No one was yet ready to pay 20000 pounds for the invention. Dream of Orffyreus was then going to be shattered.   Those in whom Orffyreus rested his hopes were going to cheat him. He needed money to realize his dreams. His plan to sell the invention to raise the school “ Fortress of God” was furthering away. It had a bad start right from the beginning.    When Gravensande was caught secretly attempting to examine the internal structure of the wheel, it angered him very much.  Orffyreus regretted the act of the Gravesande. Orffyreus became sure  that he was going to be cheated without getting money. Gravesande's impertinent curiosity had already created worst doubts in mind of the Orffyreus that no easy and safe way could be found to get a right reward. 

16th August 1721, the ominous day arrived. Now the most horrible thing was going to take place in his life. Over the night, again and again he remembered his painful past. The examination of his wheel by the distinguished persons, impertinent curiosity of Gravesande to grab his secret and his failure in negotiations to sell out the invention- everything shocked him.

He found himself under complete grip of negative thoughts. Orffyreus suffered many persecutions in his time.  He questioned to himself -“Why persecution arose despite he was truthful and for that he put in its favor the many evidences? He tried to be a man of God, yet persecution was heaped upon him without reason.   He recalled that on one occasion he was tarred and feathered by a mob. He was forced out of place wherever he went. He was driven out of various towns where in  he had tried to live. His pain of persecution was indeed deep. His case was a just yet nobody helped him as he desired.

  In his turbulent thoughts Gravesande appeared like an unknown devil. Orffyreus did not know who he was and why he (Gravesande) asked so many questions and expressed such a keen interest in learning about its internal structure. Orffyreus formed the opinion that he wanted to grab his secret, and therefore it was right to refuse to show him any details of working mechanism of machine. All this angered Orffyreus so much that he went into a rage. He seemed to cringe in agony.  A wave of anger crossed his face, which was crazy and unnecessary.  Sometime during the night, Frank Edward tells us, his mental frothing bubbled over, his blood began to heat and in a rage, he rushed to the room where his wheel, source of all trouble to him, was located.  He took an axe and gave few powerful blows that shattered the machine into small pieces so that there would be nothing more to fear.

On 16th August 1721, Orffyreus destroyed his wheel at Weissenstein Castle. After smashing the wheel, he left a message on the wall saying that he had been strained to do this by the impertinent curiosity of the Gravesande.

It was the most tragic end of the invention.  Hearing the noise, guards who were attending the castle rushed to the site and they informed count Karl what they had seen. Karl was already aware of the eccentric and hypersensitive nature of Orffyreus so he had appointed an attendant to keep watch over the Orffyreus who might even kill himself in a fury.  Chandra mohan Pradhan writes that guards wanted to shoot him when they saw him destroying his machine but they could not do it, as they had no orders from Counnt Karl to shoot him.

Karl assumed because he was going to provide Orffyreus a new house in a small village near the castle, Orffyreus might have  broken the machine before moving there as he usually did before whenever he shifted to different place.  This time, main reason to break the wheel, we can understand, was to avoid any prying eyes aroused by Gravesande’s letter.    After demolishing his machine, Orffyreus was overcome with sorrow at the thought of all what he had done. Orffyreus felt ashamed over the act when Karl called him and asked about the sad incident. He repented and asked Count Karl to forgive him. Count Karl forgave him on the condition that he would not repeat the offense.

  Orffyreus promised to build another wheel but it never happened up to the end, as he wanted. Probably, his destiny forbade it. There is no information on any further wheels exhibited by Orffyreus but there is suggestion   that he built a smaller uni-direction type wheel in his later years.

Karl donates house

In 1721, Count Karl provided Orffyreus a house with a garden and a meadow attached, in the nearby town of Karlshafen. Orffyreus left the Weissenstein with broken part of his machine and painful experience of the past, never to be seen again in Weissenstein. People there were greatly concerned about the Orffyreus' disappearance but   guards took sigh of relief.   For some time, Orffyreus lived peacefully there with his family.