10KW LENR demonstrator (new thread)

[tomclarke]

MSimon,

My son who is starting his EE career knows nothing about autos or auto repair. Where did I go wrong?

Not giving him an old broken down car that he would have to fix in order to use it?

I hope you taught him how to solder properly at least. I have found several EEs who couldn't.

He can solder.

Very few (academic) EEs know the most effective fast prototyping technique for circuits, analog or digital, up to 1GHz.

Luckily I spent a few years in industry and was taught by some very brilliant (but mostly self-trained) design engineers.

[tomclarke]

MSimon,

A professor of experimental physics. Calorimetry to be exact.

You don't need a professor of calorimetry (if there is such a thing.)
Any competent engineer could do it. The academics tend to lack the practical skill themselves. It's getting to be that that even the new engineers lack such skills too.

Parallel. Do you have any evidence of this?

Because the ways in which accurate calorimetry can go wrong are many and quite surprising. I think you are being over-coinfident again.

And of course your bias against "academics" is unreasonable. good experimental physicists are both academics and practical. You need the theoretical understanding, and the experience to know which bits break down, where, and why.

[parallel]

MSimon,

My son who is starting his EE career knows nothing about autos or auto repair. Where did I go wrong?

Not giving him an old broken down car that he would have to fix in order to use it?

I hope you taught him how to solder properly at least. I have found several EEs who couldn't.

Did you really not get the point MSimon was making? Or do you just ignore any input which does not accord with your own world view?

MSimon knows how to make things. I am appalled at the technical and practical ignorance of so many of the current generation. Any scientist or engineer should understand the basic engineering details of things like cars and have the capability to make simple repairs if the need arises. It is part of a general technical knowledge base.

Too many are no more than desk jockeys these days and quite incapable of running a simple experiment themselves. Our government doesn't understand the importance of manufacturing. The US is headed for disaster unless this course is changed. I'm pessimistic that it will be for the reasons given by the link on page 237 "Cold Winter after Progress in Cold Fusion"

The first car I owned I built from a kit. Tubular space frame, independent suspension, 11" disks all round, in 1961. I doubt one is even able to make one street legal these days (not crash tested) by our nanny government. I had no intention of going into the auto industry.

Likewise I've ground and polished 3 astronomical mirrors, including a 10" dia 4' focal length, to 1/10 wave accuracy. Gave me a good feel for optics. If I had been at NASA on the Hubble project that telescope would never have been sent up with the wrong curvature. I didn't intend to go into optics either. Etc.

What point was MSimon making? Are your eyes glued shut?

[parallel]

tomclarke,

Parallel. Do you have any evidence of this?

Well I have instrumented a whole glass manufacturing plant with four furnaces and 18 forming machines. This involved measuring some 300 temperatures ranging up to 1580C and a total of counts and averages of ~1000 things every two minutes on a Data General mini-computer. Measuring the glass temperature 3’ inside the molten glass involved designing a novel thermocouple. This as a research project to better understand the whole process. So, yes, I think measuring an E-Cat’s performance would be a piece of cake.

And of course your bias against "academics" is unreasonable. good experimental physicists are both academics and practical. You need the theoretical understanding, and the experience to know which bits break down, where, and why.

My bias is not “unreasonable.” I’ve been around a long time and seen it for myself. In many cases the scientist does some hand waving or a crude sketch and that is transformed into hardware by others. In many cases the scientist (or guy from the office) is not even allowed to touch a valve because of union rules. Often so in government institutions. Often with good reason: I wouldn’t trust some of them not to do something stupid. Of course there are some good scientists but they are definitely in the minority for actually setting up experiments. Many are hopelessly impractical as they have never been taught how to do these things. What percentage are capable of blowing their own glass labware for example?

[ladajo]

P,
You may know instrumentation, but apparently (just like all the Rossibots), you do not get the critical significance of this and how it defines complete failure by Rossi on this run:

They assume all the output water is vaporised (and does not recondense on any surface in thermal contact with the reactor).

They note the output temperature as always staying within a small range of 100C.
They describe the probe used to test water in the output steam.

This analysis of the experiment is flawed, and shows that they have no expertise in required area.

(1) It is well known that phase change calorimetry is extremely diffciult to make reliable, because of problems ensuring that all the water in steam is water vapour.

(2) The fact that output temperature sticks at 100C would indicate to any thinking person the strong likelihood that water remains in the output - otherwise very small increments of power would increase the temperature well abouve 100C.

If there was no water in the output (100% vaporized), then the temp would go above the phase change point (boiling temp). Once full Latent Heat has been absorbed, now you are in superheat. By running the device in the latent heat zone, it means that full vaporization DID NOT OCCUR. If full vaporization did not occur, then the power calculations must be wrong. In addition, it is also a major clue that full vaporization DID NOT OCCUR when one considers the 1600 to 1 expansion volume of water to steam, and then looks at how much steam was coming out.
So one certainty: output temp stayed at the boiling point, and one big clue: not enough steam flow, means there is no way the water was fully cooked, and thus the calculations were wrong.
Oh, by the way, another clue: dry steam is invisible. The steam exiting the tube was visible. Dry steam would exit, and the flow would travel a bit before you would see any atmospheric moisture effect. How far is a function of superheat, flow rate, and, go figure, atmospheric moisture content.
Rossi's major flaw, that E & K also seemed to do, was to assume and take credit for the energy gain of full Latent Heat of Vaporization. This was a major flaw in defining how much energy was produced.

[ladajo]

One more thing, real steam generators and boilers have a neat but of kit called a "moisture seperator". One of the things it does is protect downstream components from "water hammer". It also provides for higher efficiency in the boilers by ensuring entrained moisture falls back to the phase conversion zone, absorb more latent heat, and get fully cooked, before it motors off down the steam piping to do some work.

Rossi's E-Cat has NO SUCH MEANS to prevent moisture entrainment, and thus also GAURANTEES that it is not achieving "Full Vaporization". See above for why that matters.

Can you say, "FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED POWER CALCULATION"?

[MSimon]

If I had been at NASA on the Hubble project that telescope would never have been sent up with the wrong curvature.

It was a money thing. They figured they couldn't get it wrong and decided to forgo a ground test.

If only they had put a mark on it: "this side up".

[MSimon]

Data General mini-computer

Did you ever work closely with them? Nice eqpt. but the company had a very sleazy (as in - Hey. You. Engineer. Design in our product and get a "reward".) feel.

If you ever read "Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder - I worked with a guy mentioned in the book - Gideon Ariel. Long story. Which I may fully tell some other time.

I did get to spend a little time with the American Olympic volleyball team. Beautiful tall girls. Midwest sturdy. A bit flat chested for my tastes though. One of the girls that I met died about six months later. It made ALL the papers. Don't recall her name. I can still see her face.

[parallel]

ladajo,

You may know instrumentation, but apparently (just like all the Rossibots), you do not get the critical significance of this and how it defines complete failure by Rossi on this run:

From what non existing information do you draw that conclusion? I wrote:

All things considered, the data indicates significant anomalous heat, even if less than the 5 kW when considering possible errors.

Of course I understand the possible errors due to wet steam or even the possibility of liquid water overflowing that was not visible. Those are obvious and elementary possible errors. If my objective was to show an exact COP I would have done things differently.

I am of the opinion that Rossi’s objective was just demonstrating that the E-Cat worked. It is easy to second guess him not knowing the facts. It is very different doing these things with your own unlimited money too, compared with the gold plated government experiments that you and others here seem to take as normal.

[parallel]

MSimon,

It was a money thing. They figured they couldn't get it wrong and decided to forgo a ground test.

No, it wasn’t a money thing. It was a typical gold plated, way-over-budget government project. They even made two mirrors and happened to choose the one that was bad because NASA didn’t know any better. The other one was good. They didn’t have a competent, hands-on engineer to check it. If I had been there it would not have happened.

Did you ever work closely with them? Nice eqpt. but the company had a very sleazy (as in - Hey. You. Engineer. Design in our product and get a "reward".) feel.

We found the Data General mini was much the best value for money at the time and had no complaints about the company. Looking back, it is funny to compare the power of that with a modern desktop computer.

If you ever read "Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder

Yes indeed. The guys that wrote the basic chip level operating systems, without the aid of modern computer programs, were something else. Once upon a time my memory was good enough to do it, but alas no more.

[ladajo]

I am of the opinion that Rossi’s objective was just demonstrating that the E-Cat worked.

So, (and I quote a dear Iraqi friend of mine from an amusing event...) Yes or No, did Rossi demonstrate that the E-Cat worked?

I say No, he did not. What say you?

[parallel]

ladajo,
I say yes, very likely. Even tomclarke thinks it likely or he would take up my bet.

This is a picture of the car I built in 1961. One of the better looking cars of that era. Here, the rear wheels have high negative camber as I was trying to improve the cornering ability. The car only weighed ~1500 lb and didn't corner too well. Forgive the digression but there is no news.

[parallel]

E-Cat World has a new interview with Rossi, with news of how he thinks he is doing.
http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/02/rossi ... eneration/

[tomclarke]

ladajo,
I say yes, very likely. Even tomclarke thinks it likely or he would take up my bet.

I think people here have a longer memory than you and will remember the post above where I stated (again) the reasons why your proposed metrics for the bet (essentially DKF self-selected testers being positive, or internet fans being positive) would not be appropriate.

I'm welcome to a bet on terms that ensure the validation of the technology is real.

[CKay]

Even tomclarke thinks it likely or he would take up my bet.

And you turned down the bet I offered you on several occasions. So, following your own logic, you obviously don't believe that the e-cats work.