Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

  • Malcolm Lear


    Some weeks ago Dewey disclosed that the resistors were Kanthal A1. So (if he is to be trusted) there is no substantial resistance variation to be expected, contrary to Rossi's arguments of Nov 2014 in response to the Joule heating discrepancy.


    My analyses done at the time (2014) are linked below. I never retracted them and have little to add, since they are basically requests for clarifications over discrepancies that still hold. However an error this big cannot be cumulated to another factor 3 coming from the emissivity issue which was brought up later in 2015.


    "Nov 2014: Inconsistencies in current waveforms published in the Lugano Report":
    http://cobraf.com/forum/immagini/R_123571297_1.pdf

  • It [the Lugano report] was offered to convince JR that the E-Cat is an interesting invention. It took 5 years to change his mind.


    The Lugano report was not written to convince me of anything. Most of the authors have never heard of me. I have only communicated with one or two, and only to ask permission to upload the paper.


    It took me years to change my mind because I stopped paying attention to Rossi long ago. I ignored him.

  • The sixfold increase in joule heating as compared to a twofold increase in reported input power was never explained. It would be explained by a reversed clamp, such that RMS current remains correct (and basis for computing Joule heating) but instanteneous and integrated power would cancel out algebraically and be underestimated by a factor three. Incidentally this would also fit the Fig.5 waveform where by inspection of the pulsewidth the total power is computed to be close to 3 kW.


    I would stay within reasonable boundaries. Parkhomov's simple version of a Rossi reactor delivered a COP somewhere near 1.7-2-4 (ICCF 19). This result he obtained with isothermal comparison, which is the same process they missed to do for the Lugano production setup. So keep this figures in mind as being "confirmed" COP's.


    Don't play with COP = 1 as it is more likely to be lie as a COP of 2...

  • Quote

    It took me years to change my mind because I stopped paying attention to Rossi long ago. I ignored him.

    So, did you try to regain your credibility by refuting Rossi, for example, on the Vortex list? Before IH refused to pay him? Thanks to Ascoli, your absotively and posilutely glowing statements about Rossi's silly kludges are plentiful in the Vortex and other records.

  • Don't play with COP = 1 as it is more likely to be lie as a COP of 2...

    This is just plain bullshit, to use a word Wyttenbach used about the honorable Kirk Shanahan, who deserved credit as the last standing major published skeptic. Even if you could use his writings to, say, encourage your garden to grow.


    COP 1 is the normal if calorimetry is accurate, all heat is captured, and there is no shift in stored heat, and good calorimetry will factor for that with calibrations, and there is no anomalous heat.


    In LENR experiments, the researcher should be very careful about claiming XP with an untested and unverified experimental approach. Parkhomov announced high COP with no calibrations. When I saw his work, I was pretty enthusiastic. But ... a major cold fusion researcher privately criticized it as likely to be error, from his study of the data. So I looked. Damn!


    Few people do this, actually study the data, attempting to thoroughly understand it. Once one sets out to do this with an experiment, one discovers, often quickly, how much information is missing. I did ask Parkhomov for more information, with an email that I first cleared with McKubre. He thought it was polite and useful. Parkhomov sent me a polite response, basically on the level of "I don't have time to address these things."


    However, I was able to use the data he had published, with the first report, to show that something was inconsistent between how the temperature of the reactor varied with input power, and his water evaporation calorimetry. Basically, a drastic increase in supposed XP was accompanied by no corresponding major increase in temperature, just roughly what would be expected with increased power. With the power he was claiming, the cell should have melted down immediately.


    Parkhomov later did several calibrations. Inadequate, not sustained for long enough to be meaningful. He burned out the calibration cell, quickly. Too much power too fast, probably. The cell could not handle the power he was claiming for more than a few minutes, at most.


    I can theorize what happened with the evaporation calorimetry, it is not difficult. However, we may never know the full story, because Parkhomov kept changing his experimental conditions, instead of carefully investigating his original setup.


    As he changed it, he seemed to maintain high COP in some experiments, but ... not mentioned in those glowing reports: the absolute power supposedly generated went down drastically. Essentially, with possible increased precision, the effect was disappearing.


    He has done a recent report that looks better. But using Parkhomov as a confirmation of Rossi was never a good idea, it is unknown how much his conditions resemble those of Rossi. Rossi has claimed to be using a mixture of Nickel powder and Lithal, but minor results, not sustained -- and not confirmed --, hardly confirm major results allegedly sustained, and Rossi may have created those patents as misdirection.


    There are many people now working along the Parkhomov lines. Results are, so far, interesting but not impressive. That could change.


    I wish all the best to MFMP, they are getting their hands dirty, doing actual work, and learning more and more how to do it properly, to create long-term benefit. It is exciting when an experiment goes BANG! but doesn't necessarily create much knowledge.

  • It was offered to convince JR that the E-Cat is an interesting invention.


    The Lugano report was released on October 8, 2014, as a pdf linked in a post on Sifferkol blog (1). From what is written in the accompanying text, it seems to have been a second-best solution. The authors had requested the publication on arXiv, as had happened for the first TPR concerning the Ferrara's tests, but have not obtained it, or at least not in a timely manner. In fact the day after, Rossi himself would have to be a guest of the famous night radio show "Coast to Coast AM" (2), just one voice in the large chorus which started immediately to praise the Lugano results on the web and some major media.


    At that time, JR was still expressing all his convincement for the Ecat reality (3), and did it on the basis of calorimetric results of tests held in 2011, which have nothing to do with the HotCat described in the Lugano report.


    Quote

    It took 5 years to change his mind.


    It's difficult to say if JR has really changed his mind, because it's difficult to understand what he think exactly. Most of his sentences on the Ecat affirm its reality, others shed some doubts and precautions. Sometimes this contradictory sentences alternate in the same comment. I got the impression that he replied in the most convinced and vehement way when he had to confute some well founded criticisms, especially those able to definitively compromise the credibility of the Ecat. Vice versa, he pours a lot of doubts when some enthusiasts express their belief in a rapid commercialization of the device.


    It is as if the CF/LENR technology should remain forever a mirage in the desert, something that should go away as you approach it. People should see it and be convinced of its existence, but they must never touch it, nor get too close.


    Quote

    Ascribing all the responsibility to Rossi sounds unconvincing to me.


    The same for me. It's simply impossible. This thread is in fact dedicated to a test held in the USA when Rossi was in Europe, whose results have been reported as credible by JR.


    A similar situation happened in the demo held on January 14, 2011. Rossi was present at the test, but he was abroad until the day before, and therefore there is no way in which he could be considered the only source of all the absurd errors contained in the Levi's report.


    (1) http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/?p=386
    (2) Tonight we listen to Sterling, Lewan and Andrea Rossi.
    (3) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

  • So, did you try to regain your credibility by refuting Rossi, for example, on the Vortex list?


    I have not lost any credibility in my opinion.


    Before IH refused to pay him?


    I paid no attention until the test was coming to an end and Mats invited me to his symposium. I had heard from time to time that I.H. was unhappy with the test but I did not pay much attention to that. About that time I got a sample of Rossi's data and it became apparent to me why I.H. did not believe it. This was before Rossi filed suit. I had no idea that I.H. was refusing payment. I did not know any payment was due. I have no information on their business arrangements.


    Thanks to Ascoli, your absotively and posilutely glowing statements about Rossi's silly kludges are plentiful in the Vortex and other records.


    You mean he took statements out of context, making it look as if my statements were glowing. As I showed by quoting the rest of a message, they are wrapped in layers of caution with statements such as "this may not be true" "we cannot be sure" and "we must see independent replication."


    If you take things out of context, you can make a day look like night.

  • @JedRothwell

    Quote

    It took me years to change my mind because I stopped paying attention to Rossi long ago. I ignored him.


    I have been interested in Rossi's "character" till Prof. S. Focardi has been his scientific tutor. Now I sincerely admire his dexterity to get money from an American patent (or a patent application, it doesn't matter). He is a philosopher and knows Card. Carlo Carafa's saying: vulgus decipi vult, ergo decipiatur. I wish Rossi to earn a lot of American dollars for his grandsons. I can't help considering Rossi a shrewd Italian who has got success in the USA. Well done. Forza Rossi.

    Edited 2 times, last by cam ().

  • You mean he took statements out of context, making it look as if my statements were glowing. As I showed by quoting the rest of a message, they are wrapped in layers of caution with statements such as "this may not be true" "we cannot be sure" and "we must see independent replication."


    If you take things out of context, you can make a day look like night.


    I did put date and link before each single quote of you, so that anybody can easily look at the context and at the rest of your comments. I had prepared a much longer list, but I had to reduce it to only 20 citations in order to remain within the maximum limit of 10,500 characters for each comment.


    As I have explained in the introductory lines (1), these quotes are mainly those in which you undoubtedly sustained the credibility of the professors, who, in turn, reported to have undoubtedly measured excess heat. I know, as I admitted, you've often advanced some cautions about Rossi, but not about the professors, and you always knew that the whole credibility in the performance of its devices rests on the scientific authority of these lasts (2): "The fact that Levi and other established professors took part in the experiment is about 4 orders of magnitude more significant than what Rossi may have done, or the unexplained fires, or his criminal record (if he has one)."


    You were right: "4 orders of magnitude more significant". It means that the people had trusted the professors, not Rossi, and their trust has been betrayed by the professors, not by Rossi.


    (1) Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”
    (2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l%40eskimo.com/msg41324.html"

  • As we can see from LENR-canr.org papers have been published many places, like in American Physical Society meetings. So LENR will be known by many mainstream scientists.


    Many, but far from all.


    I attended a national nuclear chemistry meeting (ACS) in San Diego 1994 when the element seaborgium (Z=106) was named.


    In the nuclear structure session somebody (I do not recall his name) presented a completely crazy theory with all nuclei built up from alpha-particles. I asked the chairman how such rubbish can be accepted for presentation. The answer was: "It's too much work to write a motivation for rejection. You can always go out for a coffee while the talk is on! :) "

  • A quick once over the data using the coil leads as primary rod heaters shows that it possible at ~4.7 cm long (x 6) twisted 15 Ga Kanthal A1 wire leads can supply 352.7 W heat at 48.8 A. This requires that the entire coil makes about 2880 W altogether, however.
    The 307.98 W reported for Active Run part 1 is a bit lower than I estimated, but close. But then the dummy rod heat reported is twice what it should be based only on the 4.7 cm leads at 19.7 A .


    Hmmm, @andrea.s, can I interest you in looking into whether a reversed clamp could report both half the power for the dummy, and 1/3 for active run? Does that make any sense or is it too unlikely to get both effects?


    I'll work on it some more myself, but I am very busy at present. There could be several other explanations. But they must fit many other corroborating scenarios. It might be a week before I can commit some serious effort on this intriguing rod discrepancy.

  • Peter Ekstrom


    Quote

    As we can see from LENR-canr.org papers have been published many places, like in American Physical Society meetings. So LENR will be known by many mainstream scientists


    Please, the statement above belongs to oytla, not to me.
    The episode in San Diego is very enjoyable. The liberty about theory is total; they say that Peter Hagelstein has exposed more than hundred different theories on cold fusion in the meetings he attended. I wrote to Boris Pritychenko, the responsible of the IAEA nuclear databases. He answered "This database includes primary (peer-reviewed journal articles) and secondary publications." Secondary publications are not peer reviewed. The policy is to be liberal with theories. This doesn't mean that all P. Hagelstein's theories can be found in the IAEA database! In fact I have only found this article:


    G.K.Hubler, K.S.Grabowski, D.L.Knies, R.A.Walker, P.L.Hagelstein
    Anomalous Energetic Proton Emission during 170 keV Deuteron Bombardment of TiD2


    Nothing about cold fusion written by P.Hagelstein. Sorry for him.
    On the subject, why "anomalous proton emission"? Proton are emitted in that reaction. Where they too energetics? What do you mean?

    Edited once, last by cam ().

  • @Paradigmnoia


    In a balanced 3-phase condition the effect of reverting a clamp is to underestimate power by a factor 3 whatever the triac conduction angle.
    So the mistake could happen when disconnecting for fueling and reconnecting.


    It is different in the TPR1 setup where one of three-phase inputs is open. In that case the "apparent COP" given by a probe reversal varies with the conduction angle. I found that the apparent power gain was 1 or less at low regimes (dummy run) and could be adjusted to 2.7 or more with larger conduction angles representative of the experiment.

  • @andrea.s
    Impressive work and clearly indicates a serious connection problem with the PCE830, whether intentional or not. I assume the trigger is always phase 1 (V1) and cannot be selected. Do we know who supplied the test meters and was the provenance the same for both TPR1 and 2?
    OK, just noted you mentioned the meters triggering specs as well.

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