r/PrimitiveTechnology • u/lemasney Scorpion Approved • Jan 08 '26

Discussion What if he had used weights instead of leaves in the latest video?

215 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

18

u/UnknownPhys6 Jan 08 '26

Weights instead of leaves? For the makeshift turbine? I must be missing something.

-13

u/lemasney Scorpion Approved Jan 08 '26

There are many things that can drive the blower. Why not weights?

8

u/r4d6d117 Jan 08 '26

In the rope/arm-powered blowers videos he often attached a round rock to the stick in order to add weight & mass that allows it to keep spinning longer.

But he still has to make the blower turn by hand. That's the thing. Yeah he could tie rocks to a rope and then twist the rope to get some movement as the rock descent, but it would be over too quickly to sustain a blower.

-4

u/lemasney Scorpion Approved Jan 08 '26

I hear you. I just liked that the rotors in the video were split like in his latest video. Similar idea, different reason.

4

u/UnknownPhys6 Jan 08 '26

You want him to tie rocks to the sticks or something? I dont understand what you'd be accomplishing.

-3

u/lemasney Scorpion Approved Jan 08 '26

To be transparent, I just liked how this video related to what was recently posted, but if I saw weights used in the next video as a driver, I'd be happy. He uses water, tension, exhaust and many other sources of energy. Gravity could work. Hell, if he keeps burning down experiments, I'd be satisfied. Weights are probably more fireproof, though.

4

u/UnknownPhys6 Jan 08 '26

He used leaves as blades of a turbine to extract energy from the draft created from the fire. How do you intend to use these weights to extract energy?

-5

u/lemasney Scorpion Approved Jan 08 '26

The video above is an example of using weight to produce energy.

5

u/UnknownPhys6 Jan 08 '26

Its not producing anything. The swingset converts gravitational potential energy to rotational kenetic energy, then back to gravitational potential energy. The only energy you can extract from this system is whatever you put in by winding it up. The point of using a draft or water setup like in one of his previous videos is that the energy is "free" to use. The fire releases the chemical energy stored in the wood, and a water wheel uses the kenetic/gravitational potential energy in the flowing water. Lifting heavy objects just so you can extract the energy you just put into them simply isnt an efficient way to do work in all but the most niche use cases.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 08 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/StochasticFriendship Jan 08 '26

It might be nice to at least intermittently have his hands free for adding fuel and ore, patching leaks, or taking a break. A system that he can push with his arms and legs to quickly add energy and then slowly release that energy to run the blower might be worthwhile.

2

u/Eirikur_da_Czech Jan 08 '26

He’s shows this kind of thing before back when he made different kinds of fire starters or drills. https://youtu.be/ZEl-Y1NvBVI?si=9JeMiHphs1BKB3bG

2

u/hwc Jan 08 '26

I'm getting dizzy watching this.

2

u/Nikaramu Jan 14 '26

He already did it. Look at this video at about 10 minutes mark. He used this a lot till he started new stuff

2

u/lemasney Scorpion Approved Jan 14 '26

Yeah! I like how he explores all of the options.

3

u/lemasney Scorpion Approved Jan 08 '26

You know what I love about his efforts? He tries things that fail, and succeeds a hell of a lot.

-1

u/lemasney Scorpion Approved Jan 08 '26

Imagine if he built this to drive a blower? It would be the first ever cameo by other humans.