M Drive

*Sigh* So syncing them was a bad idea it seems. It was noticeably weaker and the gyros had trouble even reaching their forward-most position. Also it increased the twisting that was supposed to be eliminated. After some tweaking I could get a similar effect as in my April experiments (with 5 meter wires). One cycle with the gyros on could increase a swing by upwards of 5-6cm, but when you turn off the gyros and move them around, it basically loses this ability and only increases swing momentum by 1cm per cycle, if that. It would also decrease the swing momentum if you did the cycles as the machine was moving backwards, also a lot better than with the gyros off. So yeah, it becomes ~300-600% more efficient at swinging with the gyros on,. Something I'm not too sure should happen. Can anyone try to explain that? Other than that, nothing of interest really happened. I couldn't get it to move like it did on July 8th, where it would pretty consistently try to stay on one side of the pendulum more than the other.

Performing new experiments tomorrow (most probably). The "M Thruster" has been rebuild and the gyros are now perfectly synced, meaning the center of gravity of the machine will now move in a straight line, which will cause it to not twist and turn, which was a problem last time. I've also done some rewiring to make the cables less of a problem from a scientific point of view. Last time we could see the laser dot was in fact deflected, but in the same graph we could see the cables could've caused that. Not so anymore. Here's hoping!

Not claiming it's "reactionless" anymore. If anything it's a "novel" propulsion method where the reaction is unknown, kind of like the EmDrive that NASA tested. I mean, fundamentally, a gyroscope is a piece of mass that's interacting with spacetime to stay in one orientation relative to basically the rest of the universe. I always thought that was pretty cool, and while I don't have any proof yet, I don't think it's a stretch that you could impart momentum using this interaction.

Kind of became lazy the past few months. The machine has been rebuilt and is now synchronized so it won't sway so much from side to side. And if you're sure that this won't work, please try to explain why it's been behaving weirdly during all the pendulum experiments. When you perform a cycle as it's moving forward it increases swing momentum (reaches further with every cycle (a cycle is a "spin" of the gyros)). The opposite happens when you perform a cycle as it's moving backwards. The theory I've heard is "Oh well that's just how you increase swing momentum when sitting on a swing", but that doesn't explain it fully, as you have to pump your "legs" (the gyros in this example) in synch with the pendulum. My machine can complete anything from 2-4 cycles in every left-to-right swing. When you turn the gyros off and move them around in pretty much literally the same way, it stops being able to gain swing momentum. Also in the latest experiment, we saw that the pendulum was actually deflected to one side on average, among other things. Yeah, there were problems with that experiment, but none that really explained this behavior. (As for that "fan in a box" guy, it was extremely obvious the bearings he used were sub-par and was the reason it could move, it was stick-slip.)

Input plz?

The plot thickens. Great news, digging that up, Mazon.

Small update. Stuff starting to come together again. So apparently remote controlling something as energy consuming as a screwdriver is an expensive affair. Hundreds of dollars at least. It will be done eventually, but for now I've decided to go with the solution you see in the image. Instead of 2 very thick, short and rigid power cords coming out a side of the machine, I have 4 slim, long and flexible cords coming out the middle of it. I should probably draw this, but these long cords will be connected to a static pole on the side of the machine, allowing the cords to hang in a long arch. This means that however the machine chooses to move, the cords will have a lot of slack allowing for this movement. It'll be able to twist and wobble however it wants, and the cords will interfere minimally compared to before at least. Also, because of the pole, my own hand movements won't be able to interfere with the machine directly. The cords will be attached to the pole 'after' my hand so to speak. As for the twisting I've started doing work on gearing the 2 gyro arms in the middle, as you can see with the gear in the picture. All I have thus far is a rough blueprint in my mind though, and my usual mechanic is apparently busy fixing a submarine for the Swedish government (crazy I know) until next month. I'm lucky to even know him. Anyway, I could go to a company and do some work there, but those are also very expensive, something like $70-80 an hour, and I'm sure it'll take at least 2-3 hours to do what I want. Also have plans on trying to extend the wires it hangs from, but this is a small town, and I haven't yet found a suitable place. 17 meters will have to do for now. And finally I'm going to eventually seal the machine in a plastic case of some kind just to eliminate air drag as a factor. Seeing how many people think the EmDrive (the microwave thruster NASA recently tested) is being propelled by air, it's just a matter of time before someone demands I seal the machine anyway. It's an easy job though. So what do you think? If the machine deflects this time, would that be good evidence to you? This is of course assuming the analysis shows a solid deflection from the starting point, and that nothing indicates that the cords interfered.

Now who's being unscientific? The thrust measured is well beyond the resolution of the measurement device, meaning it's probably not a measurement error, as so many claim. The thrust is most probably real, and proper tests have been executed. These are the proper tests. Claiming it's "thrust produced by heating air" should be backed by theoretical evidence. Just saying "thrust generated by heating air" isn't an actual theory. How do you claim that'd work? Like those Swedish christmas ornaments? Because just "heating air" doesn't produce thrust if you thought so. Your argument is hollow, is my point. There's solid evidence of thrust, and yes, a betting man wouldn't bet on conservation of momentum being broken. But even if that were 99.9999% probable, the fact remains that top scientists are having a hard time understanding where the thrust is coming from. And that's the end of the story.

Northstar> Thanks for that info, been hard finding a good explanation of that. Oh, and if the EmDrive was so much more powerful, why did NASA test the Cannae version first? And I'd also like to remind people that there's a guy who's developing a 'reactionless' drive right here on the forum, that also happens to have some promising results, namely me. ;-) The latest pendulum test I performed did indeed have some unexpected results, and while the jury is still out I'm still very confident my invention produces thrust where it shouldn't. I've even performed 'null' tests with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Currently upgrading the M Drive so that the force it produces will be easier to point in one direction, meaning it'll be easier to see if it produces thrust. The next test will also be more rigorously performed. Stay tuned!

My 2 cents about the null experiment. I don't think it can be used as an argument of anything until we find out how it was performed. It could be equally possible that they simply didn't try to 'break' it adequately enough, and got thrust anyway because it was still operational in some way, seeing how no one even seems to know what makes it work. Patience is key here. As for the experiment it was apparently done with a torsion pendulum. Basically this: The way it works is one of the weights is a counter-weight, and the other the actual EmDrive. If you get the pendulum to rotate you've detected thrust. My personal opinion is that it seems pretty hard to accidentally beat one of these tests with a non-mechanical 'reactionless' drive where you have mechanical bits flying around in attempt to somehow move the CG. They'll probably be forced to send one up to space sooner or later, as this is probably the best we can do in terms of rigorousness down here on earth.

Mine would actually produce a lot more thrust in comparison. I'm currently using a pendulum test, which is a much harder (but cheap) method of detecting thrust. Not everyone has access to expensive supersensitive NASA equipment. This is good for me though. If I get 'impossible' results maybe it'll be easier to get someone to take it seriously (if this thing pans out that is).

I'll let the evidence do the talking. As for misunderstandings, I've never actually claimed I understood how it works in the first place, just like NASA isn't theorizing what makes the EmDrive apparently work and are just reporting the results of the experiments. As for the experiment NASA conducted itself, I have a basic understanding of how it works. It's basically a more compact and "measuring instrument friendly" version of the pendulum test, which I'm currently performing.

Hm, well to me the only surprising thing to me is the timing. As I'm working on a similar invention myself I guess it was only a matter of time before someone eventually figured out a way to produce 'propellantless thrust', not that it's by any means proved beyond all doubt just yet though. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/72265-Could-a-Gyroscopic-inertial-thruster-ever-work/page41

Yeah I used the same distance as last time. The first backwards push seems to be about 10-11cm. It's "175" in the graph, meaning the average deflection should be about 2.8cm. Edit: Just thinking to myself. So right now I can focus on 4 things. 1:Lengthening the wires. 2:Synchronize the arms using gears in the middle, eliminating twisting. 3:Encasing it in a plastic to eliminate air drag as a source of propulsion. 4:Remote controlling it/hook the gyros up to an on board batter (instead of just putting slack on the power cords). Number 2 will probably make the propulsion stronger, as it'll be pointed in one direction instead of twisting around. 1 will also make it easier to notice propulsion, as it'll require less force to deflect. As for 3, I'm extremely sure it's not air drag, but I will eventually do this anyway to satisfy the skeptics, and it's easy to do. 4... investigating. It depends on how much money I'll be forced to spend (if any) and how heavy the batteries for powering the gyros will be. Just loosening the cords is such an easy fix, but as with 3 it'll be done eventually no matter what. Edit: Decided on a name change to "M Thruster". No biggie.

Oh I thought you knew. The distance between the vertical lines is 2cm.

samriti> Yet, we still have some pretty funny results from the experiments performed thus far. N_las here analyzed the clip that can be seen at 1:44 here (not necessary to watch): This is the graph that shows the laser dot movement of that clip (right click > "View image" for larger version): Down is the direction the machine wants to go (left in the video). It shows that the laser dots average movement, during the time the machine is on, is deflected, about 5cm to the left. However, due to interference from a cable, the result is invalid and can't be used to draw conclusions. If we assume for a moment that I'd be able to get the same results without the cable being a problem, then that'd be strong evidence of a working 'reactionless' drive. I'm actually 99% sure I'll be able to do this once I go back. I'm currently working on fixing the cable problem (that's what all the talk about remote controlling is about).

"what does your remote control have to do to run the test?" It's a brushed 18V motor. The button on the controller depresses into 5 or 6 different settings/speeds. When you press the button you send some sort of signal into a... transistor (?), a chip of some kind that I think has 3 legs. The motor only has 2 wires, looks pretty basic. The only thing I need is to be able to control the motor with 4-5 different speeds, remotely. That's it. Shouldn't be so hard, right? The battery is also 18V by the way.

I thought it was that easy a couple of days ago too, but people keep telling me otherwise. We're missing something about 'stepping' the motor and that you need to do this exactly as intended in the screwdriver if you're going to remote control it. The electronics in a screwdriver is also pretty small as it's mass produced, meaning it's not meant to be soldered in. But we'll see. As for the 'specific configuration' I realize it's meaningless to even discuss it and I should just focus on getting repeatable results. But for what it's worth, whenever I alter the configuration too much, the machine stops working. It seems the gyros need to be on arms, which need to be mounted on a central axis, which needs to rotate variably, and that these arms need to be connected to springs, and that the gyros need to react to something, or the propulsion effect never comes. It's just very unlikely that we've tried this before (that is, looked for this), is all I'm saying.

I just thought of something. People all over the internet keep saying "We would've already noticed this if this was real, we've been experimenting with gyroscopes for 100+ years", but I think there's something very wrong with that statement. I assume they mean we would've noticed any... I dunno, weight loss (this is not "anti-gravity") from weighing gyroscopes with ultra precise scales? I know we've attempted that before (weighing precessing gyroscopes). But that's a weird thing to say to me, because this effect seems to only appear when you have this particular configuration. This means the gyros would move rapidly away from and towards the scale, rendering it virtually impossible to measure any differences. So unless we've performed pendulum tests on gyroscopes in this particular configuration, or sent various 'gyroscopic propulsion' machines out into space to test them, both which I know we haven't, I'd say that particular statement is false. N_las> Tried asking about remote controlling on another forum, but it isn't as easy as it seems. People said I had to get some wicked expensive stuff before they stopped posting, so I'm going to try asking some local electricians and RC enthusiasts around town to see if they know more. Apparently you have to figure out some frequencies and stuff from the internal chips in the screwdriver or whatever, and copy that.

First off, thank you again for doing this. That is interesting news and it motivates me to do further, more rigorous tests. It's the cables that's interfering I'm afraid. If you look closely at the dot in the off phase, you can see that when the dot moves back (right) and away from the camera, the back-stroke is shortened significantly. This is because the cable isn't allowing it to go all the way because they're being tugged on by the machine. It's not subconscious or anything, it's just that the cables are too thick and stiff. I had them at a 90 degree angle away from the machine, but that obviously didn't matter. But! This was just a first try and I'm excited about the results. I'm 100% sure I can re-do the experiment in a way that makes the cables a non-issue. Sorry for potentially 'wasting' your time though, N_las.

Weight is an issue, so I don't want to 'unnecessarily' make it heavier. I have all the time in the world, so I'm just going to try making it lighter first, and experiment with different configurations some more. Not that a curtain rod is that heavy... *hmmm...* And like I mentioned, if I connect the two gyro arms with gears/cogwheels they'll become perfectly synced in their movement. If one arm is forward 37 degrees, the other will be, and this will help reduce the twisting at least a lot.

N_las> Any progress? I'd like to learn how to do it myself, but no one's willing to teach. Got a lot of computer experience, but zero with matlab. E-mail me at mdrivegeneral@gmail.com if you want. I figure getting the XY positions for the dot each (or every 3rd) frame is the time consuming part.

Freefall> Yeah I'm not rebuilding the entire machine any time soon. At this point I'm just doing this to satisfy my curiosity. I mean, I don't see you volunteering to build your own version. I do have an idea of how to fix the twisting. If I connect the two gyro arms in the middle using cogwheels they'll become synchronized. Now they're not, because of gravity, and slightly different spring tension. That's not that big of a cost, probably. There's still a lot I can do on a tight budget. Some of the wobbling is caused by the slightly stretchy fishing wires used to suspend it from the ceiling. I could probably find some kind of metal wire for that. And the power cords are too thick and stiff and could influence the results, but I have a solution in mind for this too. Also I want to try and experiment with lighter weights and the original starting position for the gyros.

Decided to upload all of the videos, which totals over 1 hour. At the start of the video (about 2 minutes in I think) you can see how it behaves with the gyroscopes off. It utterly loses all ability to stay away from it's starting position.

Uploaded two short clips to Youtube, with a very brief description of the pendulum test.