[BillWhedon]

An astute observation, but there are a couple of problems. First, I built a dupe Perendev early on in my experimentation, and sure enough, they fail predictably. However, they don't fail due to depleting the magnetism, but due to the same innate design flaw shared with almost all the engine plans you'll find on the web. They do not account for magnetic lock and do nothing useful to prevent it.

The driving (stator) magnets must physically move away from the possibilities for lock, or it will inevitably occur. There are numerous ways to accomplish this, what I used was a simple cam-and-follower to physically shove the stator magnets out of the way. It does eat power, which is shown clearly in the problem I'm facing now of attaining enough power to do useful things. But it can be overcome.

Using NdFeB (Neodymium Iron Boron) magnets, you'll never "consume all the power". Magnetism is not a "charge-and-discharge-cycle" phenomenon except in simple magnetic materials like iron. Here's an example of how you can prove that:
Use a rare-earth magnet to stick your kids' drawing to the refrigerator.
Set up a nice easy chair and a box of KFC and wait for the drawing to fall off.

Ain't gonna happen, no matter how long you wait.

Where did the magnetism come from?
Why doesn't it discharge into the large refrigerator mass?

If you overheat a neodymium magnet above about 175F, it will lose its magnetism. But with samarium-cobalt, that critical temperature is 570F.

I'm not going to get all mysterious, but well, maybe a bit. What I think is that magnetism is only intuitively like gravity, but the analogy is flawed. There is, to my knowledge, no gravitational phenomenon that will hold little Jane's or Bobby's picture to a vertical face of the fridge. The reality seems to me a lot more like a quantum phenomenon akin to the attraction and orbits of the atomic particles. Those run, spinning in their little orbits, pretty much forever, and I believe that, given the proper materials for manufacture of the magnets, they will hold the stuff to the fridge pretty much forever, too.

Being honest, this sort of discussion is outside the scope of my real knowledge, so that last paragraph is my own speculation. I can offer up no mathematical proofs .. it just seems reasonable to me to think of magnetism as a quantum phenomenon rather than a gross one.

If you know someone who can "channel" Nikola Tesla, I'd love to have a lengthy chat with him! Also Einstein!

Meanwhile, I think most of us will have to just work "in the large" making use of observable, repeatable phenomena, to design and build our engines!

You're a good analytical thinker. Your notions are solicited.

All the best, God Bless us and make us all smarter! LOL
Bill Whedon