Demonstration of the E-Cat QX - 24 November - Summary thread

Quote from Adrian Ashfield

If the E-Cat didn't work why did they not discover this before making any investment?

I believe they were misled by the Lugano results. That is what I have heard, but it could be a rumor. They should have discovered the problems before making a major investment. They failed at due diligence.

They were not fooled by the Doral test. You were fooled by it, and you remain fooled by it, so your judgement is worse than theirs.

Quote from Adrian Ashfield

No. Rossi is not looking for investors like me. He has repeatedly stated he only wants larger technical comeanies that know what they are doing and can deal with the risk. You keep making things up.

I said "if you had tons of money." But Rossi is not looking for large technical companies. He is looking for people who are fooled by his tests. If he were looking for large technical companies he would do a proper test that would convince people. That would be easy. As I said, a properly designed black-box test would be easier than the one he did, and it would reveal less about the device, and less IP, which is exactly contrary to what you said.

It looks like the video was reuploaded and now it has silent sections, that sucks.

Just before the resistor test begins, the test that modified the circuit to introduce new resistor values, Rossi lifts the cover on the White control box and throws switches:

In order to maintain trust in that particular test, Rossi should have informed the audience as to what the switches do and why he was changing their settings.

If this action has not been explained thus far, Mats among others should get an explanation for this action, including what those switches do and why their setting where changed.

Quote

Rossi is not interested in private investors at all. He wants corporate investors. Technical skills are a matter of opinion here

Are the ones who bought distributor licenses (and sub-licenses) corporate investors?

And what technical skills does e.g the feng-shui master Roger Green have... or the IH guys (lawyers).

Quote from Alan Smith

Whatever you think, the Rossi magic is still working. And it doesn't seem to be fading.

... so does the magic of Dr. Ibrahim Ahmed from Nigeria.

Quote from axil

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Just before the resistor test begins, the test that modified the circuit to introduce new resistor values, Rossi lifts the cover on the White control box and throws switches:

In order to maintain trust in that particular test, Rossi should have informed the audience as to what the switches do and why he was changing their settings.

If this action has not been explained thus far, Mats among others should get an explanation for this action, including what those switches do and why their setting where changed.

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it looks like he is moving 2 switches. this and not the action after he closed the box (as I posted before) could be the trick moment.

Fabiani does mention that the waveform is intentionally different during the dummy run.

Quote

[2:42:45] [Lewan] So during the experiment do we have 12 volts at the active voltage in the system?

[Fabiani] We start from the continuous current, 12 volts, and after we generate a control wave in front of the, as well from the charge. I can't tell you more. (?)

[2:43:11] [Lewan] Could you please measure voltage over the 1 ohm resistor again?

[Fabiani] With what instrument?

[Lewan] With the oscilloscope, yeah.

[Fabiani] This is type of pulsing, is because of the safety… feature… (?)

[Rossi] No, no don't don't do the explanation (?).

[Fabiani] Nononono…

[2:43:34] [Lewan] This doesn't really have character as during […] it doesn't really have the same shape as during the experiment of course.

[Rossi] Of course.

[Fabiani] The millisecond it's the same. Have a similar, not the same, because is not drived.

[Lewan] So.. whereas during experiment he've had a voltage about 300 mV [over 1 ohm resistor], now we got about… 10 or 20?

[Fabiani] 15…10… but doubled is 20-25.

[Lewan] OK. I would have expected it to be divided by 800, but...

[Fabiani] Depends on the feedback of the tones (?)

[Lewan] OK.

[Fabiani] Not feel the charge, not full (?) no give answer.

[Lewan] OK.

[Fabiani] It's not "simple".

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So all of a sudden there is 11.52 V (DC) across the whole system, rather than 100 mV (report/whiteboard).

And still only around 280 to 300 mV (DC) across the 1 ohm resistor during the experiment.

The COP is getting murky... taking an order or two of magnitude hit compared to the report version.

Kudos to Mats for installing a voltage divider on the system.

Anyway, if they do have a 0.6mm electrode gap and assuming 1 bar of H₂ pressure, wouldn't they need a voltage in the order of 1500V or so to at least get the plasma started, regardless of what happens afterwards? Perhaps this could drop in the few hundred V range with a different gas/gas mixture at a low pressure.

Maybe the generator of this starting HV pulse was disabled during the dummy run?

A big spike in voltage is pretty much neccesary in order to strike a plasma across a gap. With no gap, a strike-hold power supply may sense the low resistance (compared to a gap) and not fire the initial voltage spike. This might be a safety feature, or might simply be not possible without the "air" gap.

Xenon is the arc helper. It reduces the arc maintaining voltage.

David Nygren

Someone decided not to show so much information to the public anymore

Ahlfors has downloaded the complete show. Maybe it can be uploaded here?

Paradigmnoia

That's assuming that the electrodes are conventionally used (for example as if this was an HID lamp) and that the plasma occurs with the gas pre-contained in the gap. What if he does something "strange" like vaporizing part of the electrode material? Is it possible that a much lower voltage than usual would then be needed to maintain the plasma, which would essentially become current-driven (if this explanation makes sense) ? This might not necessarily be related with Rossi, I'm only curious due to past observations I made with my own tests with small carbon arc plasmas at rather low voltages.

Ahlfors

That's great, I should have thought of doing that too, which I eventually did for the second video in case more audio would eventually end up being edited out. However a dynamic range compressor filter is what is probably needed here, rather than noise removal.

Quote from Adrian Ashfield

So...As forecast by me and Alan Smith, the demo will not end the debate. No matter how good the experiment the skeptics will stick to their belief that Rossi is a fraud until working units are on sale.

The measurement of energy produced was indisputable. The measurement of energy in was less so, but still valid. The unknowns included the waveform, the high voltage pulse to start the process and whether there was feedback from the QX that controlled the power pack. The waveform of the test with the reactor replaced by a conductor provides some clues. The large clumsy power pack reflects the complexity of this.

That the power pack used 60 W cooling provides the skeptics with endless opportunities for mocking the demo, but I don't buy that power was magically used to heat the water. This will get sorted out relatively quickly.

The very small size of the QX was a surprise, particularly given the larger dimensions stated earlier. Not sure that these dimensions aren't a result of Rossi protecting his IP.

All things considered, it looks like more engineering development is still needed and it will be at least a year before any mass production. New technology takes time. Boeing took forty years to develop the V22 before one was sold.

I thought the demo might be some early marketing effort, but it looks like it was more for potential investors.

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Skeptics have also predicted the debate will not end with any Rossi demo. How could it? You cannot prove a negative and Rossi has his supporters who have shown themselves unswerving in faith regardless of negative evidence.

The argument previously for Rossi to abandon 5 years of R&D on ecats and move to this new device is that it was so much technically superior that this made sense. This argument has its issues. However, in the light of this demo, I'm wondering whether you still see the new device is superior to the old ones? You should factor in to your answer the fact (stated by Rossi, so tendentious, but I'll admit it) that Rossi does not have certification for any markets except industrial and would therefore aim at industrial commercialisation. Just as what he was claiming to do during the IH test.

As for whether this demo generated its output from a PSU, or from a revolutionary LENR process, no-one can ever prove there was no such revolutionary process, given the fact that Rossi for no doubt good reasons of his own never measured the input power. However, you will I hope agree that he supplied electrical input from a PSU clearly large enough to generate all the output. That was careless, if he had a working device. It makes a poor demo.

Quote from Adrian Ashfield

I

As I said, he is protecting his IP, whether you like it or not.

"If the power pack was heating the water, how can he possibly make money from such a scam? This is not for the general public to invest in, but for venture capitalists who will be able to do their own due diligence - like measure the voltage across the reactor."

Rossi can hope to get money from one-off big pocket investors who buy his "the establishment has it in for me" story, and are foolish. There have always been foolish rich people.

IH is the nearest he ever got to VCs, and they were too much the real thing for the relationship to last. They wanted working product above good PR (ref letters from Court case). You must remember that Rossi would have been hawking his offering to any VCs willing to listen - nearly all would refuse him. IH were idealistic and inclined to hope - a golden opportunity for him which he has squandered (on your reading) or obtained $10M for no product (on my reading). Sure, Rossi can hope to repeat the process with a new audience and a different product.

THH said: "my objection is hardly novel"

Quote from Alan Smith

You said it.

Alan, I don't see any material difference between us in analysis of this test (maybe I am wrong?). Is it necessary to comment on whether analysis here is novel? We might as well say that Rossi's test, in its lack of any way to know whether the tested device works as claimed or not, is hardly novel. One of the things that keeps me looking at these repetitive events is people like you who hold out some apparently strong possibility that his devices really do work. in many cases i'd dismiss them as uninformed but not so in yours.

For me this was still demo and not test, so it cannot make one to believe it more nor conclude as fraud. Rossi has some clarfication to give on switch flipping before resistor swapping test. The resitor test itself was not convincing either because of probes, ac/dc consideration, changed waveforms etc.

But the demo gives good material for speculation. And to move forward on that, can anyone point to any theory or research results why QX-power supply requires so heavy cooling fan?

Generating modulated sine wave and feeding tens of milliwats to wire could not require 60w PSU. Someone speculated (can'remember which thread) that plasma generating flow of electrons 'pushing back' to PSU causing extra heat or something. When Matts mentioned in his presentation that "Heat conducted from reactor through wires requires extra fan in PSU", Rossi corrected afterwards that "Heat conduction problem was solved and there is other reason now".

If we assume that QX is real, could that requirement of extra cooling be caused by electricity generating feature Rossi have mentioned? Controller case had rather big vent holes, so they could serve rather big fan, but then I didn't hear extra humming during the test. As a comparison if i remember correctly my house air conditining system fans are 45w and they exchange air 94l/s!

Roughly calculated (from top of my head) each 1deg/c would transfer 100w. So 45w fan could move 1kw heat from chassis assuming 10C temp difference between intake and exhaust. I can guarantee that 92l/s even well diffused makes noticable noice. Something doesn't match in my opinion.

Ahlfors

I had to search that... I guess you mean flyback diodes.

BTW, I'm still waiting for the original video with full audio!

Quote from Argon

Someone speculated (can'remember which thread) that plasma generating flow of electrons 'pushing back' to PSU causing extra heat or something.

I did mention that earlier in this thread citing non-LENR references (1, 2) and personal observations. During high current DC arc discharges tests the positive wire would heat up significantly more than the negative wire. I don't know if this is really related to what Rossi observed, but it reminded me of that (although only by loose association). In my case in some tests at higher current than normal I had to periodically invert wire polarity to not melt the connectors and wire insulation, but it was mostly my fault since I used cheap and undersized equipment (not to mention improvised).