Why don't people just go look at the electric company's meter?
On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Eric Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 4:02 PM, David Roberson <[email protected]>wrote: > > It is obvious that this reading remained stuck at 100 C during a lot of >> time as the power output was being ramped up. I expected this to occur. > > > At first I thought the demonstration was completely copacetic from the > limited amount of video that I watched. But one detail struck me as odd > upon further reflection. The total input reported in LabView (HV+heaters) > was off by kilowatts from what Mats Lewan measured with the ammeter at the > wall, if I remember correctly. (I am not sure whether the ammeter was his > -- it might have been his, or it might have been provided by Defkalion.) > > That presents an awkward situation: > > 1. Defkalion do not know how to measure input power, > 2. Mats Lewan does not know how to use an ammeter, > 3. the ammeter is defective, > 4. or something else. > > This discrepancy got me thinking, and as a working hypothesis I'm going > with (4), above, for now. Here is why. In absolute terms, the difference > in input power (whichever way you go) does not invalidate the potential > amazingness of the demo, for the reported output was many kilowatts above > even the adjusted input, so, prima facie, there is something potentially > very promising that was demoed. But there could be secondary reasons to > get the input wrong (HV, specifically). One reason could be related to the > temperature of the substrate. Early on I suspected that spark plugs were > being used in order to get an ion channel. But now I wonder whether they > might not be used instead to obtain rapid and substantial control over the > temperature of the substrate -- to make it very hot, but to be able to > decrease the temperature quickly if necessary. Perhaps spark plugs could > achieve this more easily than Joule heating. If this is the case, there > would be pressure not to advertise to the world that high substrate > temperatures are important to achieving an effect, something that would be > possible to infer from the HV input measurement. > > Eric > >
