I began a replication of Arata in early 2009 under sponsorship of EPRI. I completed that work with a report dated August 2012. It was a collaborative effort among 6-8 LENR experts.
We found excess energy in 14 consecutive experiments, but the power output was only on the order of 100-200 milliwatts. This result was real, but it was dwarfed by Rossi's claims. At that time Rossi had failed in over ten consecutive experiments to demonstrate his claims.
The Lugano effort was the Mount Everest of bad Science. I and others demanded that the Lugano test not use optical pyrometry. Levi and his noble band did us one better by refusing to use thermocouples to corroborate their own data.
I had abandoned all hope of the Rossi claims when Parkhomov announced his replication of Lugano. I dropped everything and began my own replication since I had all the equipment set up from the EPRI experience.
I found no excess energy in 7 consecutive experiments. Then I learned that Parkhomov had trouble replicating his own claims. This followed with a Chinese claim, but that too was withdrawn.
At the end of my EPRI study I discussed adding high voltage pulses through the nanopowders to enhance energy output. I burned out the power supply and I was introduced to Arthur Manelas (Pelham NH) to fix the supply as he was an expert on high voltage pulsed power. He showed me a device that seemingly violated the First Law of Thermodynamics. He had an electric car powering itself with a supply based on Tesla and Floyd Sweet.
I and two other talented engineers set out to make independent measurements of the performance. We found a large ferrite billet (1" x 4" x 6") weighing one kilogram. The billet was highly insulating. It was also ferromagnetic with unusual field characteristics.
The billet was wound around each of its 3 axises with about 150 feet of magnet wire. High voltage pulses were sent in through two windings and power was extracted from the third winding to charge the battery pack of the car. We found an excess electrical power out put of 60 watts for the 6 days of the test. During this period the billet ran 5 degrees C below ambient.
This is the first report of any transformer showing a Negative Hysterisis. This has caused us tobelieve that LENR has magnetism at it core.
Arthur Manelas took the device apart to rebuild two new ones.In the interim he suffered a stroke and died without leaving a circuit diagram or notes on the operation. I remain baffled by the operation in 2011-2012 period and believe that the excess comes from a new magnetic interaction