Remember such sayings as couldn't see the forest for the trees, or if it had been a snake it would have bit you? Well, that's what you'll be thinking after reading about the Ecklin stationary armature generator. Don't let the simplicity of this device fool you into thinking it can't be anything important. It may well be the best answer yet to our energy problems. It is the very simplicity of what is required to produce electrical power that has led the makers of generating equipment in the wrong direction from the beginning. All that is needed to get electricity from a coil of wire is to have a changing magnetic field at the coil.
From the very beginnings of the invention of generating equipment, it seems the only way that has been considered to obtain the changing magnetic field has been the moving of coils of wire past magnets or magnets past coils. It was told they couldn't see the forest for the trees all right. They reasoned that in order to get a changing magnetic field, they just had to move one or the other, and in doing so consume 98% of the input energy while they were at it. They were concentrated on the wrong problem. The problem easily became how to move the coils or the magnets.
SAG 6 Stationary Armature Generator
Although that did change the magnetic field all right, it led people to believe that the only problem involved in engineering a good generator was the problem of the moving of coils past magnets or magnets past coils. Since the idea has worked, however inefficiently, for so many years now, this way in which we produce electricity has taken on a sort of sacredness to many people. You just don't question something that does in fact work, and you certainly don't question something that has worked for such a long period of time.
Why, you'd just have to be crazy, they'll tell you, to think that moving coils past magnets or magnets past coils isn't 'the' way to produce power. And that leads us to Mr. Ecklin's SAG 6 generator idea. Using a slightly different configuration of his patent number 3,879,622 shown below, he's made both the magnets and the coil stationary. That being the case, you don't have the problem of using up most of your input power moving heavy masses of coils or magnets. What we have here then is what should have been invented to begin with - a method of changing the magnetic field of oppositely polarized magnets 1 and 3 in a simplified way, just by the use of diverters 27 and 29 to alternately reverse the magnetic field thru coil 6.
This is a far more efficient way of doing things. Mr. Ecklin says that like most things in nature, magnetic fields take and make the easiest path and prefer the soft steel in 27 and 29 more than 7,000 to one compared to air. He also says the losses in a SAG 6 are less than 2% since there is less iron in 27 and 29 than in the rotors of today's generators. A SAG 6 can be at least 50 times or 5OOO% more efficient than today's generators since it does not turn a magnet or coil and has no brushes.
Since you get six times more out of a SAG 6 than you put in, you can use one sixth of the output for an ordinary electric motor to turn shaft 31. Put a 2 KW motor (about 3 HP) on at 3,600 RPM and you get 10 KW of useable power. (12Kw total minus 2 KW for the motor = 10Kw). He envisions in a car the motor to shaft 31 being started by a battery like those used on a motorcycle. From then on the output of the generator turns this motor plus the drive motors on the car and recharges the battery. The same idea applies to the home since the 60 CPS output (at 3,600 RPM) can heat your home plus do all those things you now make a monthly payment for.
The image and text above was reproduced off a page that was given to me from a fellow inventor. Where it originally came from I don't know. I have made inquiries on the whereabouts of John Ecklin but I've been told that he died sometime back in the 1990's. I'm aware of the other Ecklin patents and have one posted below. I've been told but haven't confirmed that Bill Muller at - http://www.polar.bc.ca/magnet/ has an improved motor design based on Ecklins' patents that puts out overunity.
If you have made or attempted to make one of these devices or have useful information to add to what I have here, please contact me via email or by phone at the numbers listed below. The design above is not drawn precisely the way you would actually build this device, as I don't imagine you would have a hole through the middle of your magnets or the coil.
So I drew up my own design of Ecklins' concept shown below which I think is a more realistic presentation of how the pieces would be put together. I'm not sure where you would get a coil 2 foot in diameter and 3 foot tall as is indicated for an output of 10Kw, but I'm not sure why you couldn't take a spool of wire that used to wind coils and just use it for your coil whatever size it is. Have a machine shop cut down a cylinder (out of "soft steel" as he says above) to the precise size and cut the slot(s) in it, cap one end and fabricate the motor shaft coupling, fabricate the brackets and associated pieces to put it all together as I've drawn.
My design of the 'SAG 6' Stationary Armature Generator
Even if the end result is only 2 or 3Kw output after you've deducted for the motor, and even if you spent 2 or $3000 building it, so what? I have some 1/3 hp motors laying around and I can do some fabrication and assemble it, but I can't do the math to figure out what rpm the cylinder should turn or how many slots and/or magnets it should have to get an end result of 110 VAC at 60 cycles. Surely there's an engineer somewhere that would be willing to look at this and give me some idea how to proceed. If you want to help, send me an email, call, or mail your info to:
As of 10/2006 I haven't built this device as I
prefer it to be 'engineered' first or calculations made at least by someone with the
proper expertise before I go to the expense of making the components. I
think you could machine the pieces easily enough once someone told you the specs
for each part. From what I gather the issues are what is the size of the coil, how many slots would the armature need, what RPM does it need to run at, etc.
Someone needs to do the math to figure out what rpm the cylinder should turn or how many slots and/or magnets it should have to get an end result of 110 VAC at 60 cycles
(in the USA) or maybe 50 cycles if that's the case for your area.
If someone can make those calculations then most anyone could build it.
It's mentioned that the coil in this design would probably have to be 2 feet in diameter and 3 feet tall.
I don't know how to properly construct a coil this size or how to make magnets this big
that have the proper strength or to do all the calculations or otherwise I'd of built it already.
So here's some of the questions that need to be answered.
1) Making a coil this large would not be practical for a prototype I'm sure, so what is the largest coil you know of that can be purchased and give us some reasonable results in your opinion? Give me a part number and the company I can buy it from if you have it.
2) To maintain the balance on the cylinder at whatever RPM it ends up being spun at I can't cut just one slot in it. Two slots would be minimum to maintain balance, but would it be better to have an even number of slots or an odd number? Should the slots be much wider than the width of the magnets. If the magnet was 2" wide should the slot be just 2" also or 3", 4", etc? Does the slot need to go all the way from top to bottom as I show it or can it be shorter? I need to maintain as much of the integrity of the strength of the cylinder as possible since I need to maintain tight tolerances.
3) What type of magnet would you use? Does it have to be a horseshoe shape or would bar magnets or some other shape work as good? If a horseshoe shape is best, would a permanent magnet be better or would it just be easier to make an electromagnet? I need an idea of what size magnets to use, what type and where you would buy them.
4) I assume I'll have 2 wires from the coil. What would you attach these to exactly so measurements can be made? I have a friend that can do tests on this device once finished but it's a long drive to get there and I don't want to use up any of his time that's not absolutely necessary. What's a good way to do some easy tests to see that I'm getting output before I waste his time? All I have is an inexpensive meter and a project like this is better suited to someone that works with electrical devices to begin with. I don't have any electrical knowledge to speak of, but if someone handed me a basic blueprint of what to build and where to obtain the parts I could probably do it.
Here's the Ecklin patent number 3,879,622 in .jpg format that the SAG6 is based on -
NOTE: On these newer browsers I've noticed that they don't always display my large images in full size when you open an image from the thumbnails below. Once you click the thumbnail and open the larger image, if you 'mouse over' the image you should see a " + " symbol or some other indicator like a box with arrows usually on the bottom right edge of the image. If you click on the indicator, then the image will expand to it's full size which displays full screen on computers that use a 800 x 600 resolution setting for the monitor. If you click the indicator again it will go back to the smaller image. Some people use a resolution setting of 1024 x 768 or higher on their monitors and for those users the images will appear smaller than full screen in size. You can change your monitor settings easily enough if you desire. Also, the indicator I've noticed is slow to appear even after the image appears to of completely loaded. The indicator in Netscape seems to be a lot faster to display than the one in Internet Explorer.
I also have these pages in PDF form -
ecklin-sag-patent-3879622-pg1.pdf
ecklin-sag-patent-3879622-pg2.pdf
ecklin-sag-patent-3879622-pg3.pdf
ecklin-sag-patent-3879622-pg4.pdf
ecklin-sag-patent-3879622-pg5.pdf
Here's another page I found with some ideas on the design of Ecklin's device -