Forum: Lost Stories

gravity fed chain drive for electricity,

I remember that story vaguely; the blatant disregard for the laws of physics is why I quit reading it as I recall.

Gravity feed chain drive doesn't violate the laws of physics. It would violate the law of common sense if there were such though.

Potential energy = mass × gravity × height or E = mgh. So no, it doesn't violate the laws of physics, but the amount of weight and the height it would have to fall makes it extremely impractical.

Gravity feed chain drive doesn't violate the laws of physics.

As a continuous source of energy, it violates the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of matter/energy.

At best, assuming 100% efficiency, it should generate just enough energy to raise the drive weight back to the top of the cycle. You couldn't get any useful energy out of it.

If you are using an outside energy source to raise the weight, from an efficiency stand point, you would be better off using the outside energy source directly.

As a continuous source of energy, it violates the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of matter/energy.

At best, assuming 100% efficiency, it should generate just enough energy to raise the drive weight back to the top of the cycle. You couldn't get any useful energy out of it.

If you are using an outside energy source to raise the weight, from an efficiency stand point, you would be better off using the outside energy source directly.

As a continuous source you're correct. As 'a' source, you'd be incorrect. Recall the following in my post.

So no, it doesn't violate the laws of physics, but the amount of weight and the height it would have to fall makes it extremely impractical.

I never claimed it was practical, nor that it was continous. The weight would have to be lifted back into place once it had reached bottom.

A variation of that idea was used 1500-1650 (correction of dates edit) for town clocks in parts of Europe. The energy to run the clock was derived from dropping weights which were tied to a racheting gear system into the clock mechanics. In some places a person had to walk the weight up ever so often. In other places a hybrid hydro/gravity feed system was used.

Efficient is not a word associated with the setup.

Attempts to call it perpetual are just flat bullshit.

Attempts to call it perpetual are just flat bullshit.

As used in the story that I was referring to, it was used as a source of infinite free energy, so bullshit is a good word.

A variation of that idea was used 1500-1650 (correction of dates edit) for town clocks in parts of Europe. The energy to run the clock was derived from dropping weights which were tied to a racheting gear system into the clock mechanics. In some places a person had to walk the weight up ever so often. In other places a hybrid hydro/gravity feed system was used.

I have a cuckoo clock that still uses that mechanism. It's not an energy source; it's a battery. I pull the chains to raise the weights, and that kinetic energy gets transformed into gravitational potential energy, stored in the height of the weights. The weights then drop slowly, over the course of days, and their potential energy is meted out to the clock mechanism at the much slower and closely regulated (by the pendulum) rate that it needs. When the weights reach the bottom, it runs out of stored energy and the clock stops, and I have to pull the chains again to add more.

It's all ultimately powered by me pulling on the chains; the weights just make it so I don't have to stand there pulling on the chains all the time to make the clock run. It's a battery, not a power supply.

Some mechanical clocks use wound springs to store energy. Mine uses gravity and a couple of cast-iron pine cones. It has the advantage of not requiring the kind of metallurgy it takes to make decent spring steel.

It's not an energy source; it's a battery. I pull the chains to raise the weights, and that kinetic energy gets transformed into gravitational potential energy, stored in the height of the weights. The weights then drop slowly, over the course of days, and their potential energy is meted out to the clock mechanism at the much slower and closely regulated (by the pendulum) rate that it needs. When the weights reach the bottom, it runs out of stored energy and the clock stops, and I have to pull the chains again to add more.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gpot.html

Gravitational potential energy is energy an object possesses because of its position in a gravitational field.

*Potential energy is any form of energy that has stored potential that can be put to future use.

*Kinetic energy is the energy in moving objects or mass.

If I hold a brick out, it's potential is stored. If I release the brick, it's potential becomes kinetic.

In your case, when in action it's moving. It may take days to fully release the mechanical energy, but since it's moving, it's no longer potential.
That is known as conservative force.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/pegrav.html#cfor

Cart or the horse, chicken or the egg, source or storage. If we get down to brass tacks, the initiating source was you moving the chains which countered the force of gravity mechanically.
The weights stored the gravitational potential, the mechanism of the clock acted as a conservative force meting out the kinetic energy in the form of mechanical energy.

Most people outside of scientist and engineers could care less about the specifics. Much less care about something being both storage or a source depending upon the point of reference.

Cart or the horse, chicken or the egg, source or storage. If we get down to brass tacks, the initiating source was you moving the chains which countered the force of gravity mechanically.
The weights stored the gravitational potential, the mechanism of the clock acted as a conservative force meting out the kinetic energy in the form of mechanical energy.

Yes, that's what I said.

Most people outside of scientist and engineers could care less about the specifics. Much less care about something being both storage or a source depending upon the point of reference.

The key practical difference is that I'm not getting any energy out of that clock that I didn't put into it. (And thermodynamics says I'm not even getting all of that back.) Unlike, say, mills (wind or water) which leech energy from the Earth's weather systems, or fossil-fuel burning, which liberates chemical energy stored eons ago by other life forms, or solar power, which picks it up directly from the big fusion reactor in the sky, which are power sources in that they can provide me with energy from processes that I wasn't involved in putting the energy into to begin with.

I deleted my first reply.

The only search answer to a "gravity chain" or "avalanche drive" by Murilo Luciano (a Brazilian snake-oil salesman) is in Carrying On by Harold Wainwright. So unless it got removed that is the one you were thinking of.

limab

my post reads as really grumpy, sobeit. It is NOT you or the other posters. now get off my lawn!!

I know you said it's not Carrying On, but that novel has most of the elements you listed, including worm beds, rabbits, chickens, tire wall, potatoes, ponds, etc.

It also has the gravity chain machine.

This is bugging me, I know the story as well. The guy has bad knees or back, married to a small but feisty woman, they have children.

He has tunnels under parts of the property. He lets some friends/aquaintences (including ex military) join them at some point.

They live near a town that gets taken over by a gang and he and others help out.

I will keep looking back at my history to see if I can find it

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

How do you qualify to be a "SOL Veteran"? Service in the Armed Forces? How many years as a Premier Member?

Not the Armed Forces, you must have battled with the Inane Farces.

You can't simply buy your way into Veteran status..!! It matters not what your money has done for SoL, but what you have done for SoL

Never forget. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man goes down on his wife and her friend".

Service in the Armed Forces? How many years as a Premier Member?

SOL has it's own armed forces?

SOL has it's own armed forces?

Jade Warriors no less..!!

If we needed them, I would rather have the members of the shack.

Too bad that their enemies are alerted by hearing night birds just before...

But NO ONE will hear Spooky.

Fair point..!!

But.... Can't resist one more