Modern Vespa

if we put a fan powered by solar cells on the back of the rig pointed forward at a sail to power us down the road? (saw it work on a show on TV once)

Or Wouldn't it be easier to run a 12v generator off the back tire and hook it up to a 12 volt motor that powers the tire? (saw this on the same show)

The youth in Asia should get visas if they want to be legal in the USA!

(Yeah, that was a stretch -- but it still makes more sense than perpetual motion machines!)

Hello

Number of items appear to be perpetual motion but just need explanation.
Crookes radiometer

Drinking bird

Neither are capable of work.

Grumpy

It's a Saturday morning, good cup on coffee in hand and a fresh layer of snow on the ground. My wife is accusing me of not being capable of work also......

I shared a house with a guy about 4 years ago who had an old jeep station wagon to which he'd fitted a hydrogen producer.

Basically, the thing he made was a wet cell battery - from memory it was lead wound around in a loose spiral. That sat in a jar of water, and it was connected to the alternator. The jar wasn't airtight, it hade a hose that went from the top and into the air cleaner.

What happened was that when you start the car the current started flowing and overcharging the device - exactly the same as when you put your flat car battery on the charger overnight, come back in the morning and it's bubbling away (and producing flammable gas) - and hydrogen would be sucked into the intake. Not sure of the reason but it didn't use a great deal of power from the alternator, with no real effect on the charging system, lights etc.

He'd have to keep topping up the water, and replace the "plates" occasionally, I think he tried stainless steel wool one time.

He found that the petrol consumption dropped by about 40% (from memory), and that the sytem seemed to be kind of self-regulating in that the hydrogen would burn in the engine which meant that he didn't need to use so much throttle.

He was going to fit one to a friend's Mazda 626 deisel but they had difficulty with one of the sensors (oxygen maybe?) that made them give up on it... but the Jeep kept going for maybe a year before he blew up the diff and sold it.


So by no means was it a water-powered car. It did need replacement of plates. Plus additional wear on the alternator and belt which was producing power all the time. But it does show it can be done without hydrogen under pressure (danger Will Robinson!).