Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

On 6/16/2012 9:13 AM, WILLIAM JONES wrote:
>   The device sits on a pond, allowing the air in each bottle to cool during 
> each cycle.  So when sunlight strikes the top bottle, its float inflates, 
> causing the device to tilt over, exposing the next bottle to the 
> sun.http://home.earthlink.net/~clanl/buoyancy.gif

In the seventies several devices like this were tried.  The most 
successful used Freon but none were really useful.  Mother Earth News 
built one that used propane tanks.  A sun heated lower bottle would boil 
its contents which would move to the opposite bottle. The heavier bottle 
would cause the wheel to turn.  The problem was the speed of the wheel, 
it was very slow, so slow to not be useable.

At the same time experiments were made using a steam style piston engine 
using Freon heated by the sun in coils in the roof.  It worked but again 
the heat transfer speed was low.

The laws of thermodynamics cannot be violated.

--
Don Bowen           KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html