The Idea and Work Done so far

The basic idea behind Steve Thompson's approach to the 45 gallon drum experiment was to use a motor at the top of the drum in order to produce the motion instead of an opposing top magnet. This page details my attempts to make build using this design.

Note that this attempt used my Mark 1 version and was abandoned due to technical difficulties as detailed in the conclusion below.

Thus far I have the motor assembly, but the motor is making the top cone spin as well as wobble whereas really I am just after wobbling. The motor driven arm should rotate around in the drum, putting outward pressure on the top cone, thus making it wobble. The motor should rotate independent of the cone such that the cone does not spin.

At the highest speed that I am willing to run it at, I get about 1 rotation per second. I could probably get double that.

The only interesting result that I have gotten so far was when doing a run with the large wheel. I had the cone rotating at just under 1 rotation per second and had been running the motor for less than 30 seconds. The wheel had actually roled off of its track and contact between the cone and the arm was made directly from the wooden outer edge of the arm and the rim of the cone. I heard a very quiet humming sound like you would hear if you were running a wet finger on the rim of a wine glass. This sound lasted only about 15 seconds and then went away, probably due to a speed change since my control for the speed is a handheld racing car gun and the pressure of my finger on the trigger probably fluctuates. This humming sound is obviously caused by vibrations somewhere.

Currently I have tried two types of contacts with the cone (see pictures below):

1. Pully riding on a wire, the wire attached to the cone.
   Just as the pulley puts pressure on the cone, thereby pushing it towards the drum ring magnets, so to the cone puts pressure on the pulley axle, thereby preventing it from rotating. Instead the pulley remains at a fixed location on the wire/cone, rotating the cone.
2. Large wheel riding on the cone.
   In this case I attempted to make a track on which a wheel could ride. The track was made of a stack of wires fixed to the inner rim of the cone. There were two problems with this approach: the wheel just rode itself off of the track and the track (made of a stack of wires) made the cone rim too heavy such that it dropped lower than it should have.

Pictures of the Motor Assembly and Arm

Upside down view of the motor assembly.

Upside down view of the motor assembly. Details of the gear box.

Upside down, side view of the arm that extends from the motor out to the cone. Note that it is adjustable in many ways. Note that at this time, the pulley is attached to the end of the arm.

Bottom view (this is the underside) of the arm that extends from the motor out to the cone.

The controls. Clockwise from top: the electric car racing gun (rheostat) for controlling the speed of the motor, the 6 volt battery, coil of telephone wire, the alligator clips for attaching to the battery.

The controls. I am holding the speed control (electric car racing gun). The alligator clips are connected to the battery as they would be when the motor is in use.

Details showing the motor assembly in the drum. This is the rear view with the arm extending rearward and to the right.

The Pulley Attempt

Top view showing the pulley making contact with the cone. A wire (fence wire) shaped as a ring was taped to the inside of the cone rim to act as a track for the pulley to run on.

Close up of the pulley making contact with the wire track.

The Large Wheel Attempt

View showing the trial with a large wheel making contact with a stack of wires taped to the inside of the cone rim.

Close up of the large wheel making contact with the wire track. An extra wire was taped to the bottom two wires to act as a sort of bottom ledge for the wheel to ride on.

Conclusion

I did actually carry this work a little further but did not record anything about it since it did not work out. This approach may in fact be viable but not with my Mark 1 version. This is due to the large gap between cone magnets and drum ring magnets (approx 2 to 3 inches). This large gap meant the the motor arm had a long way to push the cone rim accross. But, it not only had to push it accross but also downward. But, even worse, enough downward force had to be propagated down to the cone below as well so that it also would wobble. My construction could not deliver that force and still have enough power on the motor to also turn the arm.

As such, this attempt was abandoned.