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Hojo Motor is a Scam!

The Hojo Motor is a scam.  If you purchased the Hojo Motor plans before reading this post, I'm sorry, you got scammed.  If you purchase the Hojo Motor plans after reading this post, you are dumb.  Plain and simple.  I'm sorry to use harsh words here, but sometimes it's necessary to be blunt in order to get your point across.

We've been down this path before, with the Magniwork scam.  In fact, Magniwork has been our most popular post, and has led us to post Renewable Energy Scams.  As you can see from that post, there is no shortage of scams out there trying to take advantage of the energy ignorant.

I don't care that on the web page for the Hojo plan they show some patents (see the bottom of this post for information regarding said patents) for a some kind of magnetic perpetual motion machine.  I'm not even going to get into the discussion on the laws of thermodynamics.  What I will tell you is if some kind of free energy generator was real, I would be the first person to have it.  You wouldn't hear about some free energy generator from some Google ad, you would hear about it because the President is talking about it on the world stage.  It would be the biggest breakthrough in the 21st century.  And you think you are going to buy some plans for $49.97?  (side note: ClickBank sells these plans along with many other scams, and they should be fined by the Federal Trade Commission)

Hank Mills wrote a great "Letter to Hojo Motor Plan Scammers" in which he stated:

Howard Johnson was a brilliant inventor. You got that one fact correct. However, his technologies were never fully developed, and were still very experimental when he died. Even if he was able to create motion in an experimental test rig (after hundreds or thousands of hours of work), it was not ready to power a home, an appliance, or even a very light load like a light bulb. The idea that someone could take plans for his device, and build a system capable of powering their home, is totally absurd. Unless of course, they had tens of thousands of dollars to spend, months to experiment just to make a motor self-sustain, and even more time and money to do the research and development needed to do anything practical with it.

Don't think we know what we're talking about?  Fine, buy the plans and make a fool of yourself.  For everyone else out there, focus your time on conserving energyproducing real clean energy, and living more sustainably.

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Regarding the Patent Claims, below is what I received from a friend who is a patent attorney:

First, if he got a patent on this "secret" invention that was just released, then it couldn't have been secret, since getting a patent means publicly disclosing the invention.  Patents don't certify that free energy works, the patents simple certify that his magnetic motor works as a magnetic motor

Regarding the patents: I"ve pasted the first independent claim of each of the patents so you can start learning what patents really cover.  The claims are the legal bounds of the patent and define what the inventor is actually protecting.  As you will so, there is no language in any of these claims that says free energy, pertetual motion, etc.

4,151,431 patent expired in 1999.
It Claims: A permanent magnet motor comprising, in combination, a stator track defining a track direction and having first and second sides and composed of a plurality of track permanent magnets each having first and second poles of opposite polarity, said magnets being disposed in side-by-side relationship having a spacing between adjacent magnets and like poles defining said track sides, an elongated armature permanent magnet located on one of said track sides for relative movement thereto and in spaced relationship to said track side wherein an air gap exists between said armature magnet and said track magnets, said armature magnet having first and second poles of opposite polarity located at the opposite ends of said armature magnet defining the length thereof, the length of said armature magnet being disposed in a direction in general alignment with the direction of said track, the spacing of said armature magnet poles from said track associated side and the length of said armature magnet as related to the width and spacing of said track magnets in the direction of said track being such as to impose a continuous force on said armature magnet in said general direction of said track.

(THIS IS NOT CLAIMING A FREE ENERGY DEVICE, just a specific, very narrowly claimed type of motor)

4,877,983 Patent - expired in 2009
It Claims:
In combination with a movable armature, means for guiding movement of the armature along a predetermined path and a permanent armature magnet having magnetic poles of opposite polarity spaced from each other along said path to establish a magnetic field of limited extent movable with the armature and magnetic stator means for establishing a stationary magnetic flux zone along said path, the improvement comprising flux emitting surfaces of one polarity mounted on the stator means on opposite sides of said path for limiting said flux zone through which said path extends and means mounting the permanent armature magnet on the armature with the poles thereof orientated relative to said flux emitting surfaces on the stator means for unidirectionally propelling the armature along said path through the limited zone in response to magnetic interaction between the movable magnetic field and the limited flux zone, said magnetic stator means including a plurality of magnetic gate assemblies fixedly spaced from each other along said path and respectively establishing stationary magnetic fields, each of said gate assemblies including a plurality of interconnected bar magnets substantially bordering said limited flux zone exposing pole faces of opposite polarity in parallel spaced planes intersected by said path, and magnetic means connected to said interconnected bar magnets exposing one of the flux emitting surfaces of said one polarity perpendicular to said parallel planes for magnetic interaction of the stationary magnetic fields.

(AGAIN, NOT CLAIMING PERPETUAL MOTION, just a different motor configuration)

5,402,021 will expire 2015
It Claims:
A magnetic propulsion system comprising:

a vehicle having a rigidly attached magnetic armature, said magnetic armature including a first series of magnets positioned across said vehicle and extending generally from one lateral side of the vehicle to another lateral side of the vehicle, all of the magnets in said first series of magnets being generally parallel to one another;

a first magnetic wall disposed laterally adjacent said vehicle and extending longitudinally along a desired direction of vehicle travel, said first magnetic wall comprising a second series of magnets, each of the magnets in said second series having a particular size and a North-to-South axis pointing in the same direction as the desired direction of vehicle travel, each of said permanent magnets of said particular size in said second series being separated from the next successive permanent magnet in said second series by a thinner magnet, each of said thinner magnets having a pole-to-pole length which is shorter than the lateral width of said magnets of a particular size in said second series, said thinner magnets further having a North-to-South axis pointing perpendicular to the North-to-South axis of said magnets of a particular size in said second series and pointing generally toward a vehicle side of the first magnetic wall; and

a second magnetic wall disposed generally parallel to said first magnetic wall and laterally adjacent to said vehicle but opposite from said first magnetic wall, said second magnetic wall comprising a third series of magnets, each of said magnets in said third series having said particular size and a North-to-South axis pointing in an opposite direction from the desired direction of vehicle travel, each of the permanent magnets in said third series being separated from the next successive permanent magnet of said particular size in said third series by a thinner magnet, each of said thinner magnets in the second magnetic wall having a pole-to-pole length which is shorter than the lateral width of said magnets of a particular size in said third series, said thinner magnets in the second magnetic wall further having a North-to-South axis pointing in the same general direction as the North-to-South axis of the thinner magnets in the first magnetic wall;

wherein said first and second magnetic walls create magnetic fields which exert propelling forces on said armature and thereby cause the vehicle to accelerate in the desired direction of vehicle travel.

(claim and EXTREMELY narrow vehicle with some sort of magnetic propulsion motor, nothing more)

It is annoying how many people get up in arms about patents when they just take for granted what someone who is clearly also not a patent person tells them.  Always always always read the claims of the patent before making any comments about what the patent supposedly covers.

Click here to learn why perpetual motion free energy machines don't work.  Make any comments regarding perpetual motion on the post in the link.  You can make HoJo scam comments below.

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Comments

But the petrochemical companies can buy patents, and lock up the rights to use them. They have done this many times. And of course, the technology companies are busy suing each other over patent infringement. Some of the stuff they are suing over is so trivial and basic that I am surprised that someone hasn't sued someone over the use of the wheel...
Nevertheless, the patent reveals the idea that can be exploited by others (ideas cannot be patented, only the implementation). Even if a company bought a patent and shelved it, people in other countries can ignore the patent and use it (those that are not signatories to UN laws regarding patents). In any event the idea cannot be suppressed if it is patented. In addition to those who think a patent is some kind of certification of the idea, you are mistaken. A patent just records the implementation proposed by the inventor, it does not mean that the thing actually works.
ckmapawatt's picture
I'll agree with you on that one. Have you heard the "This American Life" story on technology patents?
I'm just a housewife with no "official" education, but perhaps experience and "(un)common sense" are enough to see through this. Our "household appliances" today are highly specialized for precise current, and if we have any experience with what "brown outs" can do to things, we would know this is a scam. What can an average person buy at a hardware store that would keep your current from the HOJO within these limitations? What I see an absence of comments on it,is what is missing from the promo. Nothing is said about the danger of the level of electricity this thing supposedly makes, if it is able to reduce bills. Nothing is said about how you hook it into your existing system, and whether the average person would know how to do that safely. One person commented on the quality of magnets you could get. Right! Perhaps this scam is geared to those who really don't shop at hardware stores, anyway?
I have just been spammed again by the urgent website that first put me onto this wonderful machine. Right, this time I have been sold it so I pay my 48 bucks for a set of plans that will give me free electricity. What next? Well I troll off down to my hardware store to get a set of high quality magnets, shafts and bearings (they sell these things, you know). Inside the two days claimed, I then have my HoJo motor. What then? There’s the small detail of the 500 watt generator it hooks up to that nobody mentioned. Did they? Er, no. Right, that’s another 800 bucks then, please. Then comes the frame assembly, welding, belts, pulleys aligning, etc. Finally after two months, rather than days, a couple of grand and one marriage later, I have the thing merrily whirring away in my kitchen. Great - what next - where do I plug it in? (someone has already touched on this). Oh right, into the nearest wall socket, yeah? Wonderful. Why then does the thing stop when I turn on my Dyson? Electrical load, you say? No one said anything about that either. The thing has stalled under it and so, it seems by now, have I.
Somehow they have got HoJo company website as the lead choice when you Google "hojo motor scam." This web site says it is ste up to debunk people who call the HoJo motor a scam.
ckmapawatt's picture
Yup, that's one of the scammer's tricks.
someone young is going to come along and not be handcuffed by these laws of earlier thought and see beyond it and it will come to be
Yeah, right. Handcuffed by the laws of earlier thought. What comes to my mind is, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." There have been many, many attempts to violate the laws of thermodynamics with absolutely no success; none; ever. Good luck with the obvious 2nd law violator, and maybe a first law violator (not sure on this). Thermodynamics laws, that is. Yeah, yeah, I know, that's only old theory, handcuffed. But the "young" are going to overturn the laws. Will not happen; ever; never. I'm with Chris, show me the contraption that does it and I am in for $1M. Jim
If this "invention" could actually generate electricity it would be in the form of DC power. This power would then be stored in a bank of batteries and the charging regulated by a battery tender so as not to over charge. From there you would need a high quality power inverter to change the DC to AC. This is precisely how wind and solar power works and I wouldn't doubt there is some sort of magnetic machine out there that can do the same. BUT, the average Joe certainly will not have the ability to construct such a machine. Now there is the Tesla coil that can generate free electricity, also in the form of DC. I have the plans to build a small scale Tesla coil and intend to do so in the next few weeks. It will only generate enough DC power to charge one 12 volt battery that can then be used to power a few CFL bulbs in the house for several hours but no more than that I'm sure.

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