me356: Reactor parameters [part 1]

    • Official Post
    Quote from Longview

    Nice follow on suggestion, Majorana, at least in principle.


    But use Fiberfrax or its equivalent as insulation. Aluminum foil is not an insulator (its a conductor and reflector only) and melts well below 1000 degrees F, and far below 1000 C. Rather than…


    Using a gas torch is a great idea. When I was saying put it into aluminum foil i was indeed quite imprecise. Of course if you bring the reactor at 1000 °C into contact with the foil it will melt.
    I actually meant to use the foil as a radiation reflector only and dont bring it into contact with the reactor.


    Anyhow, Fiberbrax is the much better choice!
    Although way more expensive.


    Quote from me356

    Thank you very much.


    I am able to test it later too.
    I want to replicate Parkhomov work first, thus I will use identical setup as much as possible.


    Indeed, safety in the first place. I think that loading the fuel is the most dangerous part of this…


    This sounds good. As I said if you need support just say the word.


    I hope we can find omniconvincing evidence and present it to the scientific community before climate reaches point of no return.. there is not much time left.....

    At one time the auto parts stores in N. America had "exhaust system repair kits". I don't know what the maximum rating of the fibrous material some of those kits supplied might be. I would test with a torch: If you can melt a bit of copper (1,085 oC) wire into a bead (with a propane or MAPP torch) on the fibrous material and still have it hold up well, you may have a workable insulating substance. It could be used to make a blanket around the reactor. Then perhaps the "heavy duty broiler Aluminum foil" outside such a blanket. As many here surely know, good insulation (against both convection and conduction) and good IR and light reflection will go a long ways to making higher COPs.


    Another reason Fiberfrax is good, it is really snow white, highly reflective in the visible anyway. I would check with furnace people in your area to beg for or buy a small amount. Any metal smelters or firebrick suppliers might have generic equivalents or the real thing. You might check with glassblowers (both decorative and scientific) and their suppliers. Also "pot throwers" and other ceramicists or folks who sell kilns might have Fiberfrax or its generics in small lots.


    I see Vicar Industries:
    http://www.mybuildingsupplysto…-durablanket-p/400101.htm


    They charge $99 US for a bit over 4 cubic feet as a roll 2.54 cm thick, ~61 cm wide and about 7.6 m long (1" X 24" X 25 foot).


    They indicate a "6 lb. density", which is surely per cubic foot, either for this product or a related one.

    • Official Post

    Good work with the PID. Impressive. One day maybe you could do a nearly isothermal calorimetry like McKubre (have to install a barrier too, another story). :thumbup:


    Is there a plan (long term) to install multiple thermocouple/thermistors ? I know it is a common demand, just to detects when TC is dysfunctioning, and controlling the stability of temperature globally.

    • Official Post


    Asking a metal smelter is a good idea. Maybe 4 cubic feet are not entirely needed. 99$ is however not too expensive, I am surprised.


    It would be good to be able to insert or extract the reactor inside/outside of the insulation chamber on a motorized stage.


    I actually do not believe in the theories that state that there is a runaway behaviour above the melting point of nickel, because I think that the reactions
    depend on the Nickel being in solid phase. However, these are theoretical considerations.. who knows for sure at this time? Nobody.


    So it would be good if you could quickly pull the reactor out of the chamber if there is a sudden increase in temperature above the melting point of Nickel!


    A release of 1 MWh within a couple of seconds or milliseconds is not funny and peaceful as the 1 MWh that was released in the Lugano test within 1 month.

    Do you plan to measure and record internal pressure?
    IMO, it would be good to regulate power not only in regard to temperature but also for keeping pressure below 5-10 bars, the time for Hydrogen to be adsorbed by Ni.
    My idea is that a too high pressure could possibly refrain smooth diffusion in the lattice??
    A.Parkhomov used an analog manometer connected with a long pipe well suited to reduce pressure and to damper variations.

    I am still considering it.
    Surely sooner or later I want to measure pressure.


    But if we are thinking about it, first Parkhomov experiments does not used manometer at all and were even smaller. But he was successfull too.
    I think that there is room for more failures so I want to keep it simple.


    As far as I know Lugano test was also without pressure measurement. But if you have good experience like Rossi, you simply do not need to measure it. You know how it will approximately behave.
    So later this measurement will be not necessary at all.


    I hope I will test lot of combinations and can make all measurements.


    By the way I was thinking about Rossi power regulator - I think that he is using high frequencies. If it is driven from mains you should always hear buzzing noise at 50/60Hz rate.
    So it could be driven even by DC voltage modulated with PWM, so basically it is AC.


    Because of rectifier + capacitor + high currents you will measure with spectrometer mostly something like mains AC.


    This is why I will build similar circuit. So no transformer will be needed while heater can be controller very precisely and without any noise.
    Moreover heater should last for longer time.

    • Official Post
    Quote from me356

    OK,


    I have measured that with stainless plate consumption decreased approximately by 33% (750°C @ 360W).


    You did a great job me356.


    Now the interesting question will be how will the temperature curve after shut down of power supply look like. Will the duration of constant high temperature after shut down of electrical power input (refered to as "heat after death" in this forum) be longer than in parkhomovs experiment?


    It should be if Rossis reactions really exist.


    One could try the following in order to check this:


    From run to run increase the degree of thermal insulation.


    This way the amount of heat per time lost from the reactor will decrease. Since if Rossi is right there is a certain amount of heat generated per time by the reactions at the point when the insulation is so good that the amount of heat lost by the reactor per time equals this heat generation rate due to the reactions THE temperature should stay the same for as long as the fuel has not been consumed!


    Than your reactor should run in perfect self-sustain mode. No external power will be necessary!
    I am eagerly waiting for your results.

    Quote from me356

    Yes, everything can be changed interactively. At the moment there is autoscale enabled.


    If you paste the plot.ly link here we can examine your raw data and create plots.


    Here is an example: https://plot.ly/~Pfjrufjvmfj47/26


    Below is the html code to embed my plot example:


    Code
    <div>
<a href="https://plot.ly/~Pfjrufjvmfj47/26/" target="_blank" title="Col2" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://plot.ly/~Pfjrufjvmfj47/26.png" alt="Col2" style="max-width: 100%;width: 1013px;"  width="1013" onerror="this.onerror=null;this.src='https://plot.ly/404.png';" /></a>
    <script data-plotly="Pfjrufjvmfj47:26" src="https://plot.ly/embed.js" async></script>
</div>


    I should mention that the reason you cannot see the data in my example plot is because I deleted it to save space. If I had not deleted it, you would be able to see it, and copy it. You could then register on plot.ly and use the data to save your own plots and share them.


    http://plot.ly is free to join and is generous enough with free accounts to make our investigations much easier to show throughout the world.

    :thumbup: for your efforts!


    Could you elaborate on the PID you use, what TC you use? What settings you have in the PID? Please photo of PID, and specifics. Also, the coil - what material, thickness, and number of turns? You may have already disclosed this, but I just found out about your experiment. :)


    In EDIT: I found a couple ow naswers when going back :)
    * So to get 10 ohms 20AWG Kanthal A1 wire 64 wraps is needed. This will take 96mm of the 100mm tube - perfect fit.
    * I will use thermocouple K type with 1300°C Tmax because of good availability and fine parameters.


    BUT plaese more info on the PID, and settings for your experiment.

    To calculate exact length of the wire I recommend this page:
    http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp?hfnw=593&awg=20&id=16&ll=50


    Later I decided to use longer wire, so my coil has 11 Ohms and 70 wraps.
    Transformer output is 120V.


    I have implemented PID myself. To make replication very easy I've used Arduino + Raspberry Pi.
    Arduino is controlling the reactor while sending all the data to Raspberry Pi over USB. So the PID is implemented in Arduino with whole control and sensing loop for the reactor.
    In Raspberry Pi I am running script which allows me to send commands to arduino and at the same time it is logging data and streaming online with Plot.ly.
    Raspberry is running also my app for streaming camera data online and is doing periodically screenshots.
    It is able to compile and flash source code for Arduino remotely too.
    It also has wireless usb module and is connected to our site/internet directly. So everything can be changed from anywhere if you have encryption keys.


    All this is powered by phone charger and is placed in one box. It is drawing just few mW and can run for long time.


    In another box I have triac circuit with circuit braker and current meter board. So power and control circuits are separated completely.

    Hi me356 I like your work, and plan to copy part of it. I am also using arduino for temperature(MAX6675) and triac phase control (power input). I was planing to write the PID code in arduino, and that might be OK. But I am new to Raspberry, but I ordered on from ebay to see if I can make it do some work.
    RASPBERRY PI 2 - Model B. 1GB RAM, Quad Core CPU The Very Latest!
    Estimated delivery: Thu. May. 21 - Wed. Jun. 17
    I guess I need some software for the Raspberry. What do you suggest? 8GB NOOBS 1.4 and 4GB Coder v.9.
    Is that what I need or would you recommand something more?


    If you have some more links to code and ideas I am very interested.
    Regards
    Svein Utne

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