Steorn is back at it, with a gizmo called Orbo

[charlie]

Who keeps giving these guys money? Their scamboogery is always so very, very bad.

"The biggest surprise is that it's surprisingly conventional - there isn't anything particularly unusual in it, it looks like a ordinary electric motor. Looks like they've got some sort of flywheel arrangement, so it won't take much to keep it going.

If you look at the exploded view, they've got a ring magnet, which may be part of the bearings. A couple of little things don't add up - why is the base so difficult to see through, when so much else is transparent?

Most surprising thing is how standard it is. There's nothing in there that makes me go "that's interesting". If it's still running in 12 hours time, then perhaps. There doesn't appear to be anything there thats odd, but there's no explanation of the electronics, no metering of any sort. None at all.

There's nothing to measure watts in and watts out, and no explanation. It looks like a battery-powered motor."
...

But without any form of meter on the device — the simplest possible thing to include — and with no details of the actual power requirements, it's impossible to say what's going on. The battery, by the way, is the largest capacity rechargeable D-cell on the market and it's certainly plausible that it could run the rig as a plain motor for a long time. If what Steorn says is true, then the thing could run forever from a tiny AAA battery – or even a super-capacitor the size of a broad bean...

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10014630o-2000331777b,00.htm

[trotsky]

1. Why does a perpetual motion machine need a battery?

I mean, WTF?

[charlie]

2. Really

Here comes free energy! Now, where can I plug it in?

Suckers.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. For backup, of course!

Duh!