[Chris_B]

[url=http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/413/thing2hh.jpg]link
Ok, so heres my perpetual motion idea, it probly wont work but I figure I'll post it here so people can have some fun picking at it.
Alright, you have the two car batteries, the drive motor, and the alternator. While the drive motor is draining off one of the batteries the alternator is charging the other and when the one driving the motor is dead you can flip a switch so the drained battery becomes the battery hooked up to the alternator and vise-versa. A car battery is 19 amp, an alternator can charge between 100 and 170 depending on the size you have, so we'll say the battery is 20 amps and we're using a 150 amp alternator, acording to my calculations (which are probly wrong) it would take about 8-9 minutes to charge the battery. Im not sure how long it would take to drain the battery operating the drive motor but i would think it would matter on what gear you are in, and how much voltage you allow to it. If your still with me, there would be some kind of a "dimmer" switch between the drive motor and its energy source. the drive motor would be connected to the drive axle via and bicycle gearing system (18 to 27 gears?) The alternator could be connected to the drive axle with a CVT type transmission so it is always runing at or nearer to its peak output RPM.
That is basically my thought, there is part of my that sais No it couldnt possibly work, if it worked, someone would have already done it, and I feel thats probly true.
So anyways, please prove this wrong so I can get it out of my head.

[Chaparral]

Friggin friction will do you in every time. One battery will run down before the other can fully charge. Sooner or later you'll have to get out and push. Entropy is a BEEEEYOTCH!

[Googolplex]

To drive the alternator for charging the second battery as well as the wheels, the motor will have to push extra hard, causing much higher drain on the first battery.

All you are doing is taking extra energy out of the first battery (beyond what it takes to turn the wheels), putting it through a very inefficient conversion process where you loose alot of it, and putting the leftovers in a second battery. Rather pointless waste of energy really.

The first battery all alone with just the motor and wheels will get you farther then both batteries together in your setup ever could.

[Devil]

I assume you have your tongue in the cheek

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chris_B', ' ')That is basically my thought, there is part of my that sais No it couldnt possibly work, if it worked, someone would have already done it, and I feel thats probly true.
So anyways, please prove this wrong so I can get it out of my head.

[Googolplex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'I') encourage you to work on your idea, the first step is to create a practical working model. Once you have proved your idea works, it is much harder for naysayers. Obviously, you should submit an application to the Patent Office, and keep your idea secret. If successful, you stand to make billions of dollars.

[Madpaddy]

Zeroth Law

When each of two systems is in equilibrium with a third, the first two systems must be in equilibrium with each other. This shared property of equilibrium is the temperature.

The concept of temperature is based on this Zeroth Law.

First Law

Because energy cannot be created or destroyed (with the special exception of nuclear reactions) the amount of heat transferred into a system plus the amount of work done on the system must result in a corresponding increase of internal energy in the system. Heat and work are mechanisms by which systems exchange energy with one another.

This First Law of thermodynamics identifies caloric, or heat, as a form of energy.

Second Law

Entropy—that is, the disorder—of an isolated system can never decrease. Therefore, when an isolated system achieves a configuration of maximum entropy, it can no longer undergo change (it has reached equilibrium).

Additionally, it is not enough to conserve energy and thus obey the First Law. A machine that would deliver work while violating the second law is called a "perpetual-motion machine of the second kind." In such a system, energy could then be continually drawn from a cold environment to do work in a hot environment at no cost.

Third Law

The Third Law of thermodynamics states that absolute zero cannot be attained by any procedure in a finite number of steps. Absolute zero can be approached arbitrarily closely, but it can never be reached.

[JoeW]

chris_b: your heart is in the right place, but your idea is sure to fail for reasons mentioned above. you talk about current, but what you really need to think of is the energy involved. your system starts out with a certain amount of energy in the two batteries. the system runs for a while on one battery until that battery's energy has been spent on whatever. the second battery presumably contains an amount of energy more or less equivalent to the amount that was already spent. so you already have an energy loss of 50%. even if you could manage to transfer the energy from the charged battery to the depleted battery without any loss, that wouldn't leave any energy left to move anything.

when thinking about perpetual motion, you have to think: where does the kinetic energy come from? so then you are back to wind/solar/hydro/geothermal, or some other essentially perpetual source of energy that has already been considered...unless you can think of a new one. now that would be something.

[Madpaddy]

Chris_b,

I went through the same headbanging some months back when I had this concept of a water tank that could be filled from a lower water tank by capillary action. Gravity would run the water from the upper tank to the lower tank and drive a motor. However, I forgot about surface tension which means the water would not leave the tubes that were the mechanism for the capillary action. I felt like such a moron.

Bottom line - there is no free lunch.

[gg3]

Many creative people have had ideas for perpetual motion machines, and probably a good many of us here as well. What they all have in common is, the inventor has forgotten to include in his/her calculatons, oneor more aspects of the design that causes loss of energy. The loss of energy makes the device operate under unity, so, no perpetual motion.

Tapping ambient energy sources is a different matter; obviously you can run something "perpetually" by hooking it up to some PV panels or a wind turbine, and a set of batteries, and then replacing these components as they wear out over time. But those ambient energy sources originate "outside the system," ultimately with the sun (solar, wind) or with tidal action caused by the moon's gravity acting on bodies of water (tidal power systems). Ambient power sources don't constitute a basis for perpetual motion.

It's been said that a human on a bicycle gets the equivalent of 1200 miles per gallon, based on the conversion of food calories (fuel) to distance traveled. That's pretty good, eh?

[Chris_B]

Ah, just as I expected, it's a no-go. So what if you combined a pedalling mechanism with this? so when the battery ran dry you could just peddle to recharge the other one, and use the motor for going up big hills, and just peddle on flat ground, and going down hills would be like "free" energy, minus the energy it takes to go up the other side...
But so, yea, peddles?

[gnm]

Madpaddy if you had a ram pump and a flowing creek with ample water you _could_ fill a tank uphill without input other than the creeks own force.... of course you could also just plop a micro hydro generator in the creek...

I am not going to comment other than this on the initial system... heat loss throughout, energy loss in charging, energy loss in running motor, nuff said...

-G

[pip]

People always underestimate how hard it is to turn an alternator under load because they spin so easily when they're in the box.

[Kylon]

All I'll say is this, many have tried, many have failed, and many, many smarter than you and I. Try finding the source, then working on the machine that would go around it.

A machines got to be powered by something, it won't generate more power by itself, it's got to get it's power from somewhere(because power=energy and energy under normal circumstances cannot be created).

[Chris_B]

peddles?

[JudoCow09]

Perpetual motion is impossible in theory. Forces are always working against you. Even in space, you have the issue of gravitational pulls of heavenly bodies and solar winds.

[Aedo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chris_B', 'A')h, just as I expected, it's a no-go. So what if you combined a pedalling mechanism with this? so when the battery ran dry you could just peddle to recharge the other one, and use the motor for going up big hills, and just peddle on flat ground, and going down hills would be like "free" energy, minus the energy it takes to go up the other side...
But so, yea, peddles?

[Devil]

You may try to peddle your idea, but pedalling it may be more like hard work

[richardmmm]

http://jlnlabs.imars.com/

there is some great stuff here you can build and test yourself.

don't under estimate what is available

people who doubt the reality of overunity engines and COP > 1.0 are like those who thought the world was flat.

the science of the day is only right until you reach the horizon.

and some of it is right under your nose.

a refridgerator has a COP > 2.0