At 10:46 PM 8/10/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <<mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
No, they wouldn't. You can use the resolution to make temperature
comparisons. Jed, maybe I misread the specifications. I did not,
however, make this up. And I do know for a fact that most
instruments have higher resolution than accuracy.
I have not seen an electronic thermometer that does.
Apples and Oranges. Sure, it might be possible to calibrate the
thing. Galantini mentioned no calibration.
If you don't calibrate, it does not work. No tool works if you do
not follow directions and you use it wrong. My Geo Metro gets 35
mpg. If you borrow it and you never shift out of first gear, you
will not get 35 mpg. Plus I suppose you would wreck the transmission.
Now, I didn't check something. There is a high-precision probe, but
Galantini has not specified it.
It does have an accuracy of +/- 0.05 C.
However, Galantini, in his mail to Krivit, said he used "testo 176
H2" That's a 4-channel data logger for temperature and humidity.
Accuracy, +/- 0.4 C. (Resolution 0.1 C). But those are the probes
that come with it.
Well, maybe he is confused in that case. Maybe he forgot which probe
he used. Again, this is like what you said above: maybe he did not
calibrate. Yes, we all agree that if you don't calibrate or you use
the wrong probe, it does not work. Yes, people do make mistakes.
(I think my HH12B auto-adjusts the display from 0.1 deg C to show 1
deg C when you put a different kind of probe with a wide range into
it. Haven't got one . . .)
He used another kind of instrument in earlier tests.
As I recall, same accuracy and resolution. However, it's tedious to
keep going over and over this. The +/- 0.4 C probes are displayed by
the device with 0.1 degree resolution. It would make no sense to have
a probe with +/- 0.05 C accuracy and display that with only 0.1 C
resolution. So I'm quite sure that the higher accuracy probe will
display with more resolution. Looking at the data reported from the
demonstrations, all of them report to 0.1 C. Hence, my conclusion
about the resolution of the device with its probe is....
Lucky guess!
This isn't about percentage accuracy. It's about absolute
temperature accuracy.
I know. You have to calibrate to achieve that. That's what the
manual says. Put it in boiling water. Compare it to a better
instrument. That's what you have to do with at $74 electronic
thermometer. Then, for the rest of the week, you can be sure it will
hit the same spot accurately.
Only Mats Lewan reported calibration like that. But pressure is also
important, because, of course, boiling point depends on pressure. I
see no sign that the actual pressure inside the E-cat was measured
directly. However, it's easy to infer from the temperature and the
behavior that the pressure was elevated enough to explain the
elevated steam temperature, that this elevated temperature was not a
symptom of "dry steam." That's one place where Galantini totally fell
on his face.
This is what we'd see with dry steam: As the E-cat reaches full
operating temperature, the temperature would very slowly rise as the
steam pressure increases. At first, overflow water would continue,
gradually reducing as the vaporization was increased. When the device
reaches maximum generation, to reach full vaporization, the water
level must lower, because until more heating surface is removed from
direct contact with liquid water, the steam temperature cannot
increase over boiling. Full vaporization will not occur even if all
input water is being emitted as "normally wet" steam. What would be
seen, then, would be the gradual increase in temperature mentioned,
as heat evolution increases and as that increased heat is conducted
to the coolant chamber. When the outflow water increases beyond
input, there would be a region of relatively constant temperature as
the level lowers. At some point the coolant chamber walls would start
to heat beyond boiling as the level lowers. At this point temperature
would start to rise again and dryness would increase, and fairly
quickly, I'd guess, the steam would become fully dry, being truly
heated beyond boiling. It's looking like the power controls on the
E-cat are crude, power may only be adjusted in 5% or 10% of full
power increments.
Thus exact regulation is unlikely unless complex regulation were
used, when all indications are that the control is simply manual,
with the dimmers.
There is no sign in any of the reports of the increase of temperature
beyond a value cosistent with mildly elevated pressure due to some
steam generation in a space with a relatively small exit port.
Therefore there is no evidence of truly dry steam. Therefore the
original Galantini report of "dry steam" was non-quantitative and
only an almost certainly false impression he derived from apparent
misconceptions about the behavior of steam and the function of the
device he employed. In his recent report, he does provide an estimate
of steam wetness that contradicts his impression that the increased
temperature indicated dry steam. With a few percent of wetness, the
steam temperature would be nailed to boiling for the pressure, which
can therefore be calculated, depending on that relationship.
