is that with such an application you will have so much work, that you will not have the time to take care of us.

Would you move to a different continent? If so, I would consider (If I had the funds) having you as a constant companion. Throw a few unresolved ideas at each other and see what comes out of it.

Face to face dialog can cut a lot of time from any kind of development. I would even consider coming your way (in summer) and spend some time with you and your friends. Lets make some money first. Talk to you soon.

Good Luck my Friend, Ky.

Hi Ky,

My condolences.. thank you.. I'm not expecting an avalanche... lol just enough to keep me busy and pay a bill or two. I was a contractor before. but didn't really know how to market myself past the one customer I had (Johnson Controls), so when they automated their systems, my business died... and I had to go get a job again.. but I really loved being a contractor... in fact, I put a lot of effort into being high quality and high performance, and because I had that sense of ownership, I found that I kept my interest high.. unlike with a job.. they get so.... disconnected and unrealistic.

I look forward to being friends and collaborator with you. I don't have any capacity to travel right now, until I generate some money.. but would love to visit your Eden! its different here in flatland!...lol(Alberta (okay, not super flat, not like Saskatchewan ) and we are within a couple of hours of the mountains.. Banff is pretty spectacular, you would love that.

Chris

Dear fan of Eden

I made this up just then. You will recognize it as you have supplied the frame work in your link. This could be done with two men in two days, assuming the shed in not 100 feet high. It could take a day longer in that case. I am talking both inside and out side. Using my system, which I have worked on for years now, it could be done at one third of the cost compared to using standard methods. No bull! The texture of the cladding is not representative of the real thing. Can't give to much away, you know! It is #1 on my list of inventions.

1. External insulation method for new and existing structures.

The aesthetics are not an issue at this stage but have been resolved. I am talking to a consortium of builders at the moment. If they could only give up their fear of the future this system could be adapted/adopted any where. Recycling is a big part of it. It is not something I want to give away as a freebie. If it is successful I'll shout you a holiday, Howzzat!

Banff is pretty spectacular, you would love that.

As long as my brush doesn't freeze to the canvas I'll handle it for 30 minutes. You would have to supply the Long Johns though. The more warmerer the more betterer. We once visited Germany in 1986. We left Cairns at 36+deg.C and when we arrived in Frankfurt it was bloody minus 26C. It stayed like that for a week and I have never been back to the cold. Humans are just not made for it. "God" would have given us fur. Just ranting.

Say G'day, Ky.

Hey ky, it took me a second to realize you were responding to me. I do a ton of patent searching and have gotten good at it in terms of looking for what may be termed as prior art or that which may be conflicting to a new idea or improvement upon going through the claims, summaries etc. I try and take the perspective of the reviewer and not so much an attorney. Many ideas that are simple but can truly meet a need or make something more efficient by a decent percentage are those that have a market with companies looking for something easy to manufacture with little materials and labor costs. Obviously, the advantage is they have the tooling ability particularly in lighter metal manufacturing and plastics. With a little research those companies are a plenty.

My negotiations with one of the contractors for a solid contract actually got bumped up to first week of March. I'll send you a private e-mail. I'll need to have your information shortly. My attention from my multi-fuel induction systems has been diverted by these "green" home improvement ideas I've had and were taken seriously by my physicist friends and contractors. I decided that there really isn't much need to patent on some of the home ideas although I'm being "pushed" on two particular improvements where the efficiency gains were very good. Don't really know if I care to do that again. I'm still putting a lot of time with the fuel patent and related legalities.

My thoughts are conflicting as I would like to get the information out (public domain) on the home ideas as they are fairly simple and increase efficiencies over and above the norm that everyone should or could be using.(related to those with my areas climate). I'm also conflicted about big business taking ideas (from public domain) and putting legal restrictions on them where it becomes difficult for anyone else to use on a business level or even a private level. It can and does happen. Ownership does have some advantages just from a fair play act. I'm doing what I can to keep the fuel system under some local control as our testing results get better and proving it's capabilities and diversities. I've talked to good reliable people in the proper related industries who've highly suggested I do so. Basically it all gets complicated and we still have to make a living.

I think this was really just rambling out of some frustrations

Thanks for hanging in there my friend. Your sincere comments are proof of how important this theme is. It could be if only more would join in.

Admin. has notified me that there are plans in the pipe line to establish an "Inventors Corner" here in CR4. I think that would be a great way to help a lot of us. CR4 being the umbrella would help enormously.

To the voting issue:

I have kept personal tabs regarding replies and if any one would do that one could get a better idea of what with to pursue or to leave. New contacts have been established and suggestions have been taken on board. I am further than I was 3 weeks ago and hope that others have had some insights, into this topic, that could have helped. I am grateful for all responses and hope all goes even better in the future. For all of us!

Here is a bunch of flowers for the loved one. Hand picked from my garden. Tell her to be patient as she possibly has been in the past.

All the best, Ky.

those are SPECTACULAR!!! WOW

you are living in paradise.

Paradise the one day floods the next. We can't have the cake and eat it too.

If you have a closer look you will see a magnifying glass. My wife uses it for the small print. I use my camera if I want to get in close.

Great idea with the tweezers. You seem to be very handy with the design program you have. What are you using?

It is great to see that you are putting your ideas were you mouth is. Nobody can now take out a Patent on it. Unless it has been patented before. This is a very good example of an innovation compared to an invention. Use existing parts and combine them. Love it.

I shall try and do some more detailed drawings of my kidney stone remover and place it here. If, who ever, can make/use it and I get nothing other out of it, than to save people pain, so be it. Watch this space and thanks again for spreading your brains.

Greetings, Ky.

I'm using Solidworks 2007. Actually it was solidworks that connected me with Globalspec, and that connected me with CR4... but the train and boat is done in freeware/shareware of Pov-Ray and Moray.

PS. I nominate you as chairperson of this inventors team (so you can be the brains in front of it too, instead of just the brains behind it )

You got that frack to bont. Thanks for the links. I'll have the "dude" over so I can learn a bit quicker.

Greetings from the Cheer person, Ky.

This one is for you!

I'm grateful for the flowers.. incredible..

who is the 'dude'?

chris

He's a young bloke who I know. He runs a recording studio and knows all about, well it seems to me, every thing about programming. I'll will have to stop him from gaming because he seems addicted. Just your every day "Dude" really but very understanding. He is a great help and enjoys giving me a hand with all the new stuff.

Do you know a method to get them from the gaming console?

just tell him you need to set up a rendering system.. goes hand in hand with gaming... (not povray usually, but 3d studio max)

cheers,

Chris

Here it is. Took only a minute and I hope you agree with the line brakes. Was faster than picking the flowers.

Transcendian said:

So then, how do we vote for the best invention to be pursued by us if we need confidentiality?

In what case has CR4 of another sort and similar group done this? Chrisg288 suggested the User Group. Garthh and Gwen and I have been there and done that. No money. It was all right as long as I had a day job and some money coming in to run the house and buy some flowers for my wife.

The Chisg288 pictures and his location make me wonder if the transport would work between Toronto and Niagra, or Toronto and Rochester? The Great Lakes of North America are a bit more suited to such transport , than the Oceans. -at least from what I know now. (The Ferry between Toronto and Rochester failed a few years ago.)

For propulsion I do wonder if the best way to go is to put sails on the tube that use both wind like a sailing ship, and are impregnated with PV solar to run the electric capacitor pulse water jets and pull the things along in the water?

Chrisg288 has made some great pictures of something that looks intended for passenger people transport. People need and like to move fast. It may well be however that his designs are better for moving freight. Reverse the design of the double hull submarine so that it carries squared containers of standard sizes between port cities on great lakes, and get the power to move it all from sails that give both electrical power, and regular wind power, and we might have a winner.

As far as the cardboard toaster, I see it as a terrific thing for a Boy Scout to build for his mother. I do suspect it would have to have some UL tests and warnings, since the number one cause of house fires is faulty electrics. (You are supposed to empty your toaster of crumbs now and then to prevent fires inside the toaster.)

In all, I have to recommend we be Cheery. Second we need to discover what sort of User Group has succeeded Ideologically, Monetarily, and Spiritually. Third we need to discover that if there has not been a case so far where people like us have met on the train and attempted to do such a gestalt, what changes to the site would cause such a thing to become possible.

I also want CR4 and Global Spec to make money so they can support CR4. Truly it is what I wanted from Shortwave Radio, but never got.

P.S. when I wrote this I had indents and line breaks. I don't know yet why my writings show up on the site in one block of sentences. I appreciate it that my readers put up with it.

__________________
You don't get wise because you got old, you get old because you were wise.

Thanks for formatting my post. Are we in new territory? I need Garthh to straighten it out. Titles are significant. For Transcendia for instance I list myself as the Founder, not the CEO or President or Secretary. I am very aware that there are some things I do beyond well, and others I am lousy at.

G'day Chris

Years back I thought of using a turbine floating in strong moving water to generate power or even to pump water directly from a flowing river or creek to were it is needed. In your case you only have to turn it up side down and attach it to a floating device. The pump or generator can sit on top and be protected from the elements.

By protecting the blades on the way back with a fin directing the water to were it is needed you avoid the friction of said fins running against the flow. If you would want to up size it you will have to increase the size of the Anchor. Coming to think of it I would have such a distractor or wind/water shield in any application.

You could also guide the water/air to were it is needed by creating a funnel which would increase the speed of the water/air and direct it to the section of the blades that is most efficient. The angle of impact would be part of this as well.

I hope the use of my imagination has done something for you and your great idea. See what happens, Ky.

Made a quick sketch. A picture tells a thousand words or does it? The stabilizing wing/fin should be larger than shown here. It is used to keep the device in the optimal direction of flow.

Ky,

I've always loved hand sketches.. but I'm better at computer generated. I even used to do manual drafting back in the day..

but I'm a bit confused by the lower drawing.. and not sure what 'Ersterolfed' stabilizing wing or fin is? Do you intend it to be completely enclosed? where does the water escape?

thanks,

Chris

Hi Chris

I forgot that we are inventors and not Prophets. It should read 'extended' and not 'Ersterolfed'. Sorry about that. The water exits the other side of the floating device. It just passes through. The fin or wing stabilizes the direction of the device in the flow. A bit like the tail of a kite. Hope that clears things up.

I shall take more time with my drawings in future. Hope you have the others. I can imagine that a few clarifications are needed with them too. Its funny how things are all together in ones brains and expecting others to be able to pick up on it. If you find it too abstract to understand don't waste time. Either let me know and I will explain or drop the whole matter. Not even sure if its worth it but two brains could shine a bit more light on it.

It is very cold were you are I've noticed. Not much fun going outdoors. I suppose the old saying "There is no bad weather only bad clothing" will resolve that. Now I'm talking weather and there is so much more to do!

Hope all goes well, Ky.

Good to see you here Andy. The more the merrier. Looking forward to your valuable in put. Inventions for free? Not that I have heard of any thing like it. Well, at least some will be for free were as others could be commercially to valuable and the sharks would go into a feeding frenzy, leaving us not even scraps.

Greetings to the Heimat, hope all is well! Ky.

Thanks Ky.

Best wishes.

Chris,

R.E. thread post 148

Outstanding thingamajig wind/water turbine! If you mount vertical axes turbines on roof tops peaked or flat - you'll need to review magnetic levitation bearings to make sure they'll pass testing. Induced vibration into roof tops is the Achilles heel of roof top turbines of any orientation (I can attest as of last week, ouch).

I'm tinkering in my shop just of late with levitation bearings. Cobbled some hand wound coils and capacitors into what cool minded observers would observe as a "Boluxed Together Thingus," created by a mad man. If you get the inductance reactance of magnetic coils balanced through a bridge circuit against just the right amount of capacitive reactance - the energy to stand shafts off from contact with their load bearing structure is nil to no appreciable amount at'tal. (In Vivo Testing shows that inefficiencies of mechanical design heat generation is "comfortable to the touch." Read: Acceptable.). The test bed bench has stopped vibrating to the touch, too. Check out YouTube. Last I looked there's a guy that has a levitating wind turbine on a farm roof some where or t'other. No you can't see pix of mine - I'd die of embarrasment.

Suffice that it works. Magnetic levitating Bullet Train rocket scientist types get the credit for my bozo bearings. My only creative contribution is my experience in the HVAC-R trades of decades past in which I drove Carrier Chiller Design Engineers nuts by bye passing their defective PCB's with analog control harnesses and some alligator clips on jumper wires to fix ghost electronic controller problems in high rise chiller systems. It has empowered me to make similar engineering changes at anecdotal times ever since. Once a fire dog always a fire dog.

Morning Chrisq288,

While waiting on a doctors call for my Dad, I thought I could make suggestion.

Duct your turbine. Your center body already increases the pressure on the front of the blades and decreases the pressure behind them. If you add a bell shroud it will further increase the pressure in the front of the blades and even with no shroud past the blades decreases the pressure behind them. Stator blades behind may or may not increase efficiency also by straitening the flow post turbine.

One other thought: Golf ball dimple the surface to reduce surface drag and increase the skin strength.

Brad

Brad,

Sorry to hear about your dad.. I lost mine a long time ago, (and mom) but even last night I dreamed of him.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. especially like the golf dimple idea. very cool.

I placed the blades on splines so they could be replacable, and or adjusted for pitch. I also thought I might design some adjustable lift-ratio blades that could still be mounted on the same splined shaft.

This project was something I designed as a prototype so that I could approach the math part with a clear idea in my head as to the dimensions, ratios, cross sectional area, etc. Once I have that, I can start to adjust and scale the design so that it can meet certain desirable targets. The generator I chose to model is a 15Kw, not because i think this generator will run it, but because I want the final version to run it, and just have to figure out what those dimensions need to be, and what the average wind speed needs to be.

The vertical axis is also something that I just invented.. basically a pair of closely fitted cylinders, with grease between..but I can also see a large thrust bearing between them on top.

You are the second person to mention a bell shroud or diffuser.. so I will model that too. Actually I thought about stator blades.. and I also thought about swirl-pattern rounded vanes on the nose cone, so it would impart a rotary flow to the air at the point where it impacts the blades. I have a thought that this air rotation will increase it speed yet again, even if the swirling is guided on the tail cone.

I'm second guessing myself on the earth mounds however.. its not consistent that an air turbine that can rotate vertically tends to duct air in single path.. but for wind coming onshore from lake or ocean, i think the mounds would be valid. Also that security and safety would suggest that the site be surrounded by a fence if the blades are within human distances.. and that would decrease air flow in the area. Raising the whole turbine will decrease the assistance of the mounds.. (but not of a bell shroud)

Lastly, I was thinking that this unit could employ a DP/flow sensor, (as used in HVAC VAV boxes) with tips front and back, so that it could measure static pressure, (front and back) and velocity pressure(front) This would give a clear indication of air flow (as compared to a nearby wind speed indicator) and differential pressure for determining efficiency, which can't be acquired as effectively on a conventional bladed turbine. The comparison would show how much the shape speeds up the wind over the body in various wind conditions

Thanks,

Chris.

On a second look your blades appear fixed. The front of the body has room for a governor to operate a blade pitch control.

Also your wheel where you mount the turbine blades on would make a good permanent magnet generator. Granted the off the shelf unit makes more sense to start with until you pin down the dynamic factors.

Brad

Hi Brad,

Yes, the blades are fixed on this design. What I meant by adjustable was 'manually adjustable'.. meaning you would have to remove the bolt, slide the blade out a bit and turn it one increment, and then reseat and tighten the bolt.. for each blade. Yes I agree that there is room for blade pitch control... again.. this is just preliminary to work out the mathematics for the design... not that I'm much good with it, but I intend to try.

Chris.

The learning is in the walking of the path.

If you can keep cost low per wattage output your design has merit.

I plan to eventually build a small test bed for gas and fluid design. A pump in a large pipe on a closed loop. By expanding into my test area and contracting after I should get a fairly accurate data set from my models. A micro wind/water tunnel.

Your turbine reminds me of some of the wind tunnel prop systems.

You could also do counter rotating blades but I don't know if the gain in efficiency is worth the cost and complexity.

Brad

Yes you are right... nothing teaches better than the reality of nature.

as for counter rotating blades.. I thought of that at the concept level..I dunno either. I decided to work up the design on the single rotor... because it is much simpler. If as you say, some sort of custom generator could be built, then it would be reasonble to apply that to the counterrotating blade desing.. otherwise, the gearing gets more complicated, with concentric driveshafts, or some other solution to transmit the power to the conventional generator, from two sources..

the funny thing is that I mentioned that the rubberized skin has to be UV resistant.. but that doesn't mean I'm being resistant to your ideas..

Chris

the gearing gets more complicated, with concentric driveshafts, or some other solution to transmit the power to the conventional generator, from two sources.

Just a simple set of spider gears mounted solid between the rotor disks. The tuning of the pitch of the turbine blades would be more problematic but the gearing is simple. Thus only one output shaft from two sources.

Brad

Hi Chris

If you ever need a method to apply the skin let me know because I think I have something for you. I can't give details here because I have other plans with this system but it would be suitable at first glance.

As for the mounds, you have a point. Our house is situated in such a scenario just that the mounds are more like large hills. We always have a breeze and when the wind picks up we experience very strong gusts. If the wind is a SE, which are the prevailing winds here, it is channeled and does just what you think it should do. It speeds up considerably. Good "between the mounds" thinking.

If you ever build a proto type make sure its base is not larger than the back of a Ute (Pickup). You could then do your testing while driving at controllable speeds and don't need a wind tunnel. Just clamp or bolt the unit and of you go. At a hundred miles be ready for take off.

Go you good thing, Ky.

Hi Ky,

good ideas for testing.. will have to build something. I've been thinking about those hills.. will post something soon. I always liked the space between the mounds

as for the skin idea.. would love to hear about it. but will sign NDA if you like.

Chris

Yes, the mounds. Just to make sure that we are talking about the same I have attached a painting of a rainy day. It shows the gap just under the bottom white cloud. You are looking NW. It continues on for 500m like a funnel. I'll have one of yours there, when your ready. Thanks, Ky.

Thats so beautiful.. i love it.. Can you send me a larger version at my email please chrisg288 at hotmail.

Can you do the same for me please? I will send you my email address via the CR4 email shortly....

OK, here's a freebie. The patent is expired, I think, and I'd be willing to work with it just to see it suceed, with perhaps my name on it somewhere. so, if someone wants to try machining one and testing it...

Toy external combustion engine. (larger models could be quite useful, burning camel dung, or whatever, but for a toy, a candle or focused sunlight should do -- oops, children can't play with matches any more can they? Maybe a lightbulb for heat)

It's really simple, could be machined from brass, die cast, even plastic for some of it. Parts consist of the following:

1. baseplate/ frame, basically a L

2. a shaft and flywheel. The face of the flywheel has a cardioid cam groove or ridge

3. a cylinder, basically a tube with cuts in the sides

4. two pistons with simple cam followers (eg. a ball)

5. heat exchanger, something like a brush of hypodermic needle tubes.

6. source of heat

esbuck

Could you supply a sketch or something. It reminds me of a steam engine I had as a boy. Thats all I know about it and I doen't think I can help. Just interested like some others here I suppose.

All the best, Ky.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4996953.html

The toy is a variation of the original patent, which envisioned an IC engine. The idea is to achieve a four-stroke cycle without valves, breathing through ports, like a two-stroke. (You will never need a valve job) The toy is about as simple as one of those toy oscillating steam engines. It doesn't have to be robust or built for high speed.

As a hot air engine, there are opposed pistons in a cylinder. At one end is a heat exchanger, and at the other end a simple port. The pistons are longer than the stroke, so a projection of each piston can extend through a slot in the cylinder and engage a cam on the face of the flywheel, the cam followers being diametrically opposed. As noted, the cam is basically a cardioid shape. Start with the pistons as far apart as they go, with the port open. As the cam goes through a quarter turn, one piston (at the hot end) is stationary and the other piston advances toward it, a compression stroke. Air is forced into the heat exchanger and the pressure in the cylinder increases. The "cold" piston them retreats, an expansion, power stroke. When it uncovers the port, it remains stationary for half a turn while the "hot" piston advances, the exhaust stroke, and then retreats, the intake stroke. Cool air enters the same port the hot air exited from. The cam profile can be tweaked to allow more time for the heat exchange to take place. There is one power stroke per shaft revolution, though it can be made with a more complex cam shape and several power strokes per rev.

If you can find a copy of the patent with the drawings included, you will see that there are various different configurations suitable for "real" IC engines.

Thank you esbuck.

Sounds great but is outside of my field of expertize although I understand the principle. Some one else might get right into it.

Again, like in your case, the Patent Attorneys were the only ones to make some $$ out of it (I assume). Did you have a plan or product when you applied? Or did you need the patent to go and find manufacturers or distributors. In any case I can feel with you.

Catch 22's are our main source of nourishment and success will stay the desert that hardly ever arrives. Blaming the "waiter" or the "menu" or "Restaurant" is not going to help. Staying hungry makes the world go round, not sitting around and procrastinating. Hope something comes out of all this!

Good luck, Ky.

Hi all

This has been very interesting and I hope not only for me. The New Inventors corner in CR4 should be some thing to look forward to. Thanks for your contributions and hope all goes well, what ever you do.

All the best, Ky.

When will it be happening and what features will it have? (if you know don't hold out )

because I can suggest some features that would be helpful to the cause (actually they would be good for all CR4)

• 1) quick sketch tool (like paint)
• 2) table tool or spreadsheet grid (example, tables by ky,chris in this thread, from word)
• 3) graphs and equations editors (maybe part of spreadsheet tool)

Chris

I like the design immensely, but may I suggest a couple of changes?

1) Do not make the blades retractable, in fact I feel they should be longer for efficiency. If the wind gets too strong, they can be turned "into wind" to stop the blades rotating. Too many windmills can only run for 20% of the total time as the winds in many parts of the world are simply not reliable enough. A good design should be able to make use of at least a further 10%.

2) On modern aircraft you have "winglets" to stop the high pressure air leaking out to the top of the wing. You need a similar design, but in your case, this winglet could be a wide ring bolted (with a bearing) to each blade, which could even be further shaped slightly to force more air through the blade area.

This "ring would also reduce the amount of air being "thrown off" by centrifugal forces (air has considerable weight, many forget this!) which would also tend to lower the efficiency of your design as it stands.....The air would still be "thrown off" but would first have to pass through the blades, thereby leaving a low pressure area behind the blades, increasing the overall efficiency of the design, by making an even greater pressure difference between in front of the blades, to behind the blades!!! It could easily be 8-10% if the annular ring was made wide enough to start before the blades and end after the blades.........

Naturally all surfaces should be dimpled to reduce the amounts of drag, maybe there are surface coatings that would help here, like this "Lotus Blossom" paint now being sold......as a point to ponder. It would also stop the windmill getting dirty too!!!

Best wishes.

Young Andi, howyagoin' Mate?

Thanks for your reply to Chris.

Naturally all surfaces should be dimpled to reduce the amounts of drag, maybe there are surface coatings that would help here,

I will inform Chris tomorrow about some further details about these materials. You are right to think about surface. Let me inform you that there are membranes, none woven, of what ever thickness on the market that could with stand winds of any kind. These flexible "wings", which could be manipulated by stretching and playing with the forces of the wind rather than to obey them, would assist maximality (I just invented the word by translating directly from the German Maximalitaet, or there a bouts). You would have to be a sailor to know what I am talking about but no worries there, I suppose. A wind surfer would know too. The tighter the faster really.

Assisting, supporting and encouraging any one is a good thing to do. Being part of a project that just needs some reflection is even better. Its like playing a game of chess with out some prize money. Just for the heck of it and learning by the wayside.

Have another one to look at, just on a sunny day.

Gotta go, Heidi's on my case. See Ya, Ky.

PS: Yes, that is really her name.

President Eisenhauer had a Weimaraner called Heidi in the 50's, that's what made them popular in the USA.

They were not allowed out of the houses of "Princes" till 1950, some call them Fürstenhund for that reason still in Germany.....

They are the only ones for me, Chloe II probably being my last as if she lives to 12, I shall be 75 then.....

I have to admit that my favorite "Invention" is the wind-turbine. However their style and construction are so variable that it's hard to pin down which is my personal fave, albeit the tethered, pressurized helium blimps floating 25 miles high or so, making the scene of late, are my turbines of choice just now... There is a practical reason that I admire them and favor their deployment - they are too high to create slow motion shutter effect that adversely affects not a few humans and animals and the lack of discernible noise "down wind" of their location that could affect most living entities on or near the ground. Being so high they are exposed to sustained, strong winds and miss most storm problems. Thunder storms in the vicinity would necessitate their being winched down, most likely on occasion.

There is one aspect of wind-turbines that has always dismayed me. When Turbo-heads post raves about the latest number of mega-watts now on stream - I always wince. My little horizontal dynamo that charges all my power tool batteries does almost all of its work at night. I know that this is not anecdotal for my wind generator system since this is area is a zone two wind rating and 3 or 4 is the minimum for viable commercial applications.

The wind in our neck of the woods often is too light during sometimes extended times of the day to make it turn, at all. That happens to be why EXXON and Valero out in west Texas are making a pile of money - the wind-turbines out there are often motionless during the day. But at night the Catabatic winds are predictably robust and because the electric load is so light during late night and there is no adequate grid to carry their power away to far off cities - they have gobs of surplus electricity that they auction off at penny's on the dollar to the oil pump jack owners that happen to be a stones throw away.

I would like to see a standard made that adjusts for mean power output of mega-watt wind turbine farms. While we in the States are demanding truth in bail out and truth in banking, etc. I'd also like the truth about how much energy wind-farms actually produce at 11 am to 6 pm during summer when electrical demand is peaked and at its highest in our air conditioned, power hungry country. We are being asked to fund state bonds to build a national electric grid - so just how viable will the need for distribution from far off wind farms be, when the demand for electricity is stretched to the limit during peak loads?

These are questions outside my expertise, but I hope some one of y'all's bright minds can take up the challenge. Any takers?

P.S., In truth I've wondered why wind farms don't power massive systems of water pumps at night to pump hydro-water in a lower holding lake, up into a higher holding lake and then use the hydro energy during peak load daylight hours running hydro gen-sets; over and over again... Making up the evaporation and permeable lake bottom aquifer water loss from the river that supplies the lake in the first place.

That method of energy storage embraces the fact that wind-farms reliably make more energy at night when the grid demand is at its lowest instead of daytime when demand is highest.

Paying for added grid capacity from hydro systems like this would make more sense than from remote wind farms that produce very little or inadequate power during peak demand, don't you think?

I always thought that the winds went down at night, because it is the sunlight, and the difference of potential caused by its heat that makes the wind... where can I go for addtional information and data about this behavior... But I believe the answer to your question is that there has been an aversion to creating energy storage systems, for economic reasons.. with no storage, the price is higher. The energy people have always known this. Therefore, research and investment dollars do not get put into such projects.

Chris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant

This article doesn't mention that the "excess" power comes from a local nuke plant.

The local farmers here use wind machines to protect citrus trees from freezing, I often wondered why not have combo blower/windgenerators.

There is also a local project to store water in a pourous subterrainian sandstone structure, why not use the pumps as generators? It wouldn't seem to increase the cost that much.

Awesome link.. thank you very much.

How does a wind machine prevent freezing?

chris

Great link.Garthh

We should have one here in Townsville. We have the Burdikin dam. If it over flows, like now, Sydney harbor runs over the spillway every day. Have a look at it, still don't know how to put a link here without loosing every thing I have typed. Sorry.

The coal mining industry here will not like it one bit, Ky.

1st to Chris, the freezes here are very minor sometime 25⁰f over night. the orchards are flooded the water is in the 40's wind machines keep the air churned up enough to keep the oranges from freezing. The wind machines are usually only used for a few hours every year. A huge expense, but cheaper than having your crop be worth 10% if it's been frozen.

To KY: open the site you would like to link to in a different window or tab

left click file, left click properties, hilight the address, right click, left click copy, come to the message you are composing right click, left click paste: http://cr4.globalspec.com/edit/newcomment?objectid=32082&objecttype=THREAD&c=354199

this is the link for this page.

hope this helps..

Hi chrisg288:

In the tropics, winds often die around sunset, because the heat of the day has generated them, the onset of cooler temps then damps this down. This is especially marked in the dry tropics, and inland, away from ocean influences.

In coastal regions, hot air rises during the day, the cooler ocean air comes in generating wind.

About sunset, the heating has been slowing and stops. So does the wind.

Later, the land cools, but the ocean is still warm, so the wind reverses direction as heavy, cool air from the land now flows out to the warmer sea.

This is a fairly common cycle.

In desert regions, the heat of the day generates wind due to hot air rising, other air coming in to fill the space. As this operates over huge distances, the inertia of the air is large and it takes a while to stop even when the heat is removed (ie night).

Depends where you are as to what mechanism operates.

Thank you. This coincides well with my understanding... It's basically a thermal convection cycle... but in different areas, the mechanism behaves differently.. due to the different heating and cooling patterns at different times... GA.