Interesting article but it does raise the "lead-acid battery red flag".
(This will be the last "skeptical" reply I send for a while, I promise.)
Jones Beene wrote:
EV Gray was another one of those controversial inventors, who was
either genius or scam artist, depending on one's POV, and other
agendas. Below is a new slant on this chapter in the history of
alternative energy.
Gray invented a "Fuelless Engine" which operated on a new principle,
and he claimed that it was to be able to 'split the positive' energy
of electricity, in order to produce a self-running motor/generator as
well as recharge batteries. Presumably this goes beyond the use of
back emf, and it is possible that the meaning of "split the positive"
has been mis-interpreted to mean an actual splitting of the positive
charge from ionic charge carriers ... or not.
Problem is- little proof of overunity survives, and the most
convincing evidence was abandoned by the inventor himself, later in
his life. There is a lot of reference material online, including his
patents, the later of which are very different from the first on in
many 'telling' ways.
http://www.rexresearch.com/evgray/1gray.htm#13
In recent years, Peter Lindemann and Norman Wootan have converted and
dramatized the Gray lore into a mini-industry, selling videos and
books and lectures. These are provocative and high in rhetoric but
naked of any convincing proof or scientific documentation. They also
neglect, or at least fail to emphasize, the most glaring issue - which
is the huge difference between the early Gray work (around '73) and
the later work (the two patents from '86 and '87). The was an
intervening personal "implosion" so to speak.
There are a few observers today who are of the opinion that there was
a large kernel of truth to the EV Gray story, but that it will NOT be
found in rehashing the totality of information available, because Gray
himself was not aware of what he had discovered. In fact, in later
years Gray veered completely off-course and was never able to show
anything as convincing as he did in 1973.
At that time, the motor was operated into a 10 HP dynamometer load at
1100 rpm. This power output is 7460 watts. The battery power available
from the four batteries would have been 5454 watt-hours, had they been
pushing a normal load until total discharge. However, with this kind
of arc-discharge load, the total battery power consumed by the motor
was less than 30 watt-hours actual. Consequently, the amount of work
done was hundreds of time more than it should have been.
But if the plates were actually being consumed -- burned through? --
then don't you need to know what reaction was actually taking place in
the batteries which was eating the plates in order to determine how much
chemical energy was actually liberated before the batteries died?
The system in one test operated continuously for over 200 hours with
the four batteries without recharging. The batteries used were lead
acid and notably they were supplied by Malloy with extra thick plates,
What does the extra thickness do to the battery capacity? This seems
particularly relevant given that the plates were actually being eroded
in one way or another -- could that have led to exposing more of the
interior of the plates, and consequently led to a substantial increase
in "effective capacity" of the batteries over the name-plate capacity
(which assumes non-destructive recharging)?
Since they weren't off-the-shelf batteries it seems like we're already
in a somewhat gray area regarding what their capacity "really was".
which did fail eventually. That should have been the engineering task
at hand, had fate not intervened in a strange set of legal and
personal problems.
If one were to freeze the EV Gray tale in in time - circa 1973 - when
he was able to raise a reputed $6 million from investors (back when
that amount was serious money) - only to later waste it all and more
(mostly on attorneys and the 'high life') then a different picture
emerges of what was happening, and what the operative source of OU
consisted-of.
After 1980, Gray's focus changed, and he tried many things which did
not work as well, but ... back in '73 he Gray describes the operation
of his motor as "similar to recreating lightning". IOW it was based on
high voltage cathode discharge. His VP of engineering (who was trained
as an EE but later left the company after the venture capital
disappeared) said that a series of high-voltage 'energy spikes' are
transferred in a the recycle/regeneration system for recharging the
batteries with 60 to 120-amp pulses, while at the same time driving a
motor.
Isn't pulse-charging a lead acid battery part of the known recipe for
producing "extra energy" from the battery in exchange for "burning it up"?
In short, the principle of the engine is to create arc discharges and
recycle energy back and forth between cathode discharges and coils
(tank circuit), and in a such a way that the coils are electromagnets
driving a motor. Every time the electromagnets are energized from the
peak of shuttling transients, emf is converted to torque but at the
same time, a remnant charge goes back into the battery.
For unknown reasons, in later years and after he has sold the initial
rights, Gray moved away from the battery self-recharging MO (modus
operandi) and tried many other techniques, but was never again able to
demonstrate the dramatic effects which he showed to investors in 1973.
Is it possible he suspected that the results with the batteries were
directly related to the consumption of the batteries themselves, rather
than an over-unity process in the system? Batteries make very expensive
fuel, after all.
Features of the batteries used included extra-large plates and a
specially formulated lead oxide composition. Mallory Electric
Corporation of Carson City, NV, was a major contribution toward the
design of the batteries and the electronic pulsing system; and - get
this - ended up with early patent rights.
BTW, Malloy Electric is a story in itself. If there is any prime
candidate for "suppression" of promising technology - it is this
outfit. Malloy was more of an international franchise and licensing
company, but with strong ties to Detroit. More attention needs to be
focused on them and their role in all of this.
Maybe some investigative journalist will pick up this story with an
emphasis on uncovering the truth behind Malloy Electric - and its
connection to the "Gray Matter". Who knows what is squirming under
that stone?
Jones
