*CLOCKWORKS: Mainsprings, Rube Goldberg, the 'Oil Patch, & The Planet
I spent my younger life working in the Rocky Mountain Oil-Patch and was always bemused & amazed at some of the grass-roots 'rube-goldberg' concocted ingenuity that has been invented through the years. And that is the actual defacto process of the evolution up to current technology that gets the worlds oil & natural gas out've the ground. And without those 'rube-goldberg' wild-haired country-boy ideas, our entire petro-automotive industry would simply 'not exist.' I've seen uncanny genious come from the minds of poorly educated working stiffs. It still functions and it still 'state of the art.' So in that vane; Some Mother-earth-news types back in the 70's notice that a simple and effective way to get water pumped up hill from a cased well was simply to hoist a small piston air-compressor up a pole with wind-fan blades fabricated on to the drive shaft and simply 'pressure-up' the capped well casing. And with a skinny PVC pipe running down into the water of the well acting as a straw the 25lbs of air-pressure or so would pump a steady stream quite high as needed into an over head tank. It works great and is almost absurdly 'low-tech.' Now imagine if said tank was suspended from a relatively simple block-n-tackle pully torque converting suspension system with a 'silo' of about 30 ft. or so up. All day long at 20/30 ft. up the breeze blows steadily 'everywhere' to keep the air compressor running a steady stream of H2O into the dangling tank, until, when full, its release & drop could torque convert its pully system into cranking the CLOCK-WORK SPRING of your mention. Calculating water-weight to time to foot-pounds for one cycle of the dropping tank wouldn't be to tricky. At the bottom of the tank drop cycle the fibre-glass H2O tank elevator could simply catch-valve release its water into the cased-well-cistern from where the air-pressure cycle could begin again. Rather than having a torque-robbing 'counter-weight' to haul theH2O-fibre-glass tank back up-silo to its top position, another wind fan could simply 'pully' the now light H2O tank back up to its top-of-cycle position & the process could begin again. Or maybe a smaller water fill/water release counter-weight tank could more simply do the trick. MEANWHILE while the tank was rising to the top of its cycle and waiting for H2O refill; the ratcheted-up spring-tension could be driving a large diameter magnet-on-rim running through cupped-rim stationary-induction-coils generator driving electric motors or charging a back-up battery storage bank. BUT PROCESS CONTINUES 24/7-365 while you think & sleep; and if you have a 'BATTERY OF CLOCK SPRINGS;' probably BACK-UP POWER will be probably VIRTUALLY ENDLESS AVAILABLE. IN SHORT: you make MUCH MORE POWER than you need. And in the UNITED STATES by LAW you can generate & SEND POWER THAT THE POWER COMPANY MUST BUY BACK at your whim &/or leisure. The 'weighted-fly-generator' might be ten-to-twelve ft. diameter and positioned vertically like a large bicycle wheel with a similar 'free-wheeling' coasting gearing when direct torque is not applied. This type of 'inertial momentum' IN YESTER-YEAR used to carry weighted-fly-wheel heavy-loaded-dump trucks to the top of a mile long switch back six-percent grade AFTER the ONE-PISTON ancient motor ran out of fuel. We're thusly largely WASTING GYRO-CENTRIFICAL MOMENTUM in most common mechanical devices these days and we need to 're-discover it. WITHIN A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR POWER CYCLE DAY starting from 'scratch' & calculating foot-pounds of tank-torque applied to the CLOCK-DRIVE-SPRING against weight of tank with H2O against average wind speed and time-of-cycle aught to give a fairly clear average picture of the TIME-TO-MECHANICAL WORK accomplished. And the electric-generation-end of said power cycle should be easily meter-measured to give our entire power to time to work per day. ?Convoluted-somewhat. ?Low tech-Yes. ?Doable with common ingenuity & easily available means-yes. ?Easily maintainable without being a rocket-scientist-yes. NOTE: The wide-diameter fly-wheel/magnet on rim generator can be fabricated fairly easily using a common material(wooden rim and bicycle spoke type of configuration. A double flat rim with magnets & extra inertial lead-weights through-bolted between the rim-walls has been demonstrated to be fairly easily fabricated. AND VERY COOL since the magneted-rim 'not touching' passes 'through' the stationary half-circle coil-winding packs around the rim of the fly-wheel; NO COMMUTATOR IS NEEDED and it produces PURE-STEADY-DC-CURRENT that can be converted to AC if necessary. DISCLAIMER: Another bright gentleman other than myself came up with this novel & very effective fly-wheel centrifical free-wheeling generator idea. His first go was to merely put fan-blades through the 'spokes' and use it solely as a wind generator and it performed exceedingly well. But we are looking for a HIGH-TORQUE POWER STORAGE-CONVERSION SYSTEM here I believe. Anyway; that's my 'two-cents' worth of Rube Goldberg Tech.~;-) Good-luck withal!~Jak~ From: ni...@wynterwood.co.uk To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:44:19 +0100 Subject: [Vo]:Clockwork Gnorts, Vorts Anyone have any idea if big clockwork "mainsprings" could be used at a domestic level to store energy - and how to calculate available storage capacity? Nick Palmer On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online. http://windowslive.com/Campaign/SocialNetworking?ocid=PID23285::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:SI_SB_online:082009
