Orbo overunity system

http://www.steorn.com/

This is an interesting bit of gear. I have been thinking about utilising magnets as an energy accumulation system. This one is more useful because its cyclical and can be used to generate work directly.

The obvious application for this system is to firstly bootstrap it with a passive energy source ( photo voltaic cells ), then drive it from its own generated current plus tap it for energy.  This becomes a simple power source that does not need anything more than enough sunlight to bootstrap it.

The heat dissipation could either be harvested or dumped. It may be a small problem in an enclosed system but heat can easily be radiated through a case. You would also need to be careful with inertia effects on the rotor if you were using it to run a high speed robot.

The next problem is power to weight ratio. Can you develop a light enough system that it can become self propelled. In which case you have a bootstrappable battery for small robots. If you could harvest additional power and store it using a non-degrading energy accumulator like a magnetic zip starter then you have something that can both bootstrap itself, store power infinity and be self propelled.

The only issues to deal with now are mechanical wear on the rotors and other mechanical parts.

The first solution is magnetic bearings in the rotor for the Orbo and some sort of frictionless propulsion for the robot.  Otherwise make a robot self repairing. Bit more complex but within scope if you can solve the power problem.

Later....