Some Points Regarding a Recent Presentation at ICCF20 on the ‘Lugano Report’ (Rainer Rander)

Quote from THHuxley

Abd has done more work than you or me: I take what he says as validation - "I cited the camera manual for the type of sensor used, and found the definition of that in the Optris literature. It is an array of microbolometers, essentially tiny resistors with well-controlled IR emissivity and set up for precise resistance measurements.")

Thanks. I cited the sources in Some Points Regarding a Recent Presentation at ICCF20 on the ‘Lugano Report’ (Rainer Rander)
and the reference there to "the Basics document" was to the Optris user guide that Wytthenbach had cited. It can be found at http://www.optris.com/infrared…ds/Zubehoer/IR-Basics.pdf

We have seen manuals quoted incorrectly or out-of-context. When continuing to assert a position contradicted by what should be an authority, it would be sanity to at least quote the manual, and then explain some possible misinterpretation. However, someone who is utterly convinced that they are right, and that anything else is FUD and arrogance, may not bother, leading to deeper and deeper entrenchment in a fundamentally embarassing position. Still, the fast track out is always the truth. Like, "Oops! Brain fault! Sorry!"

"I was wrong" actually increases reputation. Contrary to this is the training of males in the culture I was raised in. "Never give up!" Yeah. If a stand is important to you, don't give up just because you make a mistake. But denying the obvious is almost suicidal, as to reputation. This particular point (about the device actually used to measure radiation) was of little importance to the studied issue, the measurement of heat. Knowing exactly how the camera works is not necessary. Knowing how such a camera is used is important. That is also found in the manual and Basics guide.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

@Abd: I just consulted the technical manual of Optris.

After chiding others for not consulting the manual that you had not consulted, more than to glance at a page and extract the number you wanted, i.e., "4." And then continuing this even when the divergence from the manual was explicitly pointed out.

Quote

They in fact they don't use a CCD (GaF high frequency rate images.. seem still to be only for high end military use.. thus I cited the wrong sensor technology), but the detector mode of operation is the same. Instead "of a charge" they store the photons as heat in a tiny thermo-variable resistor. The read-out is the same as in CCD's.

I was, effectively, an electronics engineer and immediately recognize the continued error.

No. It is not read out "the same" as in CCDs, which do convert photon effects to charge and then read it out by shifting the entire array, transferring charge from CCD element to element. The Optris Camera uses a microbolometer array, which does not store charge at all, and photons are not exactly stored as heat, the photons are not stored at all (but some of their energy is). This is all a contortion of language to preserve some appearance of being right. It's obvious. I do not know, for sure, the exact readout method used, but it definitely is not what CCDs use. Rather, each resistance would be interrogated, typically by activating a current source as one wire for a row of devices, then reading out the voltage on each of the other lines, one for each column. As pointed out, this does not matter, for the main topic, but this whole line was brought up by Wyttenbach attempting to use "counting photons," as an argument. Once again, no counting is involved. Counting is a specific cognitive process that has no role in the microbolometer array function. Even CCDs do not actually count, but accumulate a charge that is proportional to the number of active photons. There is no "count." Wyttenbach is doing violence to language, for what purpose?

I gave a link to the CCD article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device
Microbolometers are described in another article I linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbolometer . However, this does not describe how this array is read. As an electronics engineer, though, I find it obvious. There is an array of resistors whose resistance is to be measured. The simplest method is that there is a X-Y grid of wires, connected through diodes to each resistor. So if a voltage is applied to a X-wire, a "row" and ground to a Y-wire, a "column," a current will flow only through one resistor, the one "addressed" by the X-Y combination. The current is then read, and then the applied voltage is stepped through all combinations. For improving speed, an entire row of sensors might be sensed at once, which then requires current measurement capability on each line. This is all trivial with integrated circuit technology today.

From what I cited before, the microbolometer is described as ""FPA, uncooled (25 μm x 25 μm)". The exact manufacturer and mode are not stated. some other specifications: Optical resolution: 160 x 120 pixel, Spectral range: 7.5 - 13 µm.
http://www.dali-tech.us/produc…red-fpa-detector--58.html is such a product, meeting those specifications, except it is 8-14 µm. Close. I was looking for an application data sheet, I didn't find one readily available on-line. I have, however, no doubt that the readout method I've mentioned is at least close to what is being done. There is no charge to transfer in a bucket brigade, as with CCDs. There will be a sense current that generates a voltage proportional to the resistance, or the like, for each pixel. In a very high speed device, there might be integrated electronics with a large number of interface lines, an entire row may be acquired at once.

Now, back to the main point:

Quote

From the logic point of view nothing changes. The current "u" they read out is directly related to Plank's law, as written in the docu. To get the "n's" (T, e, ..) of the averaging formula, you have to ask Optris. The build up - internal calibration - of the camera is to complex to make any guesses...

They won't necessarily have the answer for your specific material. Thinking that this is how to use the camera is part of the major error being made. Making guesses is not the idea. What is recommended is calibration. There is a chart of emissivity in the user guide. It does include two entries for alumina. Neither is usable. The major point is that using total emissivity is completely off, particularly with the actual band emissivity of the alumina in the Lugano reactor. As a bit of bad luck, the only calibration they did was at a temperature where alumina band emissivity may have more or less matched total emissivity.

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But two additional things I have read: Optris uses mirrors to enhance and infer the incoming waves to level out the photons. And there is one way to cheat the camera, if you block the auto-calibration mode.
Further on the camera is specified up to Tenv. 50C. The place the camera was mounted seems to be far to close for less than 50C...

It is unlikely that the camera was above 50 C. If the device were at 1400 C, maybe! But it wasn't. 50 C. is generally considered "too hot to hold." I would not expect sensitive electronics to be functional at that temperature, though the microbolometer array is rated to 60 C. I don't think the Optris uses mirrors, but the optics are designed for performance in-band.

Using the camera is far simpler than it is being made out to be. Just get the band emissivity right by calibration!

Quote from SSC

Thank you for the explanation, Mr. Lomax, but I still doubt that the emissivity which has to be insert in the IR camera could be the spectral one. So you are telling me that the user should insert... what.....the mean spectral emissivity in the camera’s sensitivity range? For alumina this mean value is the same for the range 7.5 - 12 μm and the range 7.5 - 13 μm, so it seems to me that this can not be the right choice. Maybe the user should insert the function ε(λ) in the IR camera, but I think that Optris camera let you insert just a number (not a function) for the emissivity value. So I wonder how you could use the spectral emissivity when this value is not constant in the range of interest....

"Spectral emissivity," in these discussions, means the emissivity as read by the camera due to radatiation in the detection band. The camera sensitivity is not necessarily flat; so "emissivity" here is not some abstract calculation, it is measured by using the camera with the object at a known temperature. This will then allow the camera to accurately read *that temperature*. Because emissivity varies with temperature, a full calibration will cover the full range.

Strictly speaking, the camera needs, not exactly emissivity, but the combined effect of object emissivity and the camera detection characteristics. It's a single number for a single object temperature. All this real complexity was missed by the Lugano researchers, who did not understand how to use the camera. The emissivity to use is determined through calibration, and the user guide explains how to do this. It happens that a simple way to describe this is as "spectral emissivity," but the actual practice is not abstract at all.

It appears that SSC is looking at a chart, but is that a chart for the exact same material? Further an emissivity chart does not tell you the net band emissivity, which is what is needed.

Surface characteristics matter, for example. I described one of the calibration methods, drilling a hole to create a black body radiator. For that, the camera can be set at emissivity 1, and the correct temperature would be read. Then the material adjacent to the hole would be imaged, and the emissivity set to give the same temperature. That would calibrate. It appears to me that the camera cannot be used to create an accurate temperature map, but it could create data that could be used to calculate such a map, otherwise the only accurate temperature reading would be for an area that was at the calibration temperature from which the emissivity was derived. Others, though, might be close, it could give a general idea.

And the entire exercise was unnecessary. It was not actually necessary to determine the device temperature to measure power. Rather, the camera could have been set at any emissivity, as long as it was consistent, and then used to view the device with known power input. Generally, if, later, the image shows the same IR intensity as the calibration, the device would be at that input power.

But something prevented them from doing a full power calibration. What stopped them is a question of interest! We know what they wrote in the paper, but it makes no sense.

The analysis here has mostly been attempting to recover information present in the Lugano Report to infer possible temperature and power dissipation. It is not possible to do this precisely, but MFMP has some attempted calibrations with similar material.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Paradigmnoia wrote:

THHuxley wrote:

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

Since Wyttenbach quoted me out of context, this was about an "application data sheet" for the micro-bolometer array. This was only about verifying the readout method as being an array scan rather than the CCD bucket brigade approach claimed by Wyttenbach. It has nothing to do with the camera calculations, but was only pointed out as an example of continued confusion on Wyttenbach's part.

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To terminate the Empire IH anti Rossi FUD I directly asked Optris about their Camera.., something a serious scientist should have done prior writing MBytes of ...

It appears that what Optris provided is irrelevant to the core discussion here. It is about the internal calculation process, assuming a black body. I will describe the chart provided below, since Wyttenbach seems unable to understand what is in front of him and how it relates to the issues. And the cause of that is plain. The problem is not intelligence, per se, the problem is a mind dominated by emotional reactivity; this is normal human behavior in many contexts. When the amygdala takes over, the vast association engine of the cerebral cortex is turned entirely to the service of survival, including maintaining being "right." So the available evidence is cherry-picked and not actually weighed. Learning to live powerfully and to be effective in the world, it is necessary to identify these survival reactions and detach. That does not mean rejecting the ideas behind them. "Just because you are paranoid, it does not mean that they are not out to get you." Essentially, being right, should that be the case, is irrelevant, because one becomes unable, as long as the reactions are in place, to assess and consider in a deep way what is possible and what may not be. "Possible" becomes entirely focused on what might be wrong, instead of discovering paths forward.

When one does research with a preset goal, one gets what Wyttenbach has been repeatedly demonstrating. "To terminate the Empire IH anti Rossi FUD" is such a goal. A skeptical exploration of what one considers FUD would not necessarily have that effect. If there is an "Empire IH," who are its subjects? Anyone who points out the errors of Rossi or the Lugano professors? Is it "anti-Rossi" to point to inconvenient fact?

To someone emotionally engaged, it is. And thus we get factional division that is essentially divorced from reality, which is not on one side or another. Reality doesn't have sides.

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As I said last time, Optris is averaging photons und thus the resulting “N” is 3! (see Optris Table below)

Well, that is not quite what Wyttenbach said before. He said "counting photons." All radiative heat transfer effectively averages photons. But individual photons are not being measured here, as they would be in some photon-detector methods, nor are photon energies, per se, even determined. Rather the Planck curves are shown for various temperatures. That is black body radiation. To understand Black Body radiation required the development of quantum mechanics and the consideration of the particle behavior of light. This came up in the discussion with Randombit0. The wave behavior is adequate here to use a black body curve, just not to predict that curve from fundamental principles.

"3" does not follow from the table, which is not actually a table but a graph or chart. We will look at that. Wyttenbach is so sure he is right that he is quite incautious about what he writes, leaving out necessary qualifications that might make what he writes true.

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Not 1.2, not 2 not 2.2... But also not close to 4 as I expected for high T's. It's time to adjust some calculations...

Remember that Wyttenbach claimed that others were not reading the User Guide ("IR Basics") , when he insisted firmly on 4. He did not merely "expect" 4, he absolutely insisted that anything else was obvious stupid error, and continued even when the citation error was pointed out. Ah, pot, kettle, black.

Instead of reading his own cited source with more care, he insisted it was necessary to ask Optris; basically, this was due to not understanding what was in the Guide.

With reference to the chart that Wyttenbach showed:

The chart is showing, first of all, the Planck curve, i.e., the intensity of black-body radiation plotted against the wavelength of light. Three bands are shown, and then a value of n for those bands. Only integer values are shown, no precision is given. For the 7.5 to 13 micron band, n is shown as 3. Before Wytttenbach asked Optris for information, I suggested that answers depend on questions, and Wyttenbach has provided neither the question, nor the full answer. That chart covers three bands. What are those bands? What was the purpose of the chart? I would expect the lookup table in the Optris to be based on more precise data than shown, which looks like a possible theoretical justification, not an actual calibration of a specific camera. Wyttenbach probably asked about the information in Page 9 of the Optris IR Basics manual. However, the actual data in the EEPROM would not be based on that. That was merely a theoretical overall description.

Remember that the cameras are factory calibrated?

What does that refer to? It would refer to, based on black body calibration, an actual determination of the data in the EEPROM, which is, I will note, explicitly reprogrammable. EEPROMs are more expensive than their one-time programmable coutnerpart, EPROMs. That EEPROM will be unique for each camera. N = 3 will only give an approximation. Once the camera is calibrated, the Optris IR Basics document describes how to calibrate, using a calibrated camera. One method involves creating a small black body by drilling a hole in the material. Because the camera has been calibrated to accurately read the temperature of a black body, this will show the temperature of the material, which can then be used to determine emissivity for adjacent material. This could suffer from the non-opacity of alumina, though.

For careful scientific work, multiple measures of temperature should be used, where possible. MFMP used three measures, in the work covered by the recent paper, I will look at that.

Quote from Jack Cole

Had the researchers at Lugano released the raw data, it would have been much easier to figure all of this out.

It is possible that they are under an NDA. If so, it was not disclosed (and NDAs often prohibit disclosure of the fact of the NDA). This could severely compromise their integrity as independent evaluators, as had been presented. The stonewalling of critique sealed this, and non-disclosure of data would be consistent with it. The Lugano report is almost useless, as a result, and to some extent, this may be unrecoverable. MFMP has constructed and tested a Lugano simulation, which provides some information; however, this, itself, depends on certain assumptions. Calibration could have been done, on-site, with the original alumina reactor, all that was needed was to empty the fuel tube and re-power it up carefully.

This thread was started based on the E-Catworld post of "Rainer Rander." http://www.e-catworld.com/2016…ano-report-rainer-rander/

I find it now enlightening to review that post, and an update added later, following this.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

For a moment there, it seemed like Wyttenbach might be making some sense. It was an aberration, apparently. I am now re-blocking. If anyone wants me to comment on anything he writes, ask me or at least quote him. Otherwise.... I may not see it.

I don't live in a tree, and I do live in peace. Wyttenbach, is, here, promoting confusion. FUD, in a word, apparently attempting to distract from fact and sober commentary, coming from many. The same as Rainer Rander in the post that started this thread. The obvious goal is promotion of Rossi and the Lugano Report, and there is one player who benefits from that, financially, enough to possibly support and fund it. Attacking Rossi, per se, provides no benefit to anyone. The Lugano Report is a footnote in Rossi v. Darden. Whether or not Lugano was a "successful demonstration" or not will make no difference.

(And that such support is possible does not demonstrate that it is actually happening.)

Here, we have focused on a narrow issue, at first: how the Optris camera is used to determine temperature. This is not controversial among any who have knowledge, it is only argued by those with an axe to grind, as I intend to show in a more detailed response to Rainer Rander. It's preposterous and will only convince those unwilling to actually look at the evidence. That includes the people who think of detailed discussion as "useless" and who have no concept of why anyone would bother to explore and explain in detail, they are suspicious of it, doesn't this show some kind of agenda?

Mats Lewan fell into that, and claimed he would consult experts, but never followed up. In fact, the issues raised do not require experts, they require care and study. In my world, I do that study, and I consult experts. Both. So where are the experts consulted? McKubre explicitly was not an expert on using a thermal camera, but he noticed, immediately, that there was no full-power calibration. It took more study to discover the actual errors, so what he noted was simply that Lugano had not confirmed their complex calculations. And that is easy to see.

Yes. One of these is the camera band. However, the utility of this information is? They are describing how the camera works, and, in this chart, they give a value for the exponent in the equation they set up. But is the camera calibrated from that equation?

If so, they are idiots. I don't think they are idiots, and they have made a camera that works, if used as instructed. The calibration is based on actual measurement, and that formula they give is only a general coverage, not what they actually use, I'm sure. They will program the EEPROM with the actual relationship, based on a black body at known temperatures (which is that that chart is about, black-body radiation and only black-body radiation) and actual bolometer readings.

Then, to determine an object's actual temperature, the band emissivity is needed, for the band actually in use. This is best determined with calibrations using the actual camera and actual material. One does not need to know "n" to do this.

Nope. Wyttenbach made that up. They do not use the formula, they use an EEPROM look-up table in the camera (though it may also be interpolated). And they program the look-up table based on actual camera performance, not theory. Each camera may be somewhat different, and camera performance might also shift with time and conditions (such as heat).

I have sometimes found that mathematicians place high reliability on math, over experiment. Math is totally reliable, if done carefully and with reliable assumptions. If not, not.

[quote]From the formula in the manual you can easily derive that for a high emissivity and high Temerature a + deviation os more likely!

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I do not find this a clear statement, but there are typos. In any case, I'm done.