Sciencemadness Discussion Board

The Irish company Steorn builds a pulse motor with no back EMF.

thepurplepill - 29-12-2009 at 16:02

I found this video on Youtube.

Introduction to an Orbo Electromagnetic Interaction - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5nae_I_Mus

Basically, it appears some Irishmen have invented a pulse motor that does not have back EMF. They show this by posting scope traces in the above video. Under load the current does not increase. As the system speeds up the current does not decrease.

What's a bit more stunning is that there are a lot of folks online who are replicating this motor and are getting the same results.

What is even more odd is that it uses TOROIDS as stators!

JohnWW - 29-12-2009 at 16:24

Yes, I have heard about that over the past year or two. If it has been replicated by many people with the same results, there must be something in it. But, on the other hand, it could be "Irish" in the colloquial sense of the word (meaning illogical).

len1 - 29-12-2009 at 17:07

The magnetic field outside a perfect toroid is zero! So if their torroids were such there would be no rotation.

Hence this effect relies on the residual stray fields of the torroids - it is thus not surprising there is no back-emf, as its a second ordr effect - corollary being that such motors are grossely inefficient as most of the energy corresponding to the IV product is dissipated in the resistance coils of the torroids.

As an elucidation, imagine a 0.5W motor in parallel with a 100W resistor. As you slow or speed up the motor you will not see any effects on current on the scope since they are buried at the 0.5% level. To discover these you need to look at deviations about the mean which the scope wont show.

So my preliminary evaluation of this is that it is indeed Irish

hissingnoise - 29-12-2009 at 17:26

We've been here before. . .

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6467#p...

12AX7 - 29-12-2009 at 19:07

Ahem, conventional motors use a toroidial stator. Hint: the windings are not arranged as a toroidial inductor is, so the field is nonzero, particularly across the air gap where the rotor moves.

Although traditionally, the B field outside of a toroid (or an infinite solenoid) is zero, the A field (magnetic potential, often considered more fundamental than B) is nonzero. This gives rise to the Aharonov-Bohm effect, where B is zero yet a change occurs.

The inductors shown look to be wound in a very conventional manner, which produces a solenoidal component (effectively with an air core) because the path of windings rotates along the core, probably making 2-3 turns. This will have a small effect on magnets outside.

The magnets are visible, but the inside of the rotor is not. Nor is the control circuit specified. The power supply is atrocious as far as I can tell: why is voltage dropping so preciptitiously? And why does current lag, does the probe have a large time delay?

As far as I can tell, it might be switching a resistor into a resistor, which would explain the supply droop (a ballast resistor?) and the ringing to some extent (a MOSFET rated exactly twice the supply voltage might produce a voltage ringdown as shown when operated into an inductive load). The inductance would have to be fairly high, which could easily be provided by connecting the inductors shown in series with a resistor. If those inductors do not produce sufficient EMF to drive the motor, there could be something hidden inside the rotor or its mounts.

Tim

franklyn - 30-12-2009 at 21:46

@ thepurplepill

It appears to be an adaption on the Marinov design , old news.

Observations of the Marinov Motor
http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/Pre2001/V05NO3PDF/v05n3...

Marinov Motor - Notional Induction without a Magnetic B Field
http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/Pre2001/V05NO3PDF/v05n3...

A peer review
http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=u56152vw...
Available here _ http://www.springerlink.com/content/u56152vwn3v0w48h

Do Maxwell’s equations need revision? - A methodological note
See bottom of page 5
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0511/0511103v3.pdf

.

12AX7 - 31-12-2009 at 01:59

No, that appears to involve crossed fields. This motor uses saturation. It will not operate without a ferromagnetic core.

Tim

not_important - 31-12-2009 at 02:28

Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise  
We've been here before. . .

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6467#p...



Topic drifting, but that older thread mentions Dr. Henry Moray and his 'diodes' for producing energy from 'cosmic rays'. While the actual device and how it did or didn't work isn't really important here, I note that he also managed to generate a 'death ray' from it that flash carbonized the target. In Heinlein's Sixth Column AKA The Day After Tomorrow there is a vaguely similar invention including a flash cooking death ray. Given the timings of Moray's work, mostly the late 1920s through late 1930s with a spurt of news coverage into 1940, and the date of the Heinlein story, publish at the beginning of 1941, I must wonder if Heinlein received some inspiration from Moray. Science fiction, not science, but Heinlein riffed on technology and research of the time a good deal, and wasn't afraid to sample speculative or fringe theories.

thepurplepill - 4-1-2010 at 01:24

Quote: Originally posted by len1  
The magnetic field outside a perfect toroid is zero! So if their torroids were such there would be no rotation.

Hence this effect relies on the residual stray fields of the torroids - it is thus not surprising there is no back-emf, as its a second ordr effect - corollary being that such motors are grossely inefficient as most of the energy corresponding to the IV product is dissipated in the resistance coils of the torroids.

As an elucidation, imagine a 0.5W motor in parallel with a 100W resistor. As you slow or speed up the motor you will not see any effects on current on the scope since they are buried at the 0.5% level. To discover these you need to look at deviations about the mean which the scope wont show.

So my preliminary evaluation of this is that it is indeed Irish


It appears that the rotor magnets are attracted to the toroid when it's not fired. It also appears that the toroid "vanishes" when it's fired.

I don't think the effect depends on any external field of the toroid.

len1 - 4-1-2010 at 02:42

What do you mean by a toroid 'fired'? Current pulsed through its windings? In that case its only effect is the production of an EM field. The field lines in a perfect toroid stay all inside the toroid. In a non-ideal toroid there is a stray second order field.

If this does not depend on the electromagnetic field, then what force moves the rotor - there are only the gravitational and two nuclear forces left

12AX7 - 4-1-2010 at 05:11

As the magnet moves past, the toroid is asymmetrically saturated and some bEMF is induced in the winding. In the video, nothing seems to be measured because the motor is of very crappy design (all air gap, for one) and therefore the effect is less than a pixel's width on the DSO. It might be visible on an analog scope as less than a tracewidth change.

A conventional laminated iron motor could be wound to exploit this effect, but it would be noticably less efficient (geometrically and electrically) than conventional devices.

Tim

thepurplepill - 13-1-2010 at 02:31

Another video of a "talk" has been posted.

Steorn's Orbo Electromagnetic Interaction COP is greater than 1. Part 1 of 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzcZDr1AcEU

The CEO of the company claims that there will be two additional talks by the end of the month.

unionised - 13-1-2010 at 04:18

I predict there will be a lot of talk; but very little evidence of any real effect. As len1 pointed out, if you build a bad enough motor the back emf is small.

thepurplepill - 5-2-2010 at 08:56

Check out these videos.

Steorn conclusively proves their system does not produce CEMF but does produce torque!

Steorn Orbo - Proving Overunity 1/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Q3Klq5dxM

Steorn Orbo - Proving Overunity 2/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7i7P63IByY

Does anyone have any thoughts?

MagicJigPipe - 9-2-2010 at 17:00

I have a feeling that eventually it will be shown (if it hasn't already) that the process is actually below unity--like what always happens with these things.

unionised - 10-2-2010 at 12:21

Check the first video .
Their company logo says it all.

"Orbo, get real"

MagicJigPipe - 10-2-2010 at 13:57

Ha! I think we should continually investigate things even if we "know" they can't happen (because we never truly "know"). But there comes a point when... well:
beating_a_dead_horse.png - 116kB




* Credit for the picture goes to Matt Ellis, co-host of podcasts B!tch Sl@p and Drunken Monkey Tech, and a co-founder of Bag Of Mad Bastards.