George also bought a larger version of the spark-gap tube, which is said can produce 0.5kW output as direct electricity and because of larger internal electrode size has a linger life than the small systems.
Should "linger life" read "longer life"?
I am interested in the life cycle of LENR reactors. How long will they perform and why do they stop working. Any insights on this question?
Electrode erosion is the problem - no magic involved, the arc just vapourises the Aluminium. - bigger electrode tube means more real estate for the sparks to erode.
the arc just vapourises the Aluminium
Sounds like George is still just hitting the same wall as the Correas - despite originally thinking he'd been able to overcome their erosion problem.
Hello Gents!
Status update: Boy I have got some stuff to share! Good progress and also some sparks made with promising results.
First up: the electrolysis unit.
I've "gunked it" back together with hot glue and polypropylene wall. It's not pretty, but it does the job, and it does it really well. Pressure tested with compressed air at 4 bar, performs nicely.
Before, with the 2 jar setup I had a very long (20-30cm) electrolyte length to carry the ions and a quite narrow cross-section (<1cm^2). This resulted with 1A constant current in a 12V voltage drop across the stainless steel plates. If the gas production would require around 1V voltage (I don't know the exact value from the top of my head, maybe you can look it up: 304L electrodes, 20% by weight aqueous KOH electrolyte at ~22deg C starting temperature), then is was roughly 8% energy efficient (energy of gas produced vs. electric energy in). The thing heated up, and I had to wait hours to get a 2 Bar pressure of gas build-up.
With this new approach I'm getting just ~2V at 1A. This is by a very rough estimate a 50% efficiency. Much better! I had hit it with 3.3V 8A and in matter of couple of minutes I have my gas.
The difficulty of building it was the cut-out of the gas separator wall and the gluing it in place by heating everything up and dripping the hot glue in, let it flow into place.
A better design that I'd recommend would be with cylindrical electrodes and a transparent plastic cup as gas separator glued in upside down. Maybe some day I'll build it, then I could also commit to sharing details to replicators.
Next up: HV oscilloscope probe:
I've attempted to build a 500:1 divider extender for one of my existing passive probe.
The circuit and simulation
The construction:
I've improvised a bit, this is the first attempt after all. Maybe later I'll build more with better materials, this was intended to explore a bit the questions around tuning.
With a bit of tuning, it turned out to be a promising path of not spending maybe 5k$.
Now for the interesting bit: first sparks.
The idea was to play around with an old broken plasma globe's flyback converter, solder quickly together George's relaxation oscillator just on the test bench using random components from the drawer, have a few sparks in plain air between two wires, put in use the new 500:1 "HV probe".
I played around with the circuit, I did not destroy my oscilloscope, not yet.
Here are my random discharge periods if I set the gap at the limit:
I've zoomed to look for the "wolf teeth" supposed CP formation (and fusion?) events.
Nothing could be found, just the typical sudden discharge on the capacitor:
Some oscillations due to parasitics... or my "HV probe"...
Nevertheless, I played around, increases-decreases voltage, adjusted the spark gap on the fly by poking it with an insulator, etc.
AND AT SOME POINT I'VE SEEN THE UNTHINKABLE:
OMG OMG! Could it be it? It was very rare though!
Tried to make it more reliable, thrown also methane gas to it from a lighter. After a while the thing broke 
Turned out after disassembly one of my capacitor failed. Did I managed to overheat it with the lighter when I tried to provide flame close to the spark cap? Or is there CP damage?! I recall the waveforms suddenly changing when there was no heat from a flame applied, rather when the thing showed the alleged effect.
Bummer... the toy is ruined.
I've remade it in a slightly different way, and used 3k3 load resistor instead of 5R1 ('coz I've seen a >1k value in one of Egely's videos).
This high resistance limited the discharge current amplitude. The effect was not there.
Remade the circuit as initial, and yes! The pulses started to show after a while!
With display persistance set to 10s, you can see they are always there!
It is much more rare than the normal un-eventful discharge, though.
Anyhow, I'm happy for my results, I quickly added a DVD un top of it, let it run no more than a few more minutes to grab pics and called it a day.
I'll invest some time in the safey aspect a bit and update when I have news. Much more to do: proper discharge devices are ready, gas is ready, need to continue. Cheers!
Nice to see so many enthusiasm and motivation since the MFMP great time , thank you.
Display MorePassons maintenant à la partie intéressante : les premières étincelles.
L'idée était de jouer avec le convertisseur flyback d'un vieux globe à plasma cassé, de souder rapidement ensemble l'oscillateur de relaxation de George juste sur le banc d'essai en utilisant des composants aléatoires du tiroir, d'avoir quelques étincelles à l'air libre entre deux fils, de mettre en service le nouveau 500 :1 "Sonde HT".
J'ai joué avec le circuit, je n'ai pas détruit mon oscilloscope, pas encore.
Voici mes périodes de décharge aléatoires si je fixe l'écart à la limite :
J'ai zoomé pour rechercher les événements supposés de formation (et de fusion ?) de CP « dents de loup ».
Rien n'a pu être trouvé, juste la décharge soudaine typique sur le condensateur :
Quelques oscillations dues à des parasites... ou à ma "sonde HT"...
Néanmoins, j'ai joué, augmenté-diminué la tension, réglé l'éclateur à la volée en le piquant avec un isolant, etc.
ET À UN CERTAIN POINT, J'AI VU L'IMPENSABLE :
OMG OMG ! Serait-ce ça ? Mais c'était très rare !
J'ai essayé de le rendre plus fiable, j'y ai également jeté du méthane depuis un briquet. Au bout d'un moment, la chose s'est cassée
Il s'est avéré qu'après démontage, un de mes condensateurs était tombé en panne. Ai-je réussi à le surchauffer avec le briquet lorsque j'ai essayé de fournir une flamme près de la bougie d'allumage ? Ou y a-t-il des dégâts au CP ?! Je me souviens que les formes d'onde changeaient soudainement lorsqu'il n'y avait pas de chaleur provenant d'une flamme appliquée, plutôt lorsque la chose montrait l'effet présumé.
Dommage... le jouet est ruiné.
Je l'ai refait d'une manière légèrement différente et j'ai utilisé une résistance de charge 3k3 au lieu de 5R1 (parce que j'ai vu une valeur > 1k dans l'une des vidéos d'Egely).
Cette résistance élevée limitait l'amplitude du courant de décharge. L'effet n'était pas là.
Refait le circuit comme initial, et oui ! Les pouls ont commencé à apparaître au bout d’un moment !
Avec une persistance d’affichage réglée sur 10 s, vous pouvez voir qu’ils sont toujours là !
C’est cependant beaucoup plus rare que la décharge normale sans incident.
Quoi qu'il en soit, je suis content de mes résultats, j'ai rapidement ajouté un DVD dessus, je ne l'ai pas laissé fonctionner plus de quelques minutes de plus pour prendre des photos et j'ai arrêté la journée.
J'investirai un peu de temps dans l'aspect sécurité et je mettrai à jour lorsque j'aurai des nouvelles. Il reste encore beaucoup à faire : les dispositifs de décharge appropriés sont prêts, le gaz est prêt, il faut continuer. Acclamations!
Wolf teeth - congratulations !
Egely mentioned that the visible spikes would almost disappear when the CPs are formed.
I suppose you didn't observe this yet ?
One thing i have been thinking is the AC-spikes for ignition. The Egely-system consists of DC-voltage for sparks with
not much precise controllability for the pulse parameters. If the electrodes are not symmetric AC may not be a good idea.
However if both of them have the same form and properties it shouldn't be a problem if the polarity is reversed after each spike (at least i think so).
The goal would be to utilise e.g. second hand car ignition coil where the primary current pulses could be controlled with low voltage
components. The drawback is of this kind of transformer-based system is that the output pulses change the sign
twice for each input pulse.
Just an idea to get a precise pulse control
Both electrodes are as identical as George can make them, and his sparks are intermittent DC.
Yes i know that already but i was wandering what is the reason why the spark polarity should be kept the same all the time ?
In George's device it would be complicated to switch polarities, and quite possibly he has found (as I have in other experiments) that AC is not helpful. If you want a reason for that, the best I can offer is this. LENR is a natural process, not one favored by natural selection so rare and transient in natural systems, but while natural systems can and do generate huge currents at times they are all as far as I know DC ones.
In George's device it would be complicated to switch polarities, and quite possibly he has found (as I have in other experiments) that AC is not helpful. If you want a reason for that, the best I can offer is this. LENR is a natural process, not one favored by natural selection so rare and transient in natural systems, but while natural systems can and do generate huge currents at times they are all as far as I know DC ones.
I need to clarify what i had in mind. Instead of feeding simple high voltage AC to the electrodes as such the idea is to feed DC-pulses to the primary side of the high-voltage transformer in a properly controlled way.
We know that when you feed a pulse in the primary the created voltage depends of the dI/dt.
1. According to the required spark pulse length the dI/dt need be to kept increasing with a certain rate and time.
2. Of course the pulse needs to end also and then the primary current needs to follow opposite direction derivative -dI/dt until 0.
At phase 1. the output voltage at the secondary side (spark side) will be positive but at phase 2. it will be negative.
This is what meant with "AC".
The above phases might sound complicated compared to the Egely's test device but i'm sure that there are electronics-hobbyists who could make
that kind of programmable or tunable high-voltage pulse generator.
Then there is a question does it make sense to try something like that. I suppose the answer depends on the knowledge of the CP-formation.
If precise pulse/current control is required in order to reliably create the CPs when e.g. the electrodes wear out, then one kind of feedback could be pulse form and time control.
By the way one question related to the electrode-corrosion, can that be compensated by adjusting the ignition pulse parameters ?
And of course the basic question is what does it mean from the CP-formation point of view if the electrodes wear out ?
(Egely mentioned that you can destroy your electrodes so that they can not be used any more)
At phase 1. the output voltage at the secondary side (spark side) will be positive but at phase 2. it will be negative.
This is what meant with "AC".
Just to add to what Alan Smith said (which I also agree with), the oscilloscope traces already show an "alternating" voltage in the circuit on the "secondary side" of the spark gap - as you describe Rjzk
Note that the circuits for George's recent test devices were specifically designed to make the measuring of input and output power simple and accurate. This was to get around the typical difficulties people have experienced in the past, when trying to measure electrical power while waveforms were erratic and non-sinusoidal.
In previous videos, George has stated that the circuits for future devices will undoubtedly be different, once the device can be shown to increase power. For instance, the input "relaxation oscillator" will probably be replaced by something more efficient.
well, you can use a DC signal as carrier coupled with other AC juxtaposed to induce some resonnances, for example ?
Display MoreI need to clarify what i had in mind. Instead of feeding simple high voltage AC to the electrodes as such the idea is to feed DC-pulses to the primary side of the high-voltage transformer in a properly controlled way.
We know that when you feed a pulse in the primary the created voltage depends of the dI/dt.
1. According to the required spark pulse length the dI/dt need be to kept increasing with a certain rate and time.
2. Of course the pulse needs to end also and then the primary current needs to follow opposite direction derivative -dI/dt until 0.
At phase 1. the output voltage at the secondary side (spark side) will be positive but at phase 2. it will be negative.
This is what meant with "AC".
The above phases might sound complicated compared to the Egely's test device but i'm sure that there are electronics-hobbyists who could make
that kind of programmable or tunable high-voltage pulse generator.
Then there is a question does it make sense to try something like that. I suppose the answer depends on the knowledge of the CP-formation.
If precise pulse/current control is required in order to reliably create the CPs when e.g. the electrodes wear out, then one kind of feedback could be pulse form and time control.
By the way one question related to the electrode-corrosion, can that be compensated by adjusting the ignition pulse parameters ?
And of course the basic question is what does it mean from the CP-formation point of view if the electrodes wear out ?
(Egely mentioned that you can destroy your electrodes so that they can not be used any more)
Pro tip: if you plan after a quick shower to clean your room overnight with powerful alkaline solution, then with vinegar water, try releasing a small amount of hydrogen gas on your live spark experiment in air, like I did! ('Coz methane from a lighter didn't even ignite, so it must be safe, right?)
Please be careful Tibi.fusion , this is really sobering, you are lucky to have come out of it with only minor injuries.
I'm okey, and my eyes, ears are fine. Just a tiny bleeding mark on my face, like if I've pulled a pimple. Had I been not bracing for the possibility of a small pop, or laying over the thing with the soft tissue of my neck exposed, It could have turned out bad, very very bad...
Please learn from my mistake! There are multiple ways you can kill yourself with this experiment alone.
Thankfully you have survived with only a scratch. Those of us who have been "liking" your progress, on here, probably bear some responsibility for not regularly repeating warnings. I know Alan has repeated them quite a lot, but it is easy to ignore once enthusiasm has griipped someone.
Through the years, I've known quite a number of people who have survived explosions, and (ironically) your close proximity to the blast has helped to save your hearing. If you had been slightly further away, your eardrums might well have burst. Shrapnel is the biggest hazard - so you are very lucky to still have your sight. Just be aware that the "bleeding pimple" might be concealing something (e.g. a splinter) buried in your skin.
Just be aware that the "bleeding pimple" might be concealing something (e.g. a splinter) buried in your skin.
No worries, it's just food grade plastic!
Sorry could not resist the joke. But seriously, I could not detect any fragments. And being non toxic is good. The fragments were not as small and sharp as glass would be i.e. Maybe I got hit by a bigger chunk. Luckily most of the force was upwards. No damage on the room wall at level where the gas was, but at >60degree up from level there are marks. And you've seen what it did with the wood. It'd take me a fairly big sledgehammer to do such damage with a single blow. I don't even want to imagine that impact with a human body.
To give ideas on the energies involved: the gas volume was about 0.6liter and pressure above atmosphere was ~1.7-1.8bar. Near stoichiometric ratio, separated by a thin wall, until it mixed. Had it been mixed HHO, it would have caused more damage I guess. I won't attempt to convert these in joules or equivalent hammer or bullet velocities right now.
I've sampled before the H2 and O2 outlets for small plastic bag burn test after purging. Did not observe that acute popping sound of pre-mixed H2 and O2 gas (characteristic of that ultrasonic shockwave). The H2 filled bag burst into a slow orange flame and the O2 managed to accelerate the burn rate of PEHD bag. So it seemed to me that the electrolysis rate that I used last time (~2A) did not stir the bubbles under the separator wall line and did not cause significant mixing.
For some reason the H2 line backfired into the hose, fractured the wall and allowed combustion. Either this or the gas sitting there for days maybe got mixed (i.e. separator wall might have been compromised in time by chemical solution or gases?).
I thought the ability to store a bit of gas for needs of saturating a vacuumed volume with positive pressure, and/or to purge a volume was beneficial, this is the reasoning on my decision to build an electrolysis unit of this size and type. I might have changed my mind a bit now...
Did not observe that acute popping sound of pre-mixed H2 and O2 gas (characteristic of that ultrasonic shockwave).
I am very happy working around any amount of pure hydrogen generating equipment in an environment with forced ventilation, the hydrogen reactor in my lab produces around 600 CM3 of H2 at a peak rate of over 300 CM3 but stoichiometric mixtures of oxy-hydrogen are the very devil, and I has happy to miss an H2-O2 explosion that could (possibly) have killed me around 10 years ago. It had the decency to wait until I had left the very noisy lab to take a phone call in the sunshine outside. Madame Smith saved my life that day. .
