Projects

In the late 80's when Chums was profitable I started working on a modern steam engine concept.  The Henry Engine...  

I met an inventor named Henry who had some ideas for a new type of rotary steam engine. Since Chums had  a machine shop we began making an air driven prototype for initial testing. This later evolved into a full scale steam driven prototype that I built at a shop I put together in Detroit in the late 90's.  I felt I needed to be in Detroit in order to learn as much as I could about the metal trades and to try to make a  partnership with one of the Big 3. I quickly learned that getting a meeting with large corporations as an  inventor is not easy! Finally I got some guys from GM to come to my shop. No partnership happened but I  learned a ton. I was there part time for 2 years.  

FYI... many friends have asked, "why steam? Isn't that a long passed technology?" "Well, I say... no, 70% plus  of the worlds electricity involves steam, just the engines are now turbines and are about 300,000 horsepower."  Coal, nuclear and combined cycle. A small and affordable steam engine could open up new markets for co generation using waste heat. My work culminated in a working engine that we tested in an ethanol facility in  Minnesota with a vortex flow meter and a portable data acquisition system. The engine ran well but no solid  interest in a production unit so that project was put on the back burner.

In 2007 I found a mechanical engineering professor with an engine lab at the University of Texas El Paso. I put  together a year long sponsored research agreement with him. I found a Perkins engine on eBay and a student  and I built up this invention. Internal combustion engines waste 60% plus of the fuel energy as waste heat in  the radiator and exhaust. We proved the viability of a novel cooling system that would drive a small turbine  and increase efficiency from 5-10%. Based on Class 8 trucks using 5B gallons/year that would equate to 250M  gallons saved. Modern power plants are usually "combined cycle" so why aren't heavy vehicles? The Henry  Co-Gen simplifies the system and should make it very financially viable to build new engines this way. The next step would be to find a sponsoring company or patron and build a full scale truck for testing. SAE paper  available.  

Invented, designed and prototyped multiple versions of the "Human Dynamo" full body cardio machine. Some  versions have generators integrated for electricity generation. Carlos was my excellent machinist and helper.  This compact exercise machine combines a regular upright cycle combined with an upper body ergometer for a  natural feeling and fluid workout. People liked it but some said. "It's too tiring" I reply, "yes, that's the idea!"  I spent a few years on this and it didn't take off. Looking back I am glad as I learned that commercial and home  fitness is brutally competitive and everything needs to be made in China for a decent price point. I am not  against sourcing in Asia but the logistics are a challenge. This is something I would like to license.  Note that the arms portion can be rotated forward so  that just the cycle can be used.  

The Wallaby allows full leg "presses" while at the desk to combat all the issues of sitting too much. We all know how unhealthy being too sedentary can be. I started working on prototypes of a comfortable  office chair that allows the person to do some leg presses through the day. We built about 10 different  prototypes and finally some beta versions sold to friends. A problem is that one can forget the front part is  there and trip over it. So liability issues made it a tough sell and reasonably so. But for sure we need to go  beyond stand-up and treadmill desks with an array of well thought out sitting/exercise stations in the office or  home. Many people are sitting all day so why not every half hour do 20 reps of various exercises. Exercise also  helps circulation and mental acuity! Would love to partner with a an office equipment company on this.  

In my opinion, our country has evolved (devolved?) into fast and furious construction of homes built of wood  sticks, gypsum and particle board. They look OK at first but they have no integrity and no SOUL. They  are hollow structures and they are expensive (affordable housing is needed more than ever but that's a  separate discussion).  

Aside from being hollow and cheaply built, urban design has hit an all time low. In typical neighborhoods  there are few places you can walk to meet friends, have a coffee, reflect by a fountain, buy a few things.  People that can afford it, go to the quaint places like Italy, Santa Fe, San Miguel de Allende, etc. My goal is to  design similar kinds of places amongst the drab and dreary neighborhoods of the American west.

Another huge problem with the current model is that it is completely "car centric". People drive to work,  drive home then drive again for coffee and restaurants. I realize there are some mixed-use developments  going now but much more is needed and these tend to be corporate and not organic. 

I would build with old school construction methods: the steel and timber Rambler system or masonry (but an insulated type), dimensional lumber, tile  and stone, good doors and windows, quality and appropriate landscaping. Grey water would be captured and used for all landscaping. We should be making buildings  capable of lasting 200+ years like in Spain, Mexico and Italy.  

As you know, it's a hard thing to describe but people just feel better when they are in a solid and elegant  building. This Village would have a walking only center core with narrow streets (electric carts and mobility  devices only). The outer perimeter of the Village would have parking, workshops, garages. It would be as if  you took a section of a Tuscan village and built it in the desert. Likely difficult with current zoning rules yes,  but possible for sure.  

Imagine if a city block in a non-descript section of Phoenix was re-developed into a classic yet modern small  village with some homes, apartments, small shops, offices and importantly a central small square with trees,  tables, benches and a fountain.  

This is about saying "look, this is what can be done to give people a sense of place." Importantly I would have  it all designed in something like "Revit" (3d CAD for architecture) and make it available so that other  developers could replicate it. These villages need to be inspirational.  

Southern Italy... who doesn't want to wander such small narrow streets, sit at a cafe or by a fountain. 

A possible architectural style modernized but still built old-school.  

Why can't there be a modern Pallazo with a small inn and restaurant walking distance from my uninspiring tract home where I can hear acoustic music and have a glass of wine?

Proposal for the study of unusual emissions from the interaction of hydrogen with alkali-promoted iron oxide catalysts

Mike Taggett Workshop 

Executive summary

Ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) and its precursor Hydrogen Rydberg matter H(ℓ) have been studied in dozens of publications by Professor Leif Holmlid (University of Gothenburg) and colleagues since 2005 and for the sake of brevity the reader is encouraged to read a review on various aspects of the subject [Holmlid2019b, Holmlid2021b, Aasen2021] for more detailed information. 

Generally speaking, they can be considered dense forms of Hydrogen in a special quantum state, with very unique properties but often difficult detection.

Rydberg Matter (RM) is easily formed as a first step by admitting hydrogen or deuterium gas through heated iron oxide catalysts in a vacuum chamber at pressures up to the mbar range. RM clusters desorb from the catalysts and accumulate on a target metal support where they can transition to the ultra-dense phase. A relatively low-power Nd:YAG pulsed laser can then be used on the target to further induce a state transition that stimulates the emission of high-energy particles, measured by various methods. Since 2015, Prof. 

Holmlid has shown that with a highly sensitive photomultiplier-based detector a spontaneous signal (that is, occurring without laser excitation) can also be observed, of the same origin of the laser-induced reactions. Holmlid believes that this signal is caused by meson decay showers from the spontaneous annihilation (at a low rate) of the ultra-dense hydrogen phase deposited in the vacuum chamber. There is ongoing discussion and debate on this interpretation. Our preliminary objective is to verify that we can replicate this spontaneous emission. Most importantly, the detector system must have a very fast response time and high sensitivity, and to be selective to this emission. We have been involved in this field since 2014 and have built systems and run tests at three different universities. This initiative is to continue that work. 

With this project, the goal is to build a similar detector for our system and establish clear baselines in terms of signal character and intensity.  There is always an array of base signals in systems due to environmental factors, electronic noise, and so on. Our goal is to characterize the noise-inducing factors and confirm that the signal can be increased from the baseline up to a factor of 100 or more as reported. The signal is expected to increase when hydrogen is admitted through the catalysts and to persist for days or more after turning off catalyst heating and gas admission. The possible ramifications are hard to estimate but pushing the frontier of elementary physics is always incredibly important!  At the minimum, this is fundamental physics exploration with the potential to be important for a better understanding of hydrogen.

In 2019 I started working on finding a way to replace polyethylene (PLE) in hot beverage cups. The world  consumes something like 600B cups/year! A nested stack would be 2 Million miles high!! In 20 years that stack  would hit Mars as it gets to its closet point.. Hey NASA!! The huge issue is because of that thin plastic layer,  cups can't be recycled and re-pulped. They go to the landfill or end up in all the wrong places. I thought, what  can be so hard about keeping a near-boiling fluid from leaking out of paper besides plastics? Well, like most  things, it's quite tricky. I tried various gooey things from the plant world including Guayule rubber. Hmm, not  working and started thinking about pine sap. So I started researching and quickly learned the sticky stuff is  not called sap. Sap is the watery fluid in the tree that travels up and down. The sticky stuff is called Pine Gum  or Pine Resin. A mature pine exudes about 5 lbs/year and it does not harm the tree when they are "tapped" for  this. I got on eBay and ordered some pine resin from Georgia, USA (from Slash Pines) and learned about Pine  Rosin too. Rosin is what's left after resin is distilled into turpentine. It's a crunchy, slightly tacky crystal-like  stuff. It's mixed with beeswax to make stuff for violin bows and is also used in many other things including  chewing gum , beverages. OK cool, I got some rosin on eBay too. I tried melting it to get it onto the paper but  that didn't seem a good way to go. I then found that it dissolves in pure alcohol such as Everclear. I tried  many ratios and variants but ultimately it's a simple ratio to make a thin syrup that coats the paper nicely. It  holds boiling water just fine! However there is a huge problem I learned as I studied how paper cups are made.  The PLE coating is not just the barrier material but also acts as the glue as the cup is formed. When the cup  "blank" wraps around a mandrel a very hot clamp presses for about 1/5 of a second and the cup seals together.  I knew my coating would not have this property so I started researching types of biodegradable hot melt glues  and that could be printed in the locations necessary. Generally most hot melts don't hold up at 200F so I kept  trying different adhesives. I came up with a way of using a recycled plastic powder that can be mixed with  syrup and printed in the sealing areas. You can see this in the photo above. Now the part of finding one of  these (generally huge) packaging companies that would work with me. Lots of cold calls and networking led to  a great fellow who was part of the family who owned a large company in Kansas City. I just stayed persistent  and he finally said "Haha Ok I give up, I'll send you the file for the blank (shape) and if you can make some we'll  run them." WOW...EXCELLENT!! So I laser-cut and hand-made 40 coated blanks and hoped that I got the  shape and dimensions exactly correct. If they were slightly too big or small they wouldn't feed or form  correctly. If they were sized OK then the million dollar question is if the custom home-made glue would heat-

seal at that incredibly fast cycle time. I took them to KC and after a short meeting he took me out on the floor  of their 1M sq foot factory. The operator was running Kroger cups and said "sure, let's feed a few blanks into  the rack and see what happens. This was a German made machine running at 240 cups per minute; just a blur  to watch at this speed. Nervously watching and saw my plain cups come out the other side and the glue held! In the above photo you can see that the top edge didn't curl properly but I expected that since I was using  basic paperboard from OfficeMax of the right thickness but not engineered for cups. In the industry there is a  very specific type of paperboard called "cupstock" which is nearly impossible to find without a PLE coating. It's  all about if the cup can form and seal properly. Love when it works! I found interest in the concept but now  cups need to go into beta production and this likely needs to be done in Asia where there are numerous  smaller and likely more flexible companies to work through the details. Ongoing project...