Kirk commented that I could hang the Gravity Light from the attic and let the weights drop into the basement. Problem is I don’t have a basement, and my attic isn’t much bigger than 3 feet (1 meter). I wouldn’t gain enough to make it worth cutting a hole in my ceiling. One guy once told me that his friends and he dug a hole in his back yard. I don’t think I want to go to all that work.
My latest brainstorm is to make two ramps, each with a two wheeled ‘cart’, with one much heavier than the other. The carts would be tied to the rope. The length of travel could be 1.4 times longer if the ramp was at 45 degrees. If the ramp was at 30 degrees, the length would be longer but the weights would have to be much heavier. It would probably require a pulley at the top of each ramp. But then things start to get expensive, like building the ramps, and it’s more complicated. As the system gets more complicated and has more mechanical points, there is more loss from friction and more points for wear. And the ramps take up a much larger area.
Then I had another brainstorm. I could make the rope an endless loop. I then would move the lighter weight from the Gravity Light to the floor, and move the heavier weight from the floor to the Gravity Light. One problem I have is to get the splice in the rope to be very small, so that it will pass through the Gravity light just like the rest of the rope. I’m not sure that I could do it without some form of mechanical joint, and then I don’t know if the joint will go through without a problem.
Another brainstorm I thought about is to use the heaviest weight that is filled with water. At the bottom of its travel it would trip a valve that lets out the water into a container. The weight becomes so light that it resets itself to the top of its travel. The container is manually lifted up and poured back into the weight. This could be extended to a system that runs off a small amount of running water. I once knew a guy who had a tiny spring coming out of a crack in his back yard. The amount of water may have been only a few cupfuls a minute, but over time it could be held in a reservoir and then used to power one of these lights.
I thought about several other ways to do the job, from a water wheel to a few more mechanical schemes. But they all require more materials and are more expensive, and possibly more unreliable. The trick is KISS, keep it simple, stupid. That way, the contraption stays somewhat idiot-proof, at least until a bigger idiot comes along…
The sun will soon be setting and it will be Christmas Eve. So have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, too.