Mizuno reports increased excess heat

Quote from JedRothwell

If there was anything more we could suggest, we would have included it in the recipe. However, as I said in the recipe, this is for people who are skilled in the art. That means people who know how to make leak-proof vacuum chambers that do not contaminate the gas with something like solder; people who know how to operate mass spectrometers; people who will not accidentally ingest nickel dust, and so on. I myself am not one of those people. I could not do this experiment. Consequently, I cannot add anything to the recipe.

I think a person has to know a great deal just to follow the instructions. If you don't know this stuff, I cannot imagine you will succeed. It would be like me trying to cook a cordon bleu gourmet meal suitable for a first-class restaurant.

I take your point about people needing a basis of technical experience in order to effectively follow published instructions. However I think you do not appreciate that the same instructions may be accomplished differently in different labs. Basically what you are saying is that one cannot put every last procedural step into a paper and that is why you have to rely on your readers having a foundation of pre-existing technical experience to fill in the gaps. But every lab has its own traditions and ways of doing things -- and as different investigators fill in the gaps in their own way, slightly different procedures may result even if the same instructions are followed to the letter.

I asked if you or Mizuno could think of unreported changes in procedure that were made early on in the ramp-up from marginal success to the large COP presently reported. You replied that if you had anything to suggest along those lines you would have included them in your paper. But I am pretty sure that there are lots of things done in Mizuno's lab that are done differently than in other labs. Differences that are not appreciated right now and cannot be addressed by simply assuming a common technical background between you and your readers. Will these differences be crucial? Maybe. But maybe right now is too soon to ask about this. If there is a continued run of negative results from replicators, then I guarantee this is exactly what you will be asking yourself.

Two effective ways of dealing with the issue of differences in technique between different labs ...

1) Have someone from lab A actually work for a while lab B (this is what I suggested as the standard move used in academic research to transfer knowledge)

2) Video the procedure from stem to stern. I notice the Deneum group asking for this.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Hi Ascoli,

I'm not quite sure what you think the difference between us is. To try to capture this:

(1) V * I calculated power vs Wattmeter measured power - we are agreed about the evidence here, and what was done.

(2) Ripples. Logically, using average V*I leaves this open. Small ripples would not matter in this context. But an unregulated PSU would matter - and given the two different measurement methods noted in (1) it would generate COP=2 without much difficulty and without this being obvious. I don't expect this to happen, but can't rule it out.

(3) Yokogawa Wattmeter connected directly to automatic logging somehow - agreed that looks likely, in which case why not use it all the time? A question worth asking.

(4) Yogokawa Wattmeter on input side. See below.

• Jed has said that these power measurements (in the calibration run, where we all agree they come from a Wattmeter, but not in the active run) come from the Wattmeter output.
• Jed has said that the Wattmeter is placed on the PSU mains input
• Jed has also said that Wattmeter results shown are processed output - with the PSU quiescent power subtracted to make the Yokogawa figure (P) the same as V*I (measured on the output of the PSU).
• Jed has said that the PSU efficiency is very high, and therefore the output power ~ input power - quiescent power where quiesecent power is small.

Now, this all makes sense. But it is wrong. I do not claim to be expert on calorimetry etc, but I am on anything electronic. If the PSU is not regulated (for example a transformer feeding a full-wave bridge ) there will e substantial ripple. In any case that would not allow adjustment of the heater power. If the PSU is regulated, for example a DC lab PSU, as would be expected, then it will not be 100% efficient. Nor will it be 95% efficient. Linear (old fashioned) regulated PSUs are highly inefficient. For example, a linear 100V lab PSU, as Mizuno says he used for the R20 tests, would have efficiency < V / 100 where V is the output voltage,. At an output of 20V it would have efficiency of only 20% - less since the unregulated input to the regulator would have to have some headroom above 100V. In practice a PSU might have multiple switched voltage ranges, allowing higher efficiency, but the 20% figure is very possible and efficiency will vary between 80% and something small according to output voltage and range. A more modern switching PSU will be more efficient. Fixed voltage switching PSUs can be as high as 90%, although 75% is quite normal. Lab PSUs, which must have varying output voltage, have efficiency that depends on the output but ranges between 50% and 80% typically.

Regulated PSU lost power always has two components. (1) as Jed says quiescent power (usually small). (2) efficiency, as above. Depends on output voltage and is normally relatively independent of output current although it will also vary with current. A conversion from input-side Wattmeter measurement to output power would be approximately accurate if made as Pout = Pwatt*E - Q where E (eficiency0 and Q (quiesecent power) are TBC and E depends on the output voltage and the PSU range.

However, triac switched PSUs are as Jed says. there is no attempt at regulation, the average output voltage is adjusted by changing the duty cycle. In this case I can guarantee that the measurement methodology shown will lead to a large apparent COP, enough to explain R20. I would not think this likely here except that (unregulated) triac-switched supplies are very efficient as Jed says the PSU that Mizuno used was.

OK - so what does this wattgate issue mean?

I think we need more information about methodology. Best guess from spreadsheet data would be:

(1) the active run V*I calculated power is more or less correct (unless a spiky PSU is used, e.g. triac switched as per Rossi, in that case all bets are off).

(2) the calibration run calculated power from wattmeter measurement with some adjustment could be very inaccurate and would underestimate the real calibration heater power by a factor that could be anything.

Ironically, this actually would explain, in principle, the R20 room heating results. The R20 was driven from a lab PSU. If this is a relatively inefficient linear PSU it could dissipate large amounts of power, emitting more heat than the reactor and heating the room. I think 3kW would be highly unlikely. But 1-2kW, for an old high voltage high current PSU, possible. The difference between calibration and active results would come from the differing measurement methodologies used. However, there is one problem with this scenario. The V*I values for active run input would be quite accurate. The calibration input would be lower. That does not make sense given the calorimeter absolute response.

So I don't see this alone as explaining the R20 results, but it does, alone, explain the very different calibration and active run output, unless a triac switched PSU is used for the heater (unlikely). In that case the active V*i measurement is all wrong, the calibration measurement correct, and R20 is exactly explained.

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Hi THH,

thanks for your in-depth lesson on PSUs. Very interesting. Now, I understand your concerns much better, although I have a different idea about what caused the apparent COP of about 2 in the May 2016 tests.

IMO, a much more straightforward and simple explanation should start by observing that, during the active and control tests, two different resistors were used to heat the two reactors: the active reactor was heated by an internal resistance heater, while the control reactor was heated by an external resistance heater. This fact is evident by observing the trends in the output power curves shown in Figures 27 and 28 of the Mizuno's paper published in 2017 (1). Obviously, this was a serious mistake of the 2016 experimental campaign: it is not possible to use different settings for the active and control reactors. This elementary requirement was known to the tester, but evidently something went wrong during the preparation of the wiring of the experimental set-up.

The other fact to consider is that the DC voltage and current to the resistance heaters were measured by using two voltmeters and one shunt resistor. Voltmeter readings went directly to the data logger, but the value of the shunt resistance was probably entered manually in either the data logger or the PC for data acquisition at the beginning of each run. Therefore, a simple hypothesis that would explain the error which caused the false COP is that the two resistance heaters (internal and external) were associated with two different shunts, but that the same resistance value (the highest of the two shunts) was used to calculate the value of the DC current, in the false presumption that the same heater was connected both in the active and in the control reactors. If the shunt resistance required for the internal heater was actually half the value of the shunt resistance of the external heater, the DC current calculated (and logged) during the active test was half of the value actually fed into the reactor and this error led to a COP of about 2.

All the above mess could have happened inadvertently, due to a mistake in wiring the circuitry of the cables coming out of the two reactors.

On the contrary, what is very difficult to explain is the difference between values reported in the "Input power" column of the active and control spreadsheets. The two tests at 120 W were performed on two consecutive days. So it's certain that in the "Input power" column of both the original spreadsheets there was the same quantity, namely the power measured by the Yokogawa power input analyzer (the wattmeter). This implies that the spreadsheet of the active test has been later modified to remove the original values directly acquired from the wattmeter, by replacing them with the V/DC*I/DC products. This fact would seem to implicitly confirm the above hypothesis about a major, although very probably inadvertent, mistake occurred during the experimental campaign held in May 2016.

(1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

IMO, a much more straightforward and simple explanation should start by observing that, during the active and control tests, two different resistors were used to heat the two reactors: the active reactor was heated by an internal resistance heater, while the control reactor was heated by an external resistance heater.

That is incorrect. In all previous tests with this technique, both the active and control reactors were heated with an external resistance heater. In previous glow discharge tests, they were sometimes heated internally, sometimes externally, and sometimes in combination. In all cases, with all reactors and with heaters only, ranging from 50 kg down to 300 g, the calibration points are indistinguishable. The data points fall on top of one another within the margin of error. You cannot tell the difference between internal and external heating. You cannot tell the difference between glow discharge and resistance heating. You cannot tell the difference between a 50 kg reactor and a resistance heater alone. It makes no difference what is in the reactor: air, deuterium or a vacuum. The Delta T temperature difference of outlet minus inlet air is a function of the heat produced only. No other factors affect it. It impossible to tell where the heat is coming from.

Jed - I don't think you can be understanding ascoli. He is, here, considering the R20 results where the active reactor undoubtedly has an internal heating element. The calibation runs, he thinks, where done with the old calibration reactor, which like all the earlier reactors has an external heater.

Like me, ascoli thinks that there might be some mistake in the active R20 input power measurement: he suggests a wrong shunt resistor, where a chnage necessitated by higher heater currents was inadvertently not propagated to the spreadsheet that determines results. I suggested that I is calculated from V only ignoring the change in heater resistance.

In addition, ascoli notes that such a mistake would not give high COP except that the wattmeter (independent of shunt resistor) column has been replaced by a column calculated from V*I in the spreadsheet.

Now, that replacement - for the R20 active run but not the cal data - is indisputable and a problem because it introduces some difference.

Ascoli thinks the V*I (active) figures might be wrong.

I agree with him, but am also confused by your statements about the PSU because input power side measurement will not give accurate output power, depending on voltage, PSU, etc. Therefore, for the R20, the (calibration) input side measurement could easily go wrong given that it likely used a different PSU. In addition we have the problem that any non-regulated PSU (or regulated PSU used beyond normal limits) could cause the V*I power measurement to be wrong by a potentially large factor.

This is all a mess: what I can say is that the input power measurements as currently presented for the R20 are unclear, and therefore the results cannot be trusted. More transparency in methodology, exact measurement details, equipment details, processing details, etc, as is good practice, would resolve this whole matter.

Best wishes, THH

The fantasies and nonsense that you and THH post here about magical changes in the way heat affects the air temperature

Forgive me, but I think this may be some misunderstanding, you will have to explain these magical fantasies?

I understand him perfectly well. I said "in all previous tests" -- meaning all tests before the R20 used external heaters for both the control and active cells. That is, all tests with this mesh technique. As I said, the glow discharge control tests sometimes used internal heating.

In that case it would be helpful to keep to the point here, which is the R20 tests? I note some issue with R19, and you or RB correctly say it does not apply to R20 . When I note some R20 issue you say it does not apply to R19. That is true, but avoids the point, don't you think? I am clear myself that R19 and R20 results are distinct.

You are now saying that for some unstated magical reason, an internal heater is different from an external heater.

No. I'm saying that M's internal heater was different (resistance, and probably drive PSU) from previous external. Why would it be the same? Unlikely.

That is wrong. No calorimeter in history could possibly tell the difference. If it was different, that would violate the conservation of energy. Do you think the heat just vanishes? It gets transported to Mars perhaps? No matter where it originates, the only way the heat can emerge from the calorimeter is via the same two paths: in warm air, or as radiation from the walls. At a given power level, it always leaves in the same ratio from these two paths. It makes no difference how big the reactor is, or whether the heater is inside it, outside it, or sitting by itself. That's what the data shows. That is how all calorimeters work, as anyone who has used a calorimeter knows. All of your blather and bullshit will not change that fact. Your purpose is to introduce doubts and bullshit and to confuse the issue here, and make people think that McKubre, Mizuno and all the others are wrong. You will only convince idiots who do not understand the conservation of energy.

You are here missing the point. I'm not saying the heat output for given power in is different. I'm saying the power in might be measured (mistakenly) differently. I came to this possibility early on, ascoli, independently and for different reasons, came to the same possibility.

Calibrations show that it makes no difference where the heater is placed: inside, outside, by itself, in a combination of inside and outside . . . the air temperature difference is always the same, and it always the textbook value. There is no mechanism which would allow the heat to escape undetected.

Yes, I'm not arguing that. Though there are, as always, second order effects, I'm not considering them.

You are also saying that all previous tests with the R1 through R19 don't count. They used external heaters; they always calibrated correctly, so you will now pretend they do not exist, and only the R20 test with an internal heater exists. And it must be wrong, for magic reasons.

I've never said that. Could you provide a reference? I'm actually more interested in R19 results than R20 - because R19 has been more carefully written up.

You are up to your old tricks.

That looks to me like a personalisation: you are reacting to some stereotypical behaviour you assign to me, rather than what I say.

Quote from JedRothwell

In all previous tests with this technique, both the active and control reactors were heated with an external resistance heater.

OK. So, the correct resistance heater to be powered during this type of test is the external one for both the active and the control reactors. This fact explains very well why Mizuno didn't get excess heat for months and then, during the May 2016 test campaign, he suddenly got a COP of about 2: he simply connected the wrong (internal) resistance heater of the active reactor and at the same time a wrong value of the shunt resistance was manually entered in the data logging and processing system.

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In all cases, with all reactors and with heaters only, ranging from 50 kg down to 300 g, the calibration points are indistinguishable. The data points fall on top of one another within the margin of error. You cannot tell the difference between internal and external heating. You cannot tell the difference between glow discharge and resistance heating. You cannot tell the difference between a 50 kg reactor and a resistance heater alone. It makes no difference what is in the reactor: air, deuterium or a vacuum. The Delta T temperature difference of outlet minus inlet air is a function of the heat produced only. No other factors affect it. It impossible to tell where the heat is coming from.

This could be true only in stationary conditions. Vice versa, the transient curves, like those shown in Figures 27 and 28 of the Mizuno's paper published in 2017 (1), tell a lot about the position of the heating source!

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This is obvious to anyone who has used a calorimeter. If this is not how it worked, it would not be a calorimeter. The fantasies and nonsense that you and THH post here about magical changes in the way heat affects the air temperature would violate the conservation of energy.

I wonder how it is possible that calorimetry experts don't understand the elementary notion that the rate at which the air temperature increases reveals the position of the heating source, especially with a reactor whose body weights more than 20 kg. It's just a matter of conservation of energy. When the heater is inside the reactor, the heating of the cooling air is delayed due to the need to heat the reactor body first.

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Your other notions are also preposterous nonsense, such as your claim that a digital power meter can mistake 300 W of electric power going into a resistance heater for 50 W, and for some reason it only does this when there is deuterium gas and a Pd-Ni mesh in the cell. How would it know? How can a power meter be affected by the cell contents? The resistance heater cannot be affected by the cell contents. If it were, I suppose it would break or contaminate the gas.

You are confusing me with someone else. I'm not interested in the R19 or R20 tests. I've already proposed elsewhere how to deal with such astonishing claims (2).

Here, I'm only talking about the May 2016 tests, those for which we have a lot more information, including the 2 spreadsheets of the active and control tests at 120 W.

(1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(2) Team Google wants your opinion: "What is the highest priority experiment the LENR community wants to see conducted?"

Actually ascoli, I was confusing this. The speadsheets relate to earlier tests? In that case have been misapplying them to later tests. I guess I don't know, for R19 or R20, whether the input power is measures with wattmeter, or as V*I. Each of these methods has different possible issues.

Ascoli65 I'm not sure you got the timeline right in terms of when Mizuno switched to internal heater. Jed can confirm.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Actually ascoli, I was confusing this. The speadsheets relate to earlier tests?

As also indicated in my jpeg (1), the only two publicly available spreadsheets refer to the 120 W tests performed in May 2016, whose results were reported in various documents, starting from a JCMNS article issued in 2017 (2).

Quote

In that case have been misapplying them to later tests. I guess I don't know, for R19 or R20, whether the input power is measures with wattmeter, or as V*I.

It doesn't matter for the moment. Thanks to the availability of the spreadsheets, the only tests which worth to be analyzed are the 120 W tests held in May 2016.

When JR will release the spreadsheets of the more recent tests (3), it will be interesting to extend this analysis to the R19 or even the R20 reactors.

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Each of these methods has different possible issue.

The main issue connected with these two methods of measuring the input power is that for the 120 W active test the data directly acquired from the wattmeter have been deleted and substituted by the V/DC*I/DC products. This is a serious methodological issue, rather than a technical one.

Quote from LENR Calender

Ascoli65I'm not sure you got the timeline right in terms of when Mizuno switched to internal heater. Jed can confirm.

Officially, the internal heating was adopted after the May 2016 tests. Internal heaters were mentioned in an article published on JCMNS in 2018 (4).

But actually the results of the active tests run in 2016, also reported in Figure 4 of the 2018 article, were obtained by inadvertently powering an internal heater, probably the ceramic heater largely described in the 2017 article (2) and also represented in the schematic in Figure 1 of the 2018 article (4).

(1) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(3) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

(4) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheata.pdf

Reading DR Mizuno interesting book.

Bought Kindle edition for $10.

https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTnucleartra.pdf

Things here got a bit complex and inconclusive.

Still inconclusive, but here on another thread is my v short summary:

Team Google wants your opinion: "What is the highest priority experiment the LENR community wants to see conducted?"

If they respond quickly, I can't see why Mizuno is not the highest priority. And can't they walk and chew gum at the same time? With all that yummy money?

The anemometer traverses of the outlet of a 64 mm ID tube, 60 cm long, using a 65 mm OD axial fan were a little unusual (unexpected by me anyway).

Several times higher velocity was measured at the tube edges than in the middle. This is the opposite of what I was expecting. This may be an axial fan thing.

This may be an axial fan thing.

https://www.researchgate.net/p…2e626513dc000000/download

Looks like it depends on how close to the fan the traverse is

maybe there is a sweet spot where the velocity profile is flatter