On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:49 PM, Terry Blanton <hohlr...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <sa...@pobox.com> wrote: >> >> >> On 02/09/2011 01:28 PM, Terry Blanton wrote: >>> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <sa...@pobox.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Who, besides yourself, has said the reaction rate is being electrically >>>> controlled to keep the steam temperature at 101.6 C? >>>> >>> Levi's report says the control box contains 5 digital PLC's. I >>> presumed they were programmable logic controllers and regulated the >>> "hot spots" in the reactor. >>> >>> I think Rossi's Ecat is far more complex than you give him credit. >>> >> >> Indeed, perhaps it is. >> >> And in the demo they lost the main heater and the steam temperature and >> flow rate remained unchanged, steam coming out at 101.6 C and flow rate >> still determined by the fixed rate of the pump. Isn't that what Levi's >> report also said? Or am I misremembering that? >> >> I would love to see a statement by someone a little closer to the core >> team that the output temp is tightly regulated by the heater current, >> via precise control of the reaction rate. > > > The heater is in five segments. My guess is there is a need to > maintain a gradient in order to start the reactor and that is the work > of the PLCs. > > They lost two of the five segments but were able to get the reactor to > start regardless. Curiously, Levi says that they could not get it to > self - sustain with only three working segments like they did in the > December test. > > Kewl, eh? It broke but they still make it work. The old Rolls Royces > had both a hand crank and a electric starter. :-)
Oh, I seem to remember that self - sustain meant working at only 100 W electrical input. T
