The Missing Link of Power Generation

[MBWhite]

What you are proposing can indeed produce power, the question is whether or not it can generate enough power to be useful for anything other than an LED.

There used to be towed generators, and since you do not really see them anymore (then again I lead a sheltered life) I suspect it would be difficult to find an improvement in mechanical generation that has not been thought of in the last 100 years unless some new technology comes along at some point.

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by ssanzone

now i am a smart guy but... c'mon!

this is a great link. kinda defeating to think that all these great ideas have fallen apart but... i do like a challenge (i.e i am foolish enough to not learn from other's mistakes).

The formula looks off a bit. The 8 seconds wave peak (if that is what it is would not be an additive but a devisor I think.

With a single action ratchet, your only getting the up portion of the lift, the down side would require a double ratching drive for up and down. For small waves you would need a huge float surface area to generate meaningful energy.

Solar has no moving parts to fail and works rather well. 1 square meter of solar currently makes about ~200 watts. The total energy in sunlight is roughly a KW per square meter, if the panels were 100% efficient. Same applies to wave power, the actual energy transferred would never be 100%. Sticksion in bearings and generator efficiency's drop that quite a bit.

[ryon]

Originally Posted by ssanzone

now i am a smart guy but... c'mon!

this is a great link. kinda defeating to think that all these great ideas have fallen apart but... i do like a challenge (i.e i am foolish enogh to not learn from other's mistakes).

Learning why things didn't work can be just as interesting as learning about those that do!

[nimblemotors]

I would think a simple method and what shows how much energy you get,
are those flashlights that you shake to charge up. They have a magnet and coil,
and moving the magnet past the coil charges up a cap.
So now put this flash light on a bobbing float, and with the right weight or magnet it should charge itself from waves. That might indicate the level of energy to harvest, i.e. not much.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by ssanzone

i figure i must be missing something...

if i hung a weighted line in the water with a float attached a few feet above the weight and ran that line up to a pulley and back down a flywheel with a belt connected to an alternator...

dosnt it make sense that the line would bob in the water, pulling the line, turning the flywheel, spinning the alternator and charge the batteries?

the cost would be under a few hundred for everything to fabricate this including a 120v alternator.

adding multiple flywheels would result in more turns of the alternator per 'bob'.

it would not be a persistent power source and the output would new be on par with a big solar panel but kinda a perpetual kinetic trickle charger to keep the house bank topped off.

-steve

I'm sorry! I can't help myself. I suggest a good book on physics and possibly one defining the kinetic energy needed to generate a watt. I'm not intending to be negative but you asked what you where missing. I think, you will come to the reality that the float size, weight and sea conditions required make this impossible. Maybe someone will invent a super efficient gen. to make it feasible some day. Don't give up on ideas great inventions are sometimes the simplest.

[a64pilot]

The float could be the boat, the line the anchor line with a spring to retract the line when slack and spinning a flywheel on the boat to carry the energy between cycles of the boat pitching. How much energy do you think there is in a 25,000 lb boat pitching up and down? Take ahold of the anchor line sometime and try to stop the pitching to get an idea, it's lots.
It could work, matter of fact I'm sure it would work.
Probably not as well as a Solar panel though, and that is the issue, more reliable power available for less money and hassle elsewhere.

[ssanzone]

Well... no.

With a proper pulley i can lift 10K lbs while smoking a cigarette and writing a haiku.

By introducing a set of multi-sized gears even 6" of travel, in the float, can result in hundreds of RPMs at the endpoint (alternator). I accept that this is 1. vastly more complex than originally described and 2. does not equate consistency.

there is really no question of if an alternator will charge the house bank but what method can be designed to turn the alternator at a necessary constant.

the missing component is how to result perpetual motion.

[Terra Nova]

a64--seems right to me, too.

How about using the force directly onto a piezoelectric crystal which itself produces the power? No moving parts.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by ssanzone

Well... no.

With a proper pulley i can lift 10K lbs while smoking a cigarette and writing a haiku.

By introducing a set of multi-sized gears even 6" of travel, in the float, can result in hundreds of RPMs at the endpoint (alternator). I accept that this is 1. vastly more complex than originally described and 2. does not equate consistency.

there is really no question of if an alternator will charge the house bank but what method can be designed to turn the alternator at a necessary constant.

the missing component is how to result perpetual motion.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by ssanzone

the missing component is how to result perpetual motion.

You figure that out, and you will be set for life. Your name will be celebrated as the greatest genius that was ever born

Just pulling your leg, I know you didn't mean what it sounds like

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

You figure that out, and you will be set for life. Your name will be celebrated as the greatest genius that was ever born

Just pulling your leg, I know you didn't mean what it sounds like

I hope you took it as I was agreeing with you. I rag people when I don't agree. ****, I may learn something when they respond. I hope I don't offend anyone by possibly sounding crass.

[DeepFrz]

the missing component is how to result perpetual motion.

You pull this off and you could buy a Watt & Sea hydro-generator.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

You pull this off and you could buy a Watt & Sea hydro-generator.

I take it they are not advisable? I did read a few inputs on them. I don't think I'd want one.
The unanswered question, in my mind if I even understood what they are, is what is the resulting drag under way?

Am I totally lost, thinking you stick it in the water and generate power from driving a "prop or turbine", for lack of a better term, with your forward motion?

Let me know if I am totally in the dark?

[DeepFrz]

That was actually meant as a reference to a different thread by the OP.

The Watt & Sea hydro-generators are used on virtually all long distance racing boats but in the last Vendee Globe they had lots of problems with them. Of course many of the boats were doing over 30 knots from time to time.

[The Garbone]

How bout take the rope ratchet dodad and float part of the rig off and run it to a sail type contraption that catches the wind and turns the doo hicky and creates power. You could mount those sails on a wheel so they are always revolving.....


Oh wait..