The Playground

I think the reason tech guys (some of them) support Rossi is they anthropomorphise. After all, no normal tech guy would do these stupid things. Or, if they did, they would be knowingly a scammer. Rossi seems so convinced of his own correctness that you somehow want him to be an unknowing deluded scammer. And people think - he is a clever guy - he could not be so deluded.

Well I don't claim to know whether Rossi is deluded, or deliberately faking measurements, or some combination of the two. I am certain that giving any credence to theories based on a psychological analysis of what Rossi would or would not do is highly unwise. We know he has done many weird and unusual things. And we know people can be very surprising. Thinking you have managed to work him out with any great confidence shows arrogance or stupidity.

Quote from THHuxleynew

For 2cm diameter, 50 turns, 10cm length, 2mm dia wire I get ball park around 5uH.

At 200V (possible output voltage) we have 40A/us dI/dt. That is enough for a 1000A spike 40us long or 0.25% of one half cycle at 50Hz. So for example a crest factor of order 100 likes plausible driving such a coil. This is very hand wavy, but shows that even with the Lugano coils you can drive short current spikes.

A crest factor is the ratio between peak value and effective value.
If you have a high crest factor, it means that or your peak value is high, or your effective value is low. It thus does not have to mean that your current is spiking.
The peak value is limited by the heater resistance, it can not go higher then the voltage over the heater wire devided by it's resistance. It can not "spike" to a higher value. (Ohm's law)
Thus when switching the SCR on, with the 40A/us dI/dt rate of rise the current will stop rising when it is reaching it's peak value. That will in my opinion be well before the 40 uS has been passed.
The current clamp must be able to handle the peak current. For PCE instrument clamps the peak current the PCE clamps can handle is about 10 times the rated value. Thus a 100 Amp clamp can handle a peak current of 1000 Amp. I personally doubt if such a value ever will be reached and the clamp becomes saturated. But as you stated, we don't know enoug of the internals of the gray box to make a final judgement.

I might be a tech guy, but at least I know how to use the word anthropomorphise correctly.

Quote

Rossi seems so convinced of his own correctness that you somehow want him to be an unknowing deluded scammer.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Thinking you have managed to work him out with any great confidence shows arrogance or stupidity.

Then how the heck did you work out that I "somehow want him to be an unknowing deluded scammer", without showing similar personal failings yourself?

Quote from THHuxleynew

Well, it would be Rossi or Fulvio who put it in like that, or who routed the wire in a weird way so the clamp looked fine (always possible).

So who cocked it up at Ferrara?

For Lugano, starting the device in a wye configuration, then wiring the active run in a delta configuration gives a mathematically consistent (with current and power data supplied in the report) ~3.3 x apparent power difference. This would require no inverted clamp, (which might give an apparent ~9X input if combined with an unnoticed wye-delta switch). All that is needed for the wye-delta switch is for no one to notice it, and to make sure the observers think it was in delta configuration all along.

The wires would have to be removed from the device in order to fuel it, so swapping from wye to delta is feasible when re-installing the device onto the test rack.

Quote from LDM

A crest factor is the ratio between peak value and effective value.
If you have a high crest factor, it means that or your peak value is high, or your effective value is low. It thus does not have to mean that your current is spiking.
The peak value is limited by the heater resistance, it can not go higher then the voltage over the heater wire devided by it's resistance. It can not "spike" to a higher value. (Ohm's law)
Thus when switching the SCR on, with the 40A/us dI/dt rate of rise the current will stop rising when it is reaching it's peak value. That will in my opinion be well before the 40 uS has been passed.
The current clamp must be able to handle the peak current. For PCE instrument clamps the peak current the PCE clamps can handle is about 10 times the rated value. Thus a 100 Amp clamp can handle a peak current of 1000 Amp. I personally doubt if such a value ever will be reached and the clamp becomes saturated. But as you stated, we don't know enoug of the internals of the gray box to make a final judgement.

Ok: so re crest value: show me a waveform with high crest value without what I'd call a spike. You have a peak much higher than rms and therefore teh peak has to be a spike - it cannot be too wide or it would push the RMS value up higher.

Of course the peak current is limited by the voltage and the resistance but this can be very high. In a chopped waveform with low duty cycle you can have high peak voltages and currents. i think perhaps you are misunderstanding what I mean by spike - I'm not talking about current spiking to some higher value than determined by the voltage.

In my hypothetical case, with R = 0.2 ohms, current will go up to of order 1000A (not quite that high, due to combined R and l, but near enough).

And there is nothing to stop having higher voltages driving a higher R coil.

In any case I'm not really concerned with whether we have ultra-high currents. my point is that high crest factors, which can be had, will result in these measurement errors.

As for clamp saturation they have manually selected measurement range (1-10-100A or 10-100-1000A). If this is wrong IH with their (original) lack of expertise are not going to know. And Rossi does not seem to worry about things (like reversing clamps) that most of us would view as errors. So he is probably capable of using an obviously too low measurement range?

Quote from Alan Smith

Guess or provable fact?

Pretty hard to pour toxic powder into a 4 mm hole with bundled, cemented together ceramic rods and 3x ~6ga cables attached to each end of the reactor, wouldn't you say?

On an open metal rack, not even a table, even more so.

Quote from Alan Smith

Does a Hall-sensor current clamp care which way round you attach it?

Yes.

At least to the extent that it is housed in a 'clamp' (i.e., a device which encircles the wire under test). Obviously, there are exactly two ways to orient a clamp device on a wire.

And it has been shown (in a nice youtube video posted here that I can't seem to find with three light bulbs as load) that the PCE-830 power meter said to have been used will give you 1/3 of the actual delivered power if you have the clamps arranged such that any two are opposite to the other. (Which of course is what you would predict theoretically should be the result of making that error, assuming a purely resistive load, as in Rossi's case [substantial L or C loads would complicate the predicted output due to phase change, but that's not in play here]).

Quote from THHuxleynew

In my hypothetical case, with R = 0.2 ohms, current will go up to of order 1000A (not quite that high, due to combined R and l, but near enough).

And there is nothing to stop having higher voltages driving a higher R coil.

I

If the coil is directly connected to the mains voltage if the scr is on, then the mains has to supply this current.

Standard 3 phase industrial connections are rated for about 35 Amps RMS per phase in Europe. I doubt if they can supply 1000 Amp, even for short moments

If an intermediate transformer is used, then since the currents are measured on the supply side, the measured current would have been lower with a factor equal to the turn ratio.

Thus i still find it very unlikely that those large currents would be flowing.

Also we have the SCR controller.

The type of scr controller used can be bougth in several versions, with different amparage rating. The maximum value being 160 Amp for the type used.

The controller has an internal overcurrent trip point of 175% of this rated value, thus 280 Amp. If it goes beyond that 280 Amp, the SCR controller shuts down.

Thus I find it very unlikely if we ever would see currents above that value.

Quote from LDM

If the coil is directly connected to the mains voltage if the scr is on, then the mains has to supply this current.

Standard 3 phase industrial connections are rated for about 35 Amps RMS per phase in Europe. I doubt if they can supply 1000 Amp, even for short moments

If an intermediate transformer is used, then since the currents are measured on the supply side, the measured current would have been lower with a factor equal to the turn ratio.

Thus i still find it very unlikely that those large currents would be flowing.

Also we have the SCR controller.

The type of scr controller used can be bougth in several versions, with different amparage rating. The maximum value being 160 Amp for the type used.

The controller has an internal overcurrent trip point of 175% of this rated value, thus 280 Amp. If it goes beyond that 280 Amp, the SCR controller shuts down.

Thus I find it very unlikely if we ever would see currents above that value.

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God give me strength (if not allowed to vent in playground, where else?). As I said, none of my argument depends on these ultra-high currents. However:

A 35A connection will have less than 5% drop at 35A, hence less than 50% at 350A. So whether it can manage 1000A peak is unclear, but this is entirely possible.

I agree, obviously, any peak current is limited by the controller used

None of this alters my point about spikes!

Quote from Paradigmnoia

For Lugano, starting the device in a wye configuration, then wiring the active run in a delta configuration gives a mathematically consistent (with current and power data supplied in the report) ~3.3 x apparent power difference. This would require no inverted clamp, (which might give an apparent ~9X input if combined with an unnoticed wye-delta switch). All that is needed for the wye-delta switch is for no one to notice it, and to make sure the observers think it was in delta configuration all along.

The wires would have to be removed from the device in order to fuel it, so swapping from wye to delta is feasible when re-installing the device onto the test rack.

Hi P,

I don't think this is true, because the I and V measurements on the three phases will measure power transferred correctly irrespective of Wye or Delta. You do get a difference if you just use V and I measurements without phase, or if you calculate power from just I, but the PCE-830 will use all info correctly.

Maybe for some tests Rossi was using V & I measurements on 3 phase without a PCE-830. That would be another error mode I'd not considered...

Quote from THHuxleynew

Give Rossi credit. He had a way initially of getting COP=2 from average V & A measurement of chopped waveforms. Easily. It all worked fine.

Then Mats very publicly exposed this. Rossi however is inventive. He moves to 3 phase AC where we can see because AC does not have polarity Rossi will be getting a reliable X3 COP 75% of the time.

Yes, exactly.

And the wonderful thing about 'being Rossi' is that if, by (25%) chance, the PCE-830 is giving you the 'wrong' COP, all you have to do is reverse any one of the clamps to get your COP back to where it's 'supposed' to be.

Easy peasy!

Quote from Eric Walker

With regard to funding, "we" are MFMP and any funders of me356. And with regard to time, "we" are the participants on this and other forums, occasionally veering off into untethered speculation about this or that thing that so-and-so did with lithium. It is a concern of mine as someone who wants rigorous science, and not untethered speculation, to be applied to LENR, including the open source variety, so that it can be moved forward. It should be a concern of yours as well.

Thanks for lecturing me on what should be my concern.

Quote

There are clearly two partisan camps that frequent this and other forums. It is not "telling" of anything in the slightest to remark on that fact, or to note that you always vote for pro-Rossi posts. I agree that it is the truth that we should seek!

I agree with you that it is the truth that we should see, but pointing out that there are are two partisan camps and that I (or you) may (or may not) be a member of one only distracts from the discussion.

P.S. Which camp are you a member of the pro-Rossi camp or the anti-Rossi camp?

P.P.S. I am neither "pro-Rossi" nor "anti-Rossi". However, given the massive amounts of contradictory and missing information, I am quite willing to remain open-minded. It costs me nothing!

Moved from the me356: Photos of AURA control unit thread. Eric

Quote from quizzical

Thanks for lecturing me on what should be my concern.

Surely this kind of retort is a distraction as well?

Quote from quizzical

I agree with you that it is the truth that we should see, but pointing out that there are are two partisan camps and that I (or you) may (or may not) be a member of one only distracts from the discussion.

It was a fitting reply to your remark that "But we don't need you to tell us that," which also did not add to the discussion.

Quote from quizzical

P.S. Which camp are you a member of the pro-Rossi camp or the anti-Rossi camp?

In principle, neither! But in practical terms, somewhat anti-Rossi, since he has not brought any sustained, credible evidence to bear on his claims, and he has done much in addition. But I'm always grateful for and will listen to a good argument from either side of that whole divide.

Quote from Eric Walker

In principle, neither! But in practicality, kind of anti-Rossi, since he has not brought any sustained, credible evidence to bear on his claims, and he has done much in addition. But I'll be grateful for any good argument from either side of that whole divide.

I don't know what "he has done much in addition" means but I suspect that you meant "he has done much in addition to hurt his credibility" or something like that, and I agree. Regarding arguments, I'm with Mats Lewan. What counts are facts (or "Nature") as he puts it. There are arguments in both directions although at the moment I would agree that the over-riding evidence makes Rossi look bad. However, there is also a lot of circumstantial evidence that Rossi may have something. I don't have any dog in the fight, as they say,

Quote from THHuxleynew

Hi P,

I don't think this is true, because the I and V measurements on the three phases will measure power transferred correctly irrespective of Wye or Delta. You do get a difference if you just use V and I measurements without phase, or if you calculate power from just I, but the PCE-830 will use all info correctly.

Maybe for some tests Rossi was using V & I measurements on 3 phase without a PCE-830. That would be another error mode I'd not considered...

This time I totally agree with you

Just to make sure I put both situations through the simulator and indeed in both situations the power will be measured correctly if the PCE 830 is used and configured for measuring a delta configuration.

Keep in mind: There are not only "reversed current clamps" which would confuse the power meter.

In a 3 phase system you can also connect the voltage probes in a wrong order.

E.g. connect the voltage probe for phase 2 at Input V1, for phase 3 at Input V2, and for phase 1 at V3.

For the power analyzer, that would appear as an (additional) power factor of 0.5 - so it would indicate just half of the active power.

Rossi fans will argue, that such wrong hook up of the voltage probes would be easily spotted.

True - when you assume that on the picture below the voltage probes are in contact with the core conductors of the cables leaving from the red controler box.

Not true - when the adapters (the ones where the voltage probes are plugged in - and which were most likely provided by Rossi) are orchestrated ones.

When the cables coming from the red box have a conductive shield (or second wire), and the voltage probes are actually in contact with this second conductor (instead of the core conductor), and the voltage in this second conductor is (artifically) phase-shifted in relation to the voltage in the core conductor, then you may let the power meter show any active power - even 0 (hey - that's self sustained mode) - just shift the phase angle for the voltage probes between 0 and 180°. - Easy to do with a little bit of electronics inside the "control box".

Quote from Forty-Two

Keep in mind: There are not only "reversed current clamps" which would confuse the power meter.

In a 3 phase system you can also connect the voltage probes in a wrong order.

E.g. connect the voltage probe for phase 2 at Input V1, for phase 3 at Input V2, and for phase 1 at V3.

For the power analyzer, that would appear as an (additional) power factor of 0.5 - so it would indicate just half of the active power.

Rossi fans will argue, that such wrong hook up of the voltage probes would be easily spotted.

True - when you assume that on the picture below the voltage probes are in contact with the core conductors of the cables leaving from the red controler box.

Not true - when the adapters (the ones where the voltage probes are plugged in - and which were most likely provided by Rossi) are orchestrated ones.

When the cables coming from the red box have a conductive shield (or second wire), and the voltage probes are actually in contact with this second conductor (instead of the core conductor), and the voltage in this second conductor is (artifically) phase-shifted in relation to the voltage in the core conductor, then you may let the power meter show any active power - even 0 (hey - that's self sustained mode) - just shift the phase angle for the voltage probes between 0 and 180°. - Easy to do with a little bit of electronics inside the "control box".

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There where two PCE-830 meters used. The other one was situated on the supply side of the equipment.

If the one at the controller was hooked up wrong or manupulated, then there would have been a large difference between the readings of the two meters.

Such a difference should have been noted.