The Downhill Equalizer

The Downhill Equalizer

invented by Scott Robertson March 31, 2010

a configuration of the Equalization Engine Cycle
discovered by Scott Robertson in 1988

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I’m naming my new invention the Downhill Equalizer in appreciation and honor of the engineers and other skeptics who are always accusing me of trying to push energy uphill, a direction in which energy isn’t supposed to want to flow on its own dime. I have no argument with that.

When I say “appreciation and honor” I am not being ironic. I did have some mistakes in my thinking and the skeptics, right or wrong, and superficial always in their examination of new ideas, forced me to think up the simplest possible configuration in order to describe something they couldn’t automatically reject. At no time does this new design rely on any trick against nature’s ways nor any scientific “effect”: no Bernoulli’s law, no Kadenacy effect, no acoustic wave pumping, no compressor in the tank, not even conservation of compression heat. That makes my design “robust”: if it’s off a little on some detail, it doesn’t send the whole thing to Toonville. Because with high overunity COPs easily shown, we haven’t even reached deeply into a bag of tricks that is still available to us. Everything I am claiming now is simple, obvious, and easy to build so many people will want to build it to prove to themselves that it’s true that compressed air is solar energy. That is the purpose of this exercise: to design something that makes it easy for any mechanically-inclined person to prove to his own satisfaction that an engine-compressor unit can run on ambient heat.

The downhill equalizer is very simple. A pre-filled tank has a pipe running down the middle of it from end to end. This pipe carries two valves and a piston comprising the equalizer. There is a charging compressor that keeps low pressure air moving into the downstream end of the pipe, or the equalizer, which is everything past the check valve. At the opposite end of the pipe is a booster piston, running in that end of the pipe, up to the check valve which serves as the intake to the equalizer. A two-way valve connecting tank air to the equalizer is always open except when the booster piston is moving away from the check valve. The two-way valve is closed only during the equalizer’s low pressure intake cycle. Both compressors are driven by a motor that is outside the tank. This needs to be easy to build and test so we can see low pressure going into the tank and high pressure coming out.

The two-way valve has two functions. As soon as the booster piston reaches the far end of its stroke away from the check valve, the two-way valve opens and tank air mixes into the equalizer. Tank pressure goes down a little, equalizer pressure goes up a lot, and the two pressures equalize. Then the piston starts back toward the check valve, with the two-way valve still open. The piston pushes the air out of the equalizer into the tank until it nearly touches the check valve. Then the two-way valve closes and the piston withdraws. The external compressor charges the equalizer with fresh air again and the cycle repeats many times per minute.

The booster compressor is mounted at the downstream end of the tank, just outside the tank. The booster compressor cannot be driven directly by the air in this tank; that would be uphill energy flow which leads to round robin Rube Goldberg complexity. I’m trying to take advantage of Bill Truitt’s “keep ‘em separate” principle. For an example of ignoring that worthy principle, if you try putting a piston inside the tank, running on the tank’s pressure, it might work on one stroke but then the same tank pressure surrounding it will be in the way on the return stroke. Another example is piston balancing forces, where a piston has enough power to do a task, but not enough force. By keeping components separate, not dependent on each others’ characteristics, you avoid imposing unnecessary limitations on them.

The equalizer intake check valve keeps the air from going back out of the tank the way it came. The downstream end of the tank where the air would otherwise exit is blocked by the booster piston.

The intake pipe and equalizer at this pipe’s far end are filled to a low pressure with air. The lower the pressure the better, but it isn’t absolutely critical whether it’s 2 psi or 20 psi or 0.02 psi. What’s important is that no leakage occurs in or out of the pipe from the tank air which is at a much higher pressure, or out through the booster or backwards through the check valve. Complete separation of separately-pressured components is essential to good results.

Now the big pipe is full of air only to let’s say 2 psi. The valve opens to let tank air into the equalizer to mix with the slightly-compressed atmosphere that’s already in it. The compressor can keep running, this won’t take long. If the tank has 90 psi in it, then by filling the equalizer, it has gone down to maybe 88 psi and the air in the equalizer has been raised to 88 psi. The valve into the tank just stays open and the booster pumps most of the air out of the equalizer from 88 to 90 psi to get it into the tank.

By now the big pipe and equalizer is already full again with slightly-compressed atmosphere, so the valve opens again to let tank air in, the booster pumps most of the air from the equalizer into the tank, and on and on till something breaks and the air leaks out.

Let’s say both compressors are run on electricity. The electricity is provided by generators and stored in batteries. The generators are run by an air motor which takes its air from the tank. This is possible because the original pressure is never depleted—the work is all done within the system—and a constant supply of fresh air is entering the tank with its internal energy provided by the sun. It is not perpetual motion, it is a new kind of compressor supplied by a new kind of heat pump cycle.

The analogy of the heat pump is sometimes questioned by people who say a heat pump is (only) a machine you can buy down at Home Depot. From my point-of-view as someone who wants to expand the way that science is taught, a heat pump is any process that upgrades existing thermal energy to make it available to do work. The equalization engine is a heat pump, so naturally it puts out more energy than it uses, like the one down at Home Depot. It is not a perpetual motion concept and I have no interest in perpetual motion and I don’t believe it is possible. The heat pump analogy stands intact, if you take it point-by-point:

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The downhill equalizer is easy to summarize, even for me, Mr. Wordy, because it is such a simple system:

1. Start with a pre-filled tank, filled from any source, to 90 psi for example.
2. After that, the two compressors internal to the system are run indirectly by the air in the tank. An air motor turns a generator which charges the batteries that run the compressors.
3. The charging compressor fills the equalizer with air but not very much pressure, like 2 psi.
4. A two-way valve in the tank addsn tank air to the equalizer so that pressure is the same in tank and equalizer, about 88 psi.
5. The booster piston adds 2 psi to the air to push it back into the tank through the two-way valve.
6. Result: the main compressor is pushing against 2 psi. The booster is pushing from 88 to 90 psi, that’s only 2 psi. So the total compressor work is to resist 4 psi. The tank air is responsible for generating 86 of the total 90 psi. There is no external work involved in the equalization since no energy leaves the tank. This is Joule’s first law; the knowledge that pressure equalization does no external work is old as the hills.
7. The atmosphere that has been added to the tank was compressed by the sun before it was put into the equalizer. This original heat, or ambient heat, or internal energy, adds to the pool of heat available in the tank. It has the power of 90 psi air but the work done to get it into the tank was only a fraction of the work that the same air can do. The source of this extra energy is the sun’s heat.
8. Because of the overunity Coefficient of Performance or COP, an amount of air equal to the atmosphere added can be taken out and used to run an air engine. This engine can run a car or flywheel. The car or flywheel can run a generator. The generator charges the batteries.
9. It sounds like something for nothing but it isn’t. Two underworked compressors and some simple valves manipulate existing energy—the energy already in the tank, and the energy already in the solar-heated atmosphere—so that the cost of keeping the cycle in operation draws free ambient heat into a system that uses ambient heat to run an air engine. Extra air becomes available to run the car or flywheel and other equipment.

CHAIN OF EVENTS LEADING TO THIS INVENTION

I tell people to keep it simple and not try to make a clever invention, but rather a working one. So the principle can be tested quickly before a lot of money gets spent on exotic configurations. My own advice is hard for me to follow; every thinker enjoys devising an ingenious way to kill four or five birds with one stone. It is nearly a compulsion because it’s what makes inventing fun. It took me over 20 years to get this system nailed down to its essential, non-experimental elements so it can be tested by any mechanically inclined person.

First configuration: The 1-cylinder Equalization Engine
Just a compressor, tank and air engine. The compressor takes in atmosphere, then tank air into the same cylinder, then there is a compression stroke back into the tank. Problem: two intake strokes at the same time. The crankshaft doesn’t want to stop for a double intake stroke.

Second configuration: The 4-cycle Air Engine
In a single engine block, each cylinder undergoes first an atmosphere intake stroke, then a compression stroke, then an expansion stroke, then an exhaust stroke. The expansion stroke includes equalization with air from the tank. Problem: maybe none; ask Leroy Rogers. Probably runs well at only a limited range of speeds.

Third configuration: The Surge-Driven Equalizer
In an in-tank equalizer full of atmosphere, tank air suddenly slams into the equalizer and compression heat supposedly drives equalizer higher than tank pressure. Problem: equalization with tank air stops any more air from entering. Because of increasing resistance as pressure increases in the equalizer, motion of air into the equalizer doesn’t overshoot equilibrium and compression heat doesn’t have the desired effect.

Fourth configuration: The Piston-Driven Equalizer
In an in-tank equalizer full of atmosphere, tank air enters the equalizer to raise its pressure. A piston—the movable intake check valve of the equalizer which is really a piston fitted with check valves—pushes the air into the tank and then returns to its original position, taking in fresh atmosphere through its check valves. Problem: piston-balancing forces. Unless the piston pushing the equalizer piston is larger in area or driven by a higher pressure than what’s in the tank, the piston won’t move. It has plenty of power but not enough force.

Fifth configuration: The Heat-Driven Equalizer
In an in-tank equalizer full of atmosphere, an electric heating element drives equalizer pressure well above tank pressure so that the air in the equalizer suddenly blasts en masse into the tank, leaving a low pressure in the equalizer that can now be filled easily by the compressor. Problem: driving equalizer temperature high enough to raise equalizer pressure substantially higher than tank pressure cancels out the whole purpose of the equalization engine concept, which is to eliminate the cost of raising the atmosphere only to tank pressure to get it into the tank. Needing a blast out to empty the equalizer is extra expense.

Sixth configuration: The Downhill Equalizer
In an in-tank equalizer full of atmosphere, mixing tank air into the air in the equalizer raises its pressure to that of the tank. The equalizer air is removed from the equalizer by the suction stroke of a booster compressor and pushed into the tank. Problem: none, the math works. Hasn’t been built yet.

In summary, the downhill equalizer will work and it is easily proven by common sense: pressure equalization compresses incoming atmosphere without any external work and without losses, the atmosphere is just pushed into the system at slight cost and the equalized air in the equalizer is then pumped into the tank at another slight cost. The result is a new kind of air compressor that keeps a tank full using the tank’s own stored energy to accomplish the task, while providing fresh energy to the system in the form of ambient air. This is a self-filling air tank.

P.S.: it’s my fault for inventing the terms, but I’d like to see people get away from using the terminology “Neal Tank” and “self-fueling air engine”. We don’t know how Bob Neal’s self-filling air tank worked, and his ghost wouldn’t tell me. Call my invention a Luther tank if you want; my friends call me Luther and I’d like to start getting credit for my work, at least from my friends. Self-filling air tank is better. “Self-fueling air engine” is wrong because air is not fuel, fuel is something that burns to make heat. So the sun is ultimately its fuel, but indirectly, after rays have heated the earth which heats the air. The air is not fuel or energy but only a medium for thermal energy. I like the term “self-filling air tank” which is not precise but it is descriptive: the air in the tank does the work of putting more air into the tank. Nothing that mysterious about it, they’ve been doing it with steam boilers since 1858.

In closing I’d like to offer absolution to the dozens of website owners who have stolen my writing, my work, and my ideas because my website inspired them to make their own website on compressed air. I’ll take it as a compliment, thank you very much. More power to us all.

Luther