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Self Contained Power Source?

McOSEN writes "Your Server Cabinet could have a 100% self sustained power source. It's called Parallel Path Technology and it's being coined as a revolution in the magnetic motor industry. From Segways to Vacuum cleaners to Server Cabinets. The article talks about the technology but doesn't exactly lay out specifics."

24 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. Yet Another Bogus Science Story by __aaahtg7394 · · Score: 4, Informative

    From TFA:

    1. It's a motor, not a generator. It sounds like it could be a neat motor, but it's still not a generator.

    2. "The technology claims to be able to increase magnet motor efficiency substantially, even over the 100% barrier."

    That's right folks! It's perpetual motion machine!

    So, this is about a motor that makes claims that are pretty universally accepted to be impossible. The poster, of course, is affiliated with the site hosting the page, so he really should have read the article the same way I did. Even if he didn't, maybe ScuttleMonkey should have.

    I would be more annoyed, but this fits ScuttleMonkey's past science articles. Could someone send him a few pop-sci introduction texts, so we can stop having the Electric Universe, perpetual motion, and other fringe theories on the frontpage as science?

    1. Re:Yet Another Bogus Science Story by strider44 · · Score: 4, Funny

      sheesh - you're taking this way too seriously. Don't you know that it says "It's funny, laugh!" if you put your mouse over the foot up here . . . wait a sec...

      Well I thought it was very funny anyway. Especially the bit that says "The article talks about the technology but doesn't exactly lay out specifics".

    2. Re:Yet Another Bogus Science Story by pete-classic · · Score: 4, Funny
      It's a motor, not a generator. It sounds like it could be a neat motor, but it's still not a generator.


      That's the beauty of it! You connect the axes of two of these things together. Power one, and use the power exceeding 100% efficiency to power the other as a generator!

      Can anyone tell me why there's no big foot on this story?

      -Peter
  2. Developed for the phantom by gentimjs · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hear this was developed specifically for the new Phantom gameconsole and online service. I cant wait to get duke nukem whenever going on that baby!

  3. Wow.. by fred911 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought they were called squirrel cages. And they're not perpetual, someones gotta feed the squirrels!

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  4. Obligatory Simpson's quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

  5. Ahh Physics by TheUnknownOne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So the first lines of the article basicly claim it's a perpetual motion machine, and than later in the article it says this is impossible. Wonderful when even the articles contridict themselves. I really enjoy the part where they state that they recieved a patent, like it actually means something.

  6. Re:first by pryoplasm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a beowulf cluster made out of vaporware

    --
    Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who live by the gun...
  7. Perpetual motion machines by isomeme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it that every new PMM for the last two decades has involved permanent magnets? Is there some kind of mad-scientist cabal that decrees these things? Will the fashion turn to something else soon, like, I don't know, materials so bouncy that they rebound with more energy than they hit the surface with? (Name that classic SF story.)

    Seriously: Editors, please shitcan perpetual motion machines before we have to waste precious seconds on them. When a real PMM is possible, you'll know it's happened because suddenly the universe will have stopped working properly, and you'll be instantaneously and very thoroughly dead.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
  8. What could it be? by OriginalArlen · · Score: 5, Funny
    Wow, intriguing! I haven't bothered to read the article because even the write-up says it's light on details. Unhampered by preconceptions, the possibilities are endless!

    • infrared solar cells lining cabinets absorb all heat passively - saving money on fans and the power to drive them - one rack per row contains a small steam (or hot water) powered generator.
    • Arrays of pigeons
    • batteries! They're self contained, after all
    • 256-port power-over-ethernet switch bonds multiple ports into one 240v supply
    • convection-powered 'wind' turbines. Ajax-heavy Web2.0 content will obviously be more eco-friendly due to the warm gusts of hype
    • Helldesk phone receivers connected to flywheel. List the phone, add some revs to the flywheel
    • ...my imagination fails. Well, it is nearly 2am... note to self: must stop posting to slashdot in bed.
    --

    Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
  9. lab? by widget1985 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I love how the "Lab" in the picture looks a whole lot like a kitchen.

  10. Re:"LISA!!" by DesireCampbell · · Score: 5, Funny

    "... in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

    --
    Whoo, signature!
    DesireCampbell.com
  11. Mod parent up by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yeah, it's bogus.

    If you like exotic motor designs, check out these "thin gap" motors. These brushless permanent magnet motors can reach 90% efficiency, which is very impressive. The windings are made from thin copper plates rather than round wires. These are real. You can order them.

    There's some interesting work going on in motor electromagnetics, but the "greater than 100%" motor probably isn't it.

    1. Re:Mod parent up by DarkHand · · Score: 4, Funny

      Interesting ... but just wondering, whatever happened to the idea of backup power being stored in giant underground flywheels; the energy would be stored by bringing these up to speed, and released by slowing them down.

      This idea is already in use: Even as we speak, dead physicists the world over are spinning in their graves from the posting of this Slashdot article. We simply need to harness this energy to solve the worlds energy problems!

  12. Warning, warning! by mentaldrano · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bullshit detector overload!

    This is Slashdot, for crying out loud. We're nerds, we don't fall for this idiotic screed even a high school freshman could debunk.

    Ooooh, big words are scary! Stator, rotor, magnetic flux. Dammit, both the editor and article submitter should hand in their geek cards.

    This guy does have a real patent, though. I don't know which is worse, the ignoramus patent examiner who allowed this one through or the baboon who posted it to Slashdot. Check the USPTO link here.
  13. Don't get too excited yet... by retro128 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Like many here, I read the article and got the idea that they were talking about a perpetual motion machine (could be the "The technology claims to be able to increase magnet motor efficiency substantially, even over the 100% barrier." at the beginning of the article that gave everyone that impression...), but the only place that I can find such a claim is from the author of the article...From the way it's written, it just doesn't appear that he knows what he is talking about.

    I glanced through the patent at USPTO and it appears to me that what this is is a more efficient electric motor, not something that outputs more energy than is put into it.

    --
    -R
  14. Sadly Misunderstood by goodie3shoes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's clear that the writer of TFA didn't understand much about what (s)he heard/read about this. I'm sure that the developers of the technology make no silly claims about greater than 100% efficiency. More likely, this is just an improvement on existing technology that gives, perhaps, somewhat better efficiency, or higher power in a smaller size, less weight for a given power, etc. Any of these would be good, but violate no physical laws.

    --
    BSA: "Would you like a free Software Audit"? me: "No, thanks. My software is all Free".
  15. It's real... by chuckw · · Score: 4, Informative

    I really wish these kooks could separate the perpetual motion crap from reality here. They are not "over-unity", perpetual motion, or what have you. The do in fact obey all laws of thermodynamics. These motors are real and can deliver as much as 98% efficiency. We've seen them, they work. I was at the presentation recently by Boeing Phanton Works that featured these things. ..Chuck..

    --
    *Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
    1. Re:It's real... by chuckw · · Score: 4, Informative

      The cited web page is wrong, and if I were Flynn, I would be emailing them to explain that their title description is blatantly incorrect and is making him look bad. If anyone bothered to go to his website, they'd quickly be able to see that PPMT is grounded in basic magnetic physics. PPMT is not free energy or crap like that. It is workable technology that produces a very efficient motor.

      --
      *Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
  16. Re:Anyone want to buy a bridge by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Funny

    > Electric motors are already 80-90% efficient, while this might make
    > it closer to 100% it won't go over, unless someone discovered some
    > new laws of physics.

    The only natural law involved here is "There's a sucker born every minute".

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  17. Bogus by viking2000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Current electrical motors/generators are up to 99% efficient, and the loss is mostly in resistive loss in wire.

    There is no room for any meaningful improvement unless you claim to have more than 100% efficiency, and they do. Lunatic bin right here!

    Current electrical motors/generators are up to 99% efficient, and the loss is mostly in resistive loss in wire.

    There is no room for any meaningful improvement unless you claim to have more than 100% efficiency, and they do. Lunatic bin right here.!

    I was curious as to what they based their claim on?

    First, go to http://www.flynnresearch.net/ to se some details on this.

    The answer is:
    Just doctor up formulaes: Force is proportional to magnetic flux. Se http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/ Look up 'amperes law', 'magnetic force' and 'Lorentz force'. As you can see they are all _linear_. I.e. F=B*k. (Force = Field times some constant. Flynn makes the relationship quadratic: F=B^2*A/2u.

    To translate for /. readers: You have one C++ programmer, and you need more work done. Just hire one more programmer, and to your surprise, you get 4 times as much done.

  18. 100% *increase* in efficiency? by toybuilder · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Perhaps what was originally claimed is that the power efficiency of the motor is improved by more than 100% over conventional motor designs. TFA doesn't claim that the output motor power exceeds the input electrical power - instead, it states that there is better containment of flux leading to more motive force:
    Testing and Finite Element Analysis show that the Parallel Path system indeed manages to not only increase the magnetic flux in the core by a factor of four over conventional electric motors, but manipulate the flux to act in the direction of motion, generating considerably more motive power than conventional motors.


    Is it reasonable to assume you can get more output power with better efficiency? Try this article titled
    Increase Efficiency 10 Percent and Double Output:

    Improvements in motor efficiency also mean improvements (increases) in continuous torque ratings and reduction in dissipated power. Continuous torque ratings of any electric motor are limited by the internal losses (dissipated power) in a motor which produces heat. Any electric motor's performance is limited to its ability or inability to store and dissipate heat. Face mounting precision motors on recognized aluminum heat sinks have become an important procedure for specifying performance as described in NEMA's ICS16 (step and servo motor) standard. The table below illustrates this condition.

    Power-Watts
    Efficiency In Out Dissipated
    80% 100 80 20
    90% 100 90 10
    90% 200 180 20

    By increasing power efficiency 10%, output power is more than doubled (180/80), while maintaining constant heat loss. This is a 125% improvement in output power and motor shaft speed at rated load. The power consumption does not increase because it is tied to the line-to-line input current squared and multiplied by the hot line-to-line resistance (I2R).


    I think the original poster/editor misunderstood the original claim...

  19. ^ Mod Parent Up ^ by Anti-Trend · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're absolutely right. The submitter was wrong about the subject matter, and the subject matter obviously had many misonceptions about how the technology works (greater than 100% output... WTF?) But here is a look at how the technology actually works. It seems to be a motor that is simply more efficient, which is indeed a positive and achievable goal.

    --
    Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
  20. Time for magnetodynamics 101 by rubycodez · · Score: 5, Informative

    The energy stored in a permanent magnet (from rotated domains held from returning to their equilibrium condition) is called magnetic energy density, and is given in SI units of KJ/m^3. A more common unit used to be the Mega Gauss-Oersted (MGOe). T [1 MGOe = 8 kJ/m^3]. For most nifty permanent magnets, the KJ/m^3 value will be in the 20's to 30's. Now consider the volume of magnets that would fit in a motor you could hold in your hand, and thence calculate the energy density. Then calculate the effect of releasing ALL this energy in one minute, say of a 100mm x 10mm x 10mm magnet, releasing its 0.3 J in 60 seconds, for a whopping 0.005 Watts of power, leaving an unmagnetized lump of metal. Impressed?