Free Energy from the Sea.
A simple idea to harvest power from the sea waves. (2/22/2008)
Last night, before going to bed, I was thinking about how expensive is the electricity. On november 2007, I went to get some information about solar cells and get an estimate to buy the equipment.
I was told; a small "solar power system" will cost $6,000 USD and a big complete one will be $20,000 USD. If my electricity bill is $200 per month, I'm expending ... (let's see.. where is my calculator... 200 x 12 = 2400) $2,400 USD every year. In 10 years, that will be 24,000. So, after the 9th year I will recover my investment (but I believe the solar cells have a span life of 10 years and batteries have an average life of 2 years).
I'm not a millionaire as my ex-wife tought, so I'm not able to buy it. I believe is easier and cheaper to harvest power from the sea than getting power from the sun or air.
Here is one [crazy] idea how to get power from the sea:
Like a ferris wheel, air tanks will be mounted in an axis exactly at the sea level. Every time a wave moves, it will push each air tank, making the mechanism to rotate. When I say "Air Tank", I mean a tank filled with AIR.
It looks like it may work but there are some problems:
So, let's forget this design. Let's see another one that I was thinking about:
The idea is to use only one air tank, it will go up and down as the tides reach the tank. it doesn't matter the waves direction. While pushing up, it generates high torque and will push the main big gear. The big gear will drive a gearbox to convert high torque-low speed to a low torque-high speed rotation. It's a good idea to use a fly wheel to give the rotation momentum and keep it running.
This idea have some advantages:
The human mind is a bit tricky, so I had to build a prototype before a say "What a great idea". So as soon I woke up, I built this:
The big wheel is the flywheel, there is no generator or dynamo [yet]. the main gear is connected to a small one to make the flywheel to rotate.
Here is another photo showing the details of the mechanism:
The "air tank" [gray wheel] moves freely up and down. When it is going up, it pushes the big gear. When the "tank" is going down, it doesn't affect the movement of the gear, so the flywheel can rotate. Moving up and down the "tank" like a pump, it keep the flywheel spinning.
The prototype shows promising results. It needs improvement but works. The air tank going up and down really generates high torque. I guess it may be built to generate free electricity from the sea.
Oops, I almost forgot one thing: I don't live close to the sea. I'm not able to build a real one. I hope somebody find this information helpful.
If you came here looking for perpetual motion machines, sorry. This is not one of these machines.
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