I've drawn a wheel, that I'm sure others have tested already, and probably found that it does not work, but that's ok, it only stimulates thought.
Here's some aspects of the Beesler wheel that were observed:
1) eight weights made a banging noise on the descending side 2) springs are used inside, not to store energy, but to enable a flexable structure, or arms, levers, etc.. 3) the machine achives a set RPM when unloaded
number 3 is very interesting. If the machine is realy unbalanced, it should rotate faster and faster and accelerate to high speeds, but something prevents it from accelerating to infinity, and that tells me it depends on falling rate of objects inside, if they fall too slow, it has torque one way, if they fall too fast they have torque the other way, so somewhere is the optimum velocity for it.
Since this topic is on energy, here's another idea I have:
I believe energy concervation needs to be applied ONLY PER WEIGHT, NOT PER ASSEMBLY.
I've given this thought a lot of attention lately, and I believe if there is a relative angular "slip" between the weights and the wheel, than we can get more energy out of the assembly than in! Each weight will loose a portion of energy and give it to the wheel, and as a result will "lag" behind the wheel and slip constantly as the wheel revolves.
For example, as the wheel turns, each weight moves and trades positions around the wheel, and eventually completes one revolution relative to the wheel as the wheel perhaps has rotated 8 times relative to ground. This slip is regardless of the structure inside the wheel, or the path of the weights take inside. The problem is to envision the right mechanism.
EM01 wheel
if those levers with the weights are spring loaded, they will swing out on the left and overbalance the wheel on that side, but the spring will eventually pull them in at the bottom. At the bottom, if the weight starts to lift up under spring tension, its effective pivot point moves back, since the weight is decellerated as it moves to the red inner circle.
[edit:] if the wheel has too high a velocity, the weight at the bottom will be held down longer by the centrifugal forces, so the strength of the springs vs the velocity, seem to dictate what steady state RPM it should have.
EM
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