I'm sad to see this group dwindling.

[amdx]

Not much happening here!
Morris do you have anything to brighten up this group?
Mikek

[Morris Dovey]

On 4/30/13 6:38 PM, amdx wrote:
> Not much happening here!
> Morris do you have anything to brighten up this group?

Paraphrasing Obiwan: I�m not the entertainment it�s looking for.

[amdx]

You were the Chosen One!
You were supposed to destroy the Sith,
not join them! Bring balance to the Force,
not leave it in darkness...

[Morris Dovey]

Yes, I have no magnets today. ;-)

--
Morris Dovey
http://www.iedu.com/Solar/
http://www.facebook.com/MorrisDovey

[harry k]

On May 1, 6:59 am, Morris Dovey <mrdo...@iedu.com> wrote:
> On 5/1/13 7:18 AM, amdx wrote:
>
> > On 4/30/2013 8:29 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> >> On 4/30/13 6:38 PM, amdx wrote:
> >>>   Not much happening here!
> >>> Morris do you have anything to brighten up this group?
>

> >> Paraphrasing Obiwan: I’m not the entertainment it’s looking for.

>
> > You were the Chosen One!
> > You were supposed to destroy the Sith,
> >   not join them! Bring balance to the Force,
> > not leave it in darkness...
>
> Yes, I have no magnets today. ;-)
>
> --
> Morris Doveyhttp://www.iedu.com/Solar/http://www.facebook.com/MorrisDovey

Tossed out with all your failed 'inventions'?

Harry K

[Morris Dovey]

On 5/1/13 11:01 AM, harry k wrote:
> On May 1, 6:59 am, Morris Dovey <mrdo...@iedu.com> wrote:
>> On 5/1/13 7:18 AM, amdx wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/30/2013 8:29 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
>>>> On 4/30/13 6:38 PM, amdx wrote:
>>>>> Not much happening here!
>>>>> Morris do you have anything to brighten up this group?
>>

>>>> Paraphrasing Obiwan: I�m not the entertainment it�s looking for.

>>
>>> You were the Chosen One!
>>> You were supposed to destroy the Sith,
>>> not join them! Bring balance to the Force,
>>> not leave it in darkness...
>>
>> Yes, I have no magnets today. ;-)
>

> Tossed out with all your failed 'inventions'?

I never needed/used magnets, and my �failed inventions� are improving
lives in three countries so far. That�s not much, but it�s a step in the
right direction. Thanks for asking. :-)

[amdx]

On 5/1/2013 11:01 AM, harry k wrote:
> On May 1, 6:59 am, Morris Dovey <mrdo...@iedu.com> wrote:
>> On 5/1/13 7:18 AM, amdx wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/30/2013 8:29 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
>>>> On 4/30/13 6:38 PM, amdx wrote:
>>>>> Not much happening here!
>>>>> Morris do you have anything to brighten up this group?
>>

>>>> Paraphrasing Obiwan: I�m not the entertainment it�s looking for.

>>
>>> You were the Chosen One!
>>> You were supposed to destroy the Sith,
>>> not join them! Bring balance to the Force,
>>> not leave it in darkness...
>>
>> Yes, I have no magnets today. ;-)
>>
>> --
>> Morris Doveyhttp://www.iedu.com/Solar/http://www.facebook.com/MorrisDovey
>
> Tossed out with all your failed 'inventions'?
>
> Harry K

Feeling a little bad about yourself Harry?
Why else, lash out at someone that's doing things.

Mikek

[Pete C.]

Unfortunately, given current economic conditions many who would like to
experiment with AE/RE are not able to to any meaningful extent.

[Morris Dovey]

It is tough, but that�s not really new. Let share a favorite old quotation:

�We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the
ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are
now qualified to do anything with nothing.�

...Mother Teresa

I think I know how she felt when she said that. :-)

[Vaughn]

FYI: I'm still here on a daily basis, and chime in when I have
something to add to a conversation.

Vaughn

[mike]

Aren't you the guy with the heat absorbers with the curved vanes
and the three way air flow?
Anything interesting going on there?

[Morris Dovey]

On 5/1/13 5:58 PM, mike wrote:

> Aren't you the guy with the heat absorbers with the curved vanes
> and the three way air flow?
> Anything interesting going on there?

A draft tutorial and project write-up with photos and CAD drawing is
online at http://www.iedu.com/Solar/Panels - and there�s a guy in
Edinburgh who agreed to do a DIY assembly video for less than I would
have had to pay for the software to do the job myself. I'll put the
video on the web site as soon as it�s ready.

Beside the panels already installed in the US and Canada, more are being
built in Poland, there are tentative plans for a teaching workshop in
Greece, and I'm kinda hoping to see something similar happen in Spain.
Other than being available as a long distance coach, I'm not personally
involved with any of the offshore activity.

Most of my recent effort has been focused on an MHD electrical generator
and a LENR heat source. You can catch a glimpse of this project at
http://www.iedu.com/Solar/Electricity. To me, it�s at least as
interesting as the passive solar heating panels, but progress is slow
enough (from a spectator perspective) to be about as exciting as
watching paint dry.

--
Morris

[mike]

Oh, Morris...say it isn't so!!!
You've gone over to the dark side.
You had a wonderful, easily reproduced solar dwelling heater.

I tried to read your links, but couldn't get the videos to play.
I did skim the MHD book. I'm not the slightest bit interested
in reliving math experiences from 50 years ago...but there were
some interesting statements glossed over.
MHD seems to work with a uni-directional flow of ionized material.
If you're sloshing it back and forth, there are all kinds of
issues with reversing the flow of massive ions. And there's the
tiny detail of superconducting magnets. And the 0.2Volt output.


I had a few questions...
About the MHD generator. What does the math say about heat flow?
For every kW of heat input to the hot center,
How many watts of real usable electricity at usable voltage do you get out
and how many watts get lost keeping the cold ends cold and the magnet
energized and the other implementation details?

And how does that compare to a classical steam turbine at those temps.
No moving parts is attractive, but if you have to put the moving
parts back in the compressors to manage superconducting magnets, is it
worth it?

About LENR...
If Rossi could make it work, you'd be able to buy 'em at home depot
by now.
If he can't, I wouldn't have a prayer of making it work.
And even if I did, I couldn't afford the boatload of patent lawyers
required to get it off the ground.

LENR is a fool's errand. Don't let your wonderfully practical
side succumb to the fantasy side.
Work on stuff that obeys the currently known laws of physics
and buy magic stuff at Home Depot after Rossi gets it working.

;-)

How's that for a discussion starter?

[Morris Dovey]

On 5/1/13 10:44 PM, mike wrote:

> Oh, Morris...say it isn't so!!!
> You've gone over to the dark side.
> You had a wonderful, easily reproduced solar dwelling heater.

It’s still there. It’s being reproduced. The goals I set for myself have
been achieved, and people are welcome to use (or not use) what I
learned. Additional improvements are possible, but the project I
undertook is completed. :-)

> I tried to read your links, but couldn't get the videos to play.
> I did skim the MHD book. I'm not the slightest bit interested
> in reliving math experiences from 50 years ago...but there were
> some interesting statements glossed over.

Agreed - some even intentionally. :-)

> MHD seems to work with a uni-directional flow of ionized material.
> If you're sloshing it back and forth, there are all kinds of
> issues with reversing the flow of massive ions. And there's the
> tiny detail of superconducting magnets. And the 0.2Volt output.

“Sloshing” isn’t strictly inaccurate, but in order not to lead anyone
astray, let’s be clear that what’s oscillating is an ionized gas with a
substantial push at one end and a (synchronized) substantial pull at the
other end.

I’m interested in using supercritical water for a number of reasons
which include cost and availability, its super-solvent characteristics,
and its R-constant (from PV = nRT). Especially I’m interested in the
dP/dT behavior (the change in pressure relative to a change in
temperature) in the operational temperature range.

Some of this stuff seriously offends my intuition. Just the idea of
completely dissolving a substantial quantity of (for example) common
table salt into a gas is a bit ‘creepy’ - and that’s not the worst of
the creepyness. :-)

Superconductivity isn’t part of the design.

Yes, an oscillating flow does require design consideration - but an
oscillating flow is still a flow in one direction followed by a flow in
the opposite direction. If the magnetic field remains constant, then the
result will be AC, and if the magnetic field is reversed at the end of
each “stroke” the result will be pulsed DC (as if AC had been fully
rectified) - yes?

> I had a few questions...
> About the MHD generator. What does the math say about heat flow?
> For every kW of heat input to the hot center,
> How many watts of real usable electricity at usable voltage do you get out
> and how many watts get lost keeping the cold ends cold and the magnet
> energized and the other implementation details?

Excellent questions! If I could provide the answers, there wouldn’t be
any need for R&D. At this point the thermal-to-mechanical energy
conversion looks as if slightly more than 40% might be possible. The
mechanical-to-electrical efficiency via the two MHD heads remains to be
seen.

> And how does that compare to a classical steam turbine at those temps.
> No moving parts is attractive, but if you have to put the moving
> parts back in the compressors to manage superconducting magnets, is it
> worth it?

I have no idea how any of this stacks up against a classical steam
turbine. I’m after reliable, simple, and inexpensive, and that will
operate for a very long time without maintenance.

> About LENR...
> If Rossi could make it work, you'd be able to buy 'em at home depot
> by now.
> If he can't, I wouldn't have a prayer of making it work.
> And even if I did, I couldn't afford the boatload of patent lawyers
> required to get it off the ground.

I’m satisfied that Rossi was able to produce a very small (≈4.7kW) LENR
device that you shouldn’t want to buy. Producing a proof-of-concept
device is very different from having a marketable product, as I’m sure
you already know.

> LENR is a fool's errand. Don't let your wonderfully practical
> side succumb to the fantasy side.

It could be, but until I convince myself that I’m not able to make it
practical, I’d rather explore this than play golf, shoot pool, and/or
watch reality TV - and if it turns out that I can’t produce a practical
LENR, I’d like to know (and share) why not.

> Work on stuff that obeys the currently known laws of physics
> and buy magic stuff at Home Depot after Rossi gets it working.

I spend most of my working life at the bleeding edge - doing stuff that
had never been done before - and I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’ll
continue doing that for as long as I can.

In spite of his very real contribution, I don’t think Rossi has what it
takes to produce a practical device. I think I can build on what he’s
done and at least add enough to move it closer.

> How's that for a discussion starter?

Not bad - perhaps we’ll be able to continue this discussion when I have
a better handle on the limitations of LENR and/or MHD technologies. :-)

--
Morris Dovey

[TomCat]

On Wed, 1 May 2013 09:01:21 -0700 (PDT), harry k <tur...@q.com>
wrote:

What have you done to make life better Harry?
What ideas have you come up with recently or ever?
Morris has accomplished a fair amount on the budget he has.
You are just breathing our air and reducing its' oxygen content it
seems.

Tom

[v8z]

"amdx" <am...@knologynotthis.net> wrote in message
news:24dc3$51805415$18ec6dd7$10...@KNOLOGY.NET...

> Not much happening here!
> Morris do you have anything to brighten up this group?
> Mikek

Morris has been a long time contributor and his information always serves to
enlighten.
There are those of us who lurk and follow whatever discussion may take
place, although the usenet has been dying a slow death......
There hasn't been a single post in alt.solar.thermal or
alt.building.construction in a looong time as well.


--
V8Z

[mike]

On 5/2/2013 12:32 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> On 5/1/13 10:44 PM, mike wrote:
>
>> Oh, Morris...say it isn't so!!!
>> You've gone over to the dark side.
>> You had a wonderful, easily reproduced solar dwelling heater.
>
> It’s still there. It’s being reproduced. The goals I set for myself have
> been achieved, and people are welcome to use (or not use) what I
> learned. Additional improvements are possible, but the project I
> undertook is completed. :-)
>
>> I tried to read your links, but couldn't get the videos to play.
>> I did skim the MHD book. I'm not the slightest bit interested
>> in reliving math experiences from 50 years ago...but there were
>> some interesting statements glossed over.
>
> Agreed - some even intentionally. :-)
>
>> MHD seems to work with a uni-directional flow of ionized material.
>> If you're sloshing it back and forth, there are all kinds of
>> issues with reversing the flow of massive ions. And there's the
>> tiny detail of superconducting magnets. And the 0.2Volt output.
>
> “Sloshing” isn’t strictly inaccurate, but in order not to lead anyone
> astray, let’s be clear that what’s oscillating is an ionized gas with a
> substantial push at one end and a (synchronized) substantial pull at the
> other end.

Would be interesting to see the theory.
I'm concerned that the operation might be extremely sensitive to the
temperatures at each end and the middle. You need physical dimensions
and masses to be well tuned to maintain the oscillation. Solar input
is not known for stability.
I think you're talking about a LOT more than a pipe with hot water in it.
If you table the MHD issues and just build the pipe, does it oscillate?
You should be able to calculate the mechanical energy available from the
mass of the supercritical water. Put some lossy compressible
material in the end caps to simulate taking energy out and see how that
affects the system.
Sounds like an evening project.

>
> I’m interested in using supercritical water for a number of reasons
> which include cost and availability, its super-solvent characteristics,
> and its R-constant (from PV = nRT). Especially I’m interested in the
> dP/dT behavior (the change in pressure relative to a change in
> temperature) in the operational temperature range.
>
> Some of this stuff seriously offends my intuition. Just the idea of
> completely dissolving a substantial quantity of (for example) common
> table salt into a gas is a bit ‘creepy’ - and that’s not the worst of
> the creepyness. :-)
>
> Superconductivity isn’t part of the design.
>
> Yes, an oscillating flow does require design consideration - but an
> oscillating flow is still a flow in one direction followed by a flow in
> the opposite direction. If the magnetic field remains constant, then the
> result will be AC, and if the magnetic field is reversed at the end of
> each “stroke” the result will be pulsed DC (as if AC had been fully
> rectified) - yes?

I'm trained as an electrical engineer. I know just enough about physics
to be dangerous. I don't have the answers, but I do know enough to ask
questions ;-)
Here's my concern about that...
If you have a plasma flow in one direction, the charges are "bent"
in response to the magnetic field. Given enough distance, you can make
all of them hit the collection plates...EXCEPT...
If you let charge/voltage accumulate on the plates, they also repel the
incoming charges. That's why the paper discussed 1000AMPS at 0.2V.
Sounds like big numbers, but it's only 200W.
You have to hold the voltage down, or increase the magnetic field.
Getting that 0.2V converted to 12V or 120V efficiently is a non-trivial
task.

Consider the sloshing. I have no idea the waveform, so I'll just talk
about it as a sine wave. For a significant portion of the time, the
rate of flow is small and producing almost no power. If you look at the
amount of power you can get out of a sinewave with peak value of 0.2V,
I think you're talking about something like 40%. Strike one.

The ions have mass. Consider an ion in the middle of the stream.
With a DC field, you can get the ion to the collection plate...eventually.
If the direction is changing, the ion gets sloshed around in the center
of the plasma and never makes it to the collector. Depending on the
frequency of oscillation and the mass of the ion and the distances, it
may or may not make a huge difference in how many ions can be collected.
Strike two?

Reversing the magnetic field each cycle sounds easy, until you do the math.
The magnet is an inductor. If it's not a superconductor, it has lots
of resistance. And the magnetic field represents substantial stored energy.
You have to dissipate that energy and put it back in the other direction
every cycle. I can't think of a way to do that other than resonance.
So, you have a sinusoidal magnetic field that drops the efficiency more.
Although, that may mitigate the issues with having to change the direction
of the ion flow. The devil is in the details.
It may be more efficient to generate AC and use a transformer to get
higher voltage to rectify by conventional synchronous rectifier technology.
Strike three?

My guess is that, by the time you get it working, you'll find
that all the little details have reduced the efficiency too far to be
useful.
And simplicity and ease of maintenance will be far in the rear-veiw mirror.

I'm not blind to the fact that, if everybody thought like me,
there would be no technological advances at all.
Who, in their right mind, would even consider making explosions
that push things up and down making things go round and round
fueled by stuff not yet invented...with chains and levers and rods
and unimaginable complexity? ;-)

If you have a novel idea that's never before been considered, your
chances of success are very small. If your "idea" has been
worked on for a century by the best minds available, success seems
remote indeed.

Probably the reason I got fired from my last job...
I stood up in the executive staff meeting and drew a tiny circle
and a huge circle on the whiteboard.
The market wants features we can't produce, despite years of
concentrated development. We don't even have a theory that
predicts success. Best I'd done was show them a "trick"
to double the output. And it had nothing to do with technology.

We're the number one investor in our technology.
We're the small circle.
Investment in the competing technology is the big circle.
Who do you think will win?

Nobody had a rebuttal, but they really, REALLY didn't want to hear it
or quit banging their heads against the development wall.
Stock was at $20 when I was shown the door.
Last I looked, it was creeping back up toward $2.

Technological breakthrough is very different from wishful thinking.
Funding for technological breakthrough has to jump through feasibility
hoops.
Wishful thinking just requires some hype and greed.

I'm not convinced. We're talking about producing energy that's WAY, WAY
in excess of what's available by conventional chemical reactions.
It takes zero technical skill to know that it's working. A bucket of
water, a stopwatch, a thermometer and a bathroom scale is plenty accurate.
Rossi could have put one in a suitcase and taken it to my garage.

You pour water in the top.
By the time it produced 10X the amount of energy you could get
from an equivalent mass of gasoline, I'd have declared it a success.
Would never have had to look inside.
And I wouldn't have to care how it worked.
I'd just buy 'em.

Rossi is a master of obfuscation and misdirection.
Just like Stan Meyer's water car.

If stuff works, it should be easy to demo and reproduce.

>
>> LENR is a fool's errand. Don't let your wonderfully practical
>> side succumb to the fantasy side.
>
> It could be, but until I convince myself that I’m not able to make it
> practical, I’d rather explore this than play golf, shoot pool, and/or
> watch reality TV - and if it turns out that I can’t produce a practical
> LENR, I’d like to know (and share) why not.

I think you'd be better off playing golf with someone in the business
of funding Rossi and collecting commission. ;-)

>
>> Work on stuff that obeys the currently known laws of physics
>> and buy magic stuff at Home Depot after Rossi gets it working.
>
> I spend most of my working life at the bleeding edge - doing stuff that
> had never been done before - and I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’ll
> continue doing that for as long as I can.

Bleeding edge is incremental advance based on sound theory.
Bleeding edge good!

Wishful thinking based on wishful thinking bad!
Wishful thinking easily debunked is LENR.

>
> In spite of his very real contribution, I don’t think Rossi has what it
> takes to produce a practical device. I think I can build on what he’s
> done and at least add enough to move it closer.

I don't play golf, but I'll use a golf analogy anyway.
Stand at the tee taking your usual stance.
Then rotate 90 degrees around the ball and take a swing.
People who have spent decades studying physics and golf
would suggest that you can't get to the hole with that
strategy. But maybe you read that some guy named Rossi
consistently achieved a hole in one that way...but nobody
had ever seen it or reproduced it.
How many times are you gonna bang the ball into the trees?

I'm all for optimism. But when the idea instantly runs smack
into currently known theory, I start looking for something
else to be optimistic about.

LENR is a game-changer for the Earth. I hope he succeeds.
But I'm not investing in it just yet.

[Morris Dovey]

On 5/2/13 4:47 PM, mike wrote:

> Would be interesting to see the theory.

It’s a relatively straightforward Carnot cycle / Stirling / fluidyne
engine. There’s an abundance of educational material on the web in
addition to the specifics I provide in my web pages.

> Sounds like an evening project.

With temperature above 705˚F and pressure above 3200 PSIA, I’m inclined
to proceed a bit more deliberately.

> I'm trained as an electrical engineer. I know just enough about physics
> to be dangerous. I don't have the answers, but I do know enough to ask
> questions ;-)
> Here's my concern about that...
> If you have a plasma flow in one direction, the charges are "bent"

> Strike one.
> Strike two?
> Strike three?

I think you may have confused supercritical water with plasma.

Keep in mind that MHD is a reversible effect - that a given amount of
power can be applied to an MHD head to move a given mass of water at a
given velocity; and that if that mass of water is moved through that MHD
head at that velocity it will generate that same amount of power.

There are some informative YouTube video demonstrations.

> simplicity and ease of maintenance will be far in the rear-veiw mirror.

Never underestimate the power of laziness. :-)

> If stuff works, it should be easy to demo and reproduce.

Tokamak? LHC?

I’m guessing you’re unaware that the Ni/H LENR has been verified
independently with different experimental apparatus.

> I think you'd be better off playing golf with someone in the business
> of funding Rossi and collecting commission. ;-)

“I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend
to waste any of mine.” ...Neil Armstrong

Me too.

--
Morris Dovey

[mike]

On 5/3/2013 8:16 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> On 5/2/13 4:47 PM, mike wrote:
>
>> Would be interesting to see the theory.
>
> It’s a relatively straightforward Carnot cycle / Stirling / fluidyne
> engine. There’s an abundance of educational material on the web in
> addition to the specifics I provide in my web pages.

I don't pretend to understand any of that except that temperature
differences and/or pressure differences are required to make it work.
And the upper bound of energy output is the energy you put thru it.

>
>> Sounds like an evening project.
>
> With temperature above 705˚F and pressure above 3200 PSIA, I’m inclined
> to proceed a bit more deliberately.

Which begs the question, "why pick water with an exceedingly high
critical pressure?"
Ethanol would reduce your pressures considerably.
And helium is supercritical at 2.24 atm at any temperature you'd
care to operate it.
Should be able to do initial experiments with a helium balloon
and copper or aluminum or glass pipe???

Piping issues are subject to the natural laws that we understand.
Should be a simple calculation of what material and how thick.
Fill it with salt water, open a port and boil out half, close the port
and you should be able to observe the effects of the working fluid
sloshing back and forth. Hook up a FET as an electrometer to see
if there's any response when you sense next to a magnet.
Keep heating it to the supercritical
temperature and observe a dramatic change in efficiency...or not.

>
>> I'm trained as an electrical engineer. I know just enough about physics
>> to be dangerous. I don't have the answers, but I do know enough to ask
>> questions ;-)
>> Here's my concern about that...
>> If you have a plasma flow in one direction, the charges are "bent"
>> Strike one.
>> Strike two?
>> Strike three?
>
> I think you may have confused supercritical water with plasma.

Yes, I've only done a little research on supercritical water. All of what
I have found related to solvent properties. I found nothing related
to free ions.

Plasma is about ionization.
MHD relies on bending ion trajectory in a magnetic field. Yes?

So, I agree that I am confused how supercritical water relates.

>
> Keep in mind that MHD is a reversible effect - that a given amount of
> power can be applied to an MHD head to move a given mass of water at a
> given velocity; and that if that mass of water is moved through that MHD
> head at that velocity it will generate that same amount of power.

Pretty easy to verify. Turn on the garden hose. Spray it thru a big
magnet. Stick some tinfoil collector plates near the stream.
Measure the power.
I think I'll convert my house pipe to PEX, put old hard drive
magnets on it and harvest the shower-power.

>
> There are some informative YouTube video demonstrations.

I've rarely encountered informative YouTube videos on anything
controversial. I've seen lots of hand waiving with pseudo-science
applied to make it sound like something wonderful is happening.

If you have a link to a particular youtube video that expresses
the concept with RESULTS...as opposed to handwaiving and pseudo-science,
I'd like to see it.

>
>> simplicity and ease of maintenance will be far in the rear-veiw mirror.
>
> Never underestimate the power of laziness. :-)

I'm an expert procrastinator. Problem is that I never seem to have the
time to do it. ;-)

>
>> If stuff works, it should be easy to demo and reproduce.
>
> Tokamak? LHC?

Exactly. Hasn't Tokamak been reproduced? Based on sound theory?
It's a simple matter of not being able to build one with currently
available practical materials.

>
> I’m guessing you’re unaware that the Ni/H LENR has been verified
> independently with different experimental apparatus.

Musta missed it in all the hype.
You'd think it would have been on the front page.
If you've got a link, I'd like to hear about a peer reviewed working
model with practical/usable amounts of sustained output power.

>
>> I think you'd be better off playing golf with someone in the business
>> of funding Rossi and collecting commission. ;-)
>
> “I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend
> to waste any of mine.” ...Neil Armstrong
>
> Me too.
>

Can't argue with that. If you're doin' what you love, you're better off
than most.
But sellin' Rossi shares on commission is an easy hedge.
No problem with having both. ;-)

I'd still like to hear more details about what you're doin'.

Sounds like you're doin' a lot of stuff at once. That often leads
to frustration.
Stuff like free energy and water cars and the like are all about taking
a small part of a theory and generalizing it to predict a result that
is never achieved, because the theory fell apart with the
generalization. Simple experimental results are nonexistent.
You get some hand-waiving with no substance...surrounded by conspiracy
theory.

Stanley Meyers is an urban myth. I can't believe that anyone with
such a monumental achievement wouldn't have told anybody else how to do
it. But there's no shortage of "believers".

I'm doin' all this naysayin', but it's easy to put me in my place with
some simple theoretical/experimental results. And that's all I'm trying
to make visible. I don't wanna read websites or watch youtubes.
I wanna see YOUR analysis/plan/results...with real predicted/measured
numbers.

I'll even volunteer to help.

I built/instrumented/debunked some HHO stuff for a local water car
enthusiast.
I was hoping it would channel his considerable creativity away
from HHO into something more practical.

Ok, one more story.
The inventor mentioned above took me to visit a local guy
with a HHO augmented Honda. He couldn't answer any basic
theoretical questions about anything.
His entire case was built on one experiment where he installed
a device to tweak his car's ECU. He filled up his tank,
headed down the freeway, tweaked the ECU until the engine
stalled, then backed up till it restarted.
Drove for 35 miles, filled up at a different station,
calculated the MPG. He put up a website trying to sell the
technology.

He accepted my offer to build a gizmo that instrumented
fuel flow in real time so we could actually test it.
By the time I got it done a week later, He'd disappeared.
Guess he really didn't want to know the facts.

Most interesting part of the whole process was his story
about how he forgot to turn off the hydrogen generator overnight.
Next morning, he blew the valve covers off the engine when
he tried to start it.

[Morris Dovey]

On 5/3/13 9:40 PM, mike wrote:
> On 5/3/2013 8:16 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:
>> On 5/2/13 4:47 PM, mike wrote:
>>
>>> Would be interesting to see the theory.
>>
>> It’s a relatively straightforward Carnot cycle / Stirling / fluidyne
>> engine. There’s an abundance of educational material on the web in
>> addition to the specifics I provide in my web pages.
>
> I don't pretend to understand any of that except that temperature
> differences and/or pressure differences are required to make it work.
> And the upper bound of energy output is the energy you put thru it.

Yes, the energy that goes in is the energy that comes out. :-)

The upper bound on efficiency of thermal-to-mechanical energy conversion
is determined solely by hot and cold side temperatures, and the goals
are to maximize the operating ∆P and the cycle frequency.

>>> Sounds like an evening project.
>>
>> With temperature above 705˚F and pressure above 3200 PSIA, I’m inclined
>> to proceed a bit more deliberately.
>
> Which begs the question, "why pick water with an exceedingly high
> critical pressure?"

The most obvious answers were listed together in my post before last.

> Ethanol would reduce your pressures considerably.
> And helium is supercritical at 2.24 atm at any temperature you'd
> care to operate it.

True, but at low pressures both are too compressible and provide
inadequate dP/dT behavior - and you might want to consider the
difficulty of inducing the high degree of ionization required.

Speaking of which, how would you go about ionizing Helium?

> I'm doin' all this naysayin', but it's easy to put me in my place with
> some simple theoretical/experimental results. And that's all I'm trying
> to make visible. I don't wanna read websites or watch youtubes.

I’m not interested in putting anyone in their place - and I can’t see
publishig results before the experimentation is completed.

> I wanna see YOUR analysis/plan/results...with real predicted/measured
> numbers.

Okay. When/if I have those online I’ll let you know - but then you’ll
still need to read at least one web site. :-)

> I'll even volunteer to help.

If you had useful knowledge, your offer to offer would be appreciated,
but without that I can’t see that you’d be able to help.

--
Morris Dovey
http://www.iedu.com/Solar

[mike]

On 5/3/2013 10:35 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> On 5/3/13 9:40 PM, mike wrote:
>> On 5/3/2013 8:16 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:
>>> On 5/2/13 4:47 PM, mike wrote:
>>>
>>>> Would be interesting to see the theory.
>>>
>>> It’s a relatively straightforward Carnot cycle / Stirling / fluidyne
>>> engine. There’s an abundance of educational material on the web in
>>> addition to the specifics I provide in my web pages.
>>
>> I don't pretend to understand any of that except that temperature
>> differences and/or pressure differences are required to make it work.
>> And the upper bound of energy output is the energy you put thru it.
>
> Yes, the energy that goes in is the energy that comes out. :-)
>
> The upper bound on efficiency of thermal-to-mechanical energy conversion
> is determined solely by hot and cold side temperatures, and the goals
> are to maximize the operating ∆P and the cycle frequency.

Correct me if I'm wrong...to maintain the superfluid, you have to keep
the end sections above 374F. If you don't use superfluid, you can keep
the cold ends at ambient. That almost doubles deltaT. What properties
do you gain from the superfluid that surpass that?

I can't support the argument, but my gut tells me that the mass of the
medium matters. For massive media, you have less physical movement.
F=MA. So, for the fluid "sloshing" back and forth in the engine,
the frequency is inversely proportional to the mass of the medium.
You want the path length of the "slosh" to be greater than the diameter
of the pipe. You want movement over the whole length of the magnetic
field. More heavy ions may not be better. For a fixed amount of energy
to accelerate 'em, maybe you want fewer, faster moving ions???

I have a second gut feeling. If you have two pressure waves in opposite
direction, what happens if you put an obstruction in the center of the
pipe? Does the pressure wave in the opposite direction differ from
a reflection off the obstruction in the middle? Stated another way,
can you run two half-pipes in parallel using the same magnetic
field for both constrictions?

Damn, I keep having gut feelings...
In a conventional MHD you start with a plasma and send it thru the magnet.
The ions do their thing and the whole mess gets sent out the exhaust.
In a closed system, you have to recreate the ions. Assuming that
takes energy, how much does that subtract from the total output?

>
>>>> Sounds like an evening project.
>>>
>>> With temperature above 705˚F and pressure above 3200 PSIA, I’m inclined
>>> to proceed a bit more deliberately.
>>
>> Which begs the question, "why pick water with an exceedingly high
>> critical pressure?"
>
> The most obvious answers were listed together in my post before last.
>
>> Ethanol would reduce your pressures considerably.
>> And helium is supercritical at 2.24 atm at any temperature you'd
>> care to operate it.
>
> True, but at low pressures both are too compressible and provide
> inadequate dP/dT behavior - and you might want to consider the
> difficulty of inducing the high degree of ionization required.

I can understand that for Helium, but isn't Ethanol about the same
mass as water? Critical pressure is about 1/7th.

>
> Speaking of which, how would you go about ionizing Helium?

Pretty much the same way you ionize water...you don't.
You put something else in with it.
But I am thinking more in terms of plasma where you just supply
enough energy to make it come apart.

>
>> I'm doin' all this naysayin', but it's easy to put me in my place with
>> some simple theoretical/experimental results. And that's all I'm trying
>> to make visible. I don't wanna read websites or watch youtubes.
>
> I’m not interested in putting anyone in their place - and I can’t see
> publishig results before the experimentation is completed.

Standard development process is to start with a theory, propose an
implementation,
predict the results, then build it to verify results.

>
>> I wanna see YOUR analysis/plan/results...with real predicted/measured
>> numbers.
>
> Okay. When/if I have those online I’ll let you know - but then you’ll
> still need to read at least one web site. :-)

I have asked for links to sites that describe your working theory.

>
>> I'll even volunteer to help.
>
> If you had useful knowledge, your offer to offer would be appreciated,
> but without that I can’t see that you’d be able to help.

This has become polarized. Not my intention.

I've been probing you for information/understanding.
So far, I've got buzz words and generalization.

Let's say I wanted to duplicate what you're doing, but start small.
Ignoring the superfluid and the MHD for the moment and concentrating
on the heat engine.
I take my Bunsen burner and a chunk of glass tubing.
I heat the glass and stretch it to neck down a section.
I close up the ends. I heat the hot end and cool the cold end.
Should I be able to detect the acoustic wave created by the gas
oscillating back and forth? If not, what else do I need do?
What should be the relative lengths of the hot section, cold
section and reduced diameter section?

Telling me to google it won't help either of us. You should be
able to articulate in a few sentences what to do to make it oscillate,
cuz that's the basis of your project.

I'll go up in the attic to see if I can find the Bunsen.
I really am trying to learn and help.

[Morris Dovey]

On 5/4/13 3:18 AM, mike wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong...to maintain the superfluid, you have to keep
> the end sections above 374F. If you don't use superfluid, you can keep
> the cold ends at ambient. That almost doubles deltaT. What properties
> do you gain from the superfluid that surpass that?

Reduction of viscosity and greater ∆P.

> I can't support the argument, but my gut tells me that the mass of the
> medium matters. For massive media, you have less physical movement.
> F=MA. So, for the fluid "sloshing" back and forth in the engine,
> the frequency is inversely proportional to the mass of the medium.
> You want the path length of the "slosh" to be greater than the diameter
> of the pipe. You want movement over the whole length of the magnetic
> field. More heavy ions may not be better. For a fixed amount of energy
> to accelerate 'em, maybe you want fewer, faster moving ions???

The frequency depends more on the rates of heat transfer and ∆P. Note
that within the ionized working fluid, we may be dealing more with
charge migration than actual movement of the atoms themselves...

> I have a second gut feeling. If you have two pressure waves in opposite
> direction, what happens if you put an obstruction in the center of the
> pipe? Does the pressure wave in the opposite direction differ from
> a reflection off the obstruction in the middle? Stated another way,
> can you run two half-pipes in parallel using the same magnetic
> field for both constrictions?

I think this might be a really good question. I’ll guess that the
practical solution will be two distinct (synchronized) fields.

> Damn, I keep having gut feelings...
> In a conventional MHD you start with a plasma and send it thru the magnet.
> The ions do their thing and the whole mess gets sent out the exhaust.
> In a closed system, you have to recreate the ions. Assuming that
> takes energy, how much does that subtract from the total output?

You might be over-thinking here. In a closed system the radicals aren’t
destroyed, they just gain or lose electrons, and both the radicals and a
portion of the heat energy are recycled.

>> True, but at low pressures both are too compressible and provide
>> inadequate dP/dT behavior - and you might want to consider the
>> difficulty of inducing the high degree of ionization required.

> I can understand that for Helium, but isn't Ethanol about the same
> mass as water? Critical pressure is about 1/7th.

I don’t have good numbers for ethanol, but (intuitively, from the Ideal
Gas Law) ∆P should then also be about 1/7th.

> Standard development process is to start with a theory, propose an
> implementation, predict the results, then build it to verify results.

Yeah, I’m probably approaching it all wrong - I have no theory and am
looking to discover whether observed results from other work can be used
to effect a pair of energy conversions simply and inexpensively.

>>> I wanna see YOUR analysis/plan/results...with real predicted/measured
>>> numbers.
>>
>> Okay. When/if I have those online I’ll let you know - but then you’ll
>> still need to read at least one web site. :-)
> I have asked for links to sites that describe your working theory.
>>
>>> I'll even volunteer to help.
>>
>> If you had useful knowledge, your offer to offer would be appreciated,
>> but without that I can’t see that you’d be able to help.
> This has become polarized. Not my intention.

> I've been probing you for information/understanding.
> So far, I've got buzz words and generalization.

The buzz words are search terms which lead to the specific information
you seemed to want. In blunt words, you aren’t entitled to spoon
feeding, and I have neither the time nor the energy to do so.

> Let's say I wanted to duplicate what you're doing, but start small.
> Ignoring the superfluid and the MHD for the moment and concentrating
> on the heat engine.

That was my starting point and, from experience, it’s a good one.

> I take my Bunsen burner and a chunk of glass tubing.
> I heat the glass and stretch it to neck down a section.
> I close up the ends. I heat the hot end and cool the cold end.
> Should I be able to detect the acoustic wave created by the gas
> oscillating back and forth? If not, what else do I need do?
> What should be the relative lengths of the hot section, cold
> section and reduced diameter section?

You’ve made an incorrect (but unfortunately common) assumption - the
engine parameters do NOT scale in linear fashion.

> Telling me to google it won't help either of us. You should be
> able to articulate in a few sentences what to do to make it oscillate,
> cuz that's the basis of your project.

Okay, a few sentences of intro: It is a thermodynamic state machine with
exactly four distinct states, none of which are stable, and it is
constrained to transition between these states in strict sequential
order. The independent variables which determine the states and the
transitions between them are energy, pressure, volume, and time. It’s
useful to think of temperature as another independent variable. The
relationships which describe at least two of the transitions are non-linear.

The (ugly) answer to your request: You make it oscillate by choosing the
coordinates for the four states and building a mechanical (plumbing)
construct which supports those states and the transitions between them,
and then applying (and removing) thermal energy as per your design. If
your design and construction are good, the damn thing will cycle.

> I'll go up in the attic to see if I can find the Bunsen.
> I really am trying to learn and help.

It’s not as simple as either of us would like, and I’m really not the
right guy to teach anyone thermodynamics, heat transfer, or fluid
dynamics (all of which come into play). What I have learned has been the
result of focusing very narrowly on those portions of needed disciplines
which seem to apply - and most of what I learned I organized as best I
was able, added photographs and data plots, and put on web pages to share.

Having done that, I find myself unwilling to re-type it all into usenet
posts. I’m leaving those footprints behind and trying to move forward.
Simply put, I don’t have time to rehash old stuff while I’m struggling
with the stuff that’s still undone.

Something that might help if you decide to build: It seems easier to get
larger engines working than smaller ones, especially for those just
getting started.

--
Morris Dovey
http://www.iedu.com/Solar/Engines

[tada...@gmail.com]

You are correct. Viscosity cooks!

WOMP WOMP

Tom