mechanical gain device

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Here is just the pic of a 1MW setup,, close enough to 1MW anyway.
All I need to do there is get all the parts to play nicely with each other.

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IMHO I have supplied enough information for others to do what I have done.

It is not important as to HOW I am controlling this but more about the "what".
This system with and without the control is a resonant oscillator, kind of brings a slightly new meaning to the word, or use of the term, "resonance".

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This is a downsized unit with only a single pivot.  I increased the rate of rotation as well as brought the arms up to a high rate as well.
I had to idealize the arms to rods so that the sim would not error.

I added 2 springs so that I could either add or subtract energy from the arms and in these 2 pics I am subtracting energy via the springs.
These 2 runs were from the same starting point the difference is in how I have my control system adjusted.

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A small note,
This system is directional, that is if I rotate the wheel in one direction I as the operator can extract work, if I rotate it in the other direction I as the operator must supply work.

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The system as shown is directional,, so here is a small scale low power slow version of both.

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I have sim'ed this up for a real world build.
The pivot arms are now 30cm long, the pivot from axle is 30cm and the long arms are 75cm,, I have increased the working mass and made a few enhancements that I know how to make
I am rotating the wheel at 360 degrees per second, aka 60RPM and with approx. 265J per second gain I think that can overcome the losses of a motor and a generator.
Since I made changes to the setup I am only showing the power graph and the data file.

Made like this I think I can rotate a lot faster safely.

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Due to my lack of skills in building, the increased complexity of the build is too much for me, with that I rolled back to a simplified version that I will build.
I have also included an auxiliary input by use of a constant force in, with this data set I have used 2 constant force springs to facilitate that input.
I need to add the auxiliary input to counter the real world losses the mechanical oscillator component has.

This is for a single system, where the build will have 2 systems and a full proper build would have a total of 6, 3 pairs of two properly phased to reduce the peak input torque of the drive motor and provide a more constant output.

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LIfe,,

I have been busy with my father dying from a brain tumor,, so I have not been overly involved with this project.

I am learning how to use FreeCad so that I can draw my parts and also how to use my 3D printer so I can print them,, I am also using the trial and error method of design to try and make the testbed as simple as possible while maintaining functionality and also have a full set of drawings so that any other person I share them with can print out there own parts,, I am also making it somewhat small so that it would fit easily on a desktop.

It may not be as impressive as it can be but I think it will run itself as well as power a load of some sort at the same time.

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I think I have the final part design for most of the parts and have started printing them.

With the the limitations of my 3D printer it will be a smallish unit and even with that it is going to take a week of printing to make the parts I have designed up.  I set the printer to use 0.1mm thick layers and limited the print speed to 50mm\sec in an attempt to keep the parts accurate enough for the prototype.  I am printing in PLA and I think it will be strong enough to function.

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Long story short,,,,

I assembled the parts that I printed for a test-fit to check my design and decided that I needed to use bearings in places that I had not placed any, I at first thought that plastic on metal would be acceptable for the first testbed, but I do not think it would allow for much run-time so I have added bearings.

In doing so some of the clearances I was using were not sufficient so I then needed to redesign the parts, not that big of a deal but one part in particular took me a week to get just right,, I hope.

My printer has failed several times now, first the Y carriage linear bearings and then those smooth rails, then the X rails and bearings,, well I guess I overworked the printer and am now rebuilding the printer with a few changes.  I hope to be up and printing again in a few days.

Good news is that the first test-fit and motions worked just like they were supposed to so I am assuming that the re-designed parts will do the same.

When all is said and done I will have a full set of .stl's for a build and a list of parts used so any one that I share them with could reproduce the unit.

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Here is a part I am printing right now,, this part will take 11 hours to print.

The blue area is my print area,, I have kind of setup this build to use just about all of what my printer can supply
I just finished printing 18 other pieces to make 2 other parts,, each of those pieces took about 7hours to print.

You can almost make out some of the "improvements" I have made to my printer,, the green parts are easy but I changed to a Bowden extruder with an E3d V6 clone,, so a new print head mount and this one I designed with the parts cooling fan built in and behind the hot end\ cold end, so there is a channel that runs down behind the cold end and behind the hot end and then angles out and down to blow air onto the extrudite and the fan sits on top of it all,, you can just see the bottom of the fan housing top right,, just above the green mount,, this all bolts onto the NEMA 17 motor holes that my direct extruder used on the x-carriage,, then I added a 40C bi-metal switch to the cold end fan so it turns itself on and off,  CAUTION, the bi-metal switches use the case as one contact so the case must be insulated from any electrical connection other than the fan, and I made a few more tweaks to the printer,, hopefully it will now be able to print out the rest of my parts.

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At this point I am doing my final prints one at a time, making the part fit close enough and then making the next part to fit, building it a layer at a time if you will so that I end up with adequate clearances without having huge gaps.  Some parts do not move nicely and so they need a little more room, some are really nice and don't need so much, that and with the final build things are glued and screwed and will not be able to be disassembled all the way down to the single part.

This is making this move very slow, and I am getting a little frustrated and bored and over-thinking way to much with so much time on my hands,,,,,

BUT, the parts I have done so far work very nicely

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Well,, I broke a few of my small bearings while pressing them onto there shafts, I did not see that my block had shifted onto the wrong race so I ordered more bearings, I initially only ordered enough to have spares for the setup without full bearings and would of had 1 spare bearing.

I assembled my input control motor\gear and stuff and fired it up to make sure the gears and everything worked smooth enough together, one of the motors I am using was a little messed up so I did my best to fix it up,, so far so good.

The actions that I have played with that have the bearings in place are very smooth and consistent, the parts work almost freely

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After a few changes and general messing things up I now have my system printed and am doing the final assembly work,, balancing parts and making sure the clearances are correct,, all that tedious stuff.

I did a full assembly of my test parts with a few final parts, full bearings and all that, and things worked really nice and smooth and all the motions are what is expected.

Things are looking good,,  hopefully within another week or two I should have the hole system together and ready for the next step.

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Things are what they are,,,

I needed to adjust a few parts beyond either my ability to do so nicely or the part itself so that has made me print replacements, no big deal it just takes time.

I had another computer failure, strange stuff in that my HD failed again but at the same time my Sons HD failed as well.  I have now backed up the important files so if I have another failure I do not need to spend as much time to recover.

My printer went way out of calibration, mainly due to my own error in not securing the Y frame rails to the board the printer sits on,, got all that fixed up and my parts are printing way better.  I am using a new filament, I was using Hatchbox filament but I ordered some from Amazon Basics, well this filament is a little different, it is not as flexible and not as shinny,,, it also seems to be stiffer which I think makes it more brittle but with the way I am using it the extra stiffness is a good thing.

I am almost completely done with the main system, barring any other things I missed by the end of next week I should be done with that and ready to start on the next steps.