Hi Jack, I have started doing a little digging into the electrical implementation of typical spot welders. Basically it appears that the spot welder arms are just the output of a low voltage transformer (probably with a saturating core). What this means is that the output will be AC current and voltage. One thing to test is to make sure that the spot welder arms are open circuit to the primary.
- Can you measure the DC resistance between the arms and the ground terminal on the power plug? We need to make sure that you will not damage your oscilloscope. Also, since the output is AC, it may be safer to measure the current with a clip-on current probe. If you don't have one, you can make one. However, if you use a clip-on probe, you will have to calibrate it with an AC current. I will also draw a diagram for how I think you can make your measurement and will post it. Bob On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 6:57 AM, Jack Cole <jcol...@gmail.com> wrote: > Bob, > > I'm getting ready to work on implementing what you suggested. > > Could you take a look at this sketch to see if this is what you are > suggesting for hooking up the oscilloscope? > > > http://www.lenr-coldfusion.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/power-measurement.png > > I won't be able to do 10 amps for calibration, but I can do anything up to > 5 amps with my lab power supply. > > Best regards, > Jack > > > > On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 6:39 PM, Bob Higgins <rj.bob.higg...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Jack, >> >> You are on the verge of the LENR precipice - where you dive off into the >> meat of the phenomenon. What you are seeing is that it is hard to discover >> whether anything special has been achieved. How do you whether something >> special has happened? Well, you need to measure the energy balance. Only >> if you measure more energy out than is put into the reaction with >> electrical power and chemical enthalpy, did something special happen. A >> big flash doesn't tell you anything. A flashbulb can be ignited with an AA >> battery and will make a very bright flash - due to the chemical energy of >> the burning metal. This spot welder will create a plasma hot enough to >> ignite many metals and when you put the water there it dissociates to >> provide a high concentration of O2 - you get the chemical effect of the >> burning metal. >> >> Mills claims that his metal host is not burned and is re-usable. That >> must be a really refractory metal to not burn at plasma temperatures. >> Let's say that he is correct. The plasma still dissociates the H2O into >> H, O, OH, H2, and O2 and these will re-combine within the ejecta creating a >> hydrogen flash which will be very hot and bright. Did he produce >> over-unity? I wasn't convinced by what I saw that he showed. >> >> Jumping over the precipice, you will need to use one of the big copper >> arms as a current shunt. Connect a lead across two points on one arm. Use >> another calibrated source to run X known amps (lets say 10A) of current >> across the two points and see what voltage you get out. Calculate the >> shunt resistance as a calibration factor. Now you can use a digital >> storage oscilloscope to measure the differential voltage and capture the >> current waveshape. Next you need an oscilloscope connection across the two >> arms to simulaneously (with the current measurement) measure the voltage >> across the contacts - the connections don't have to be super close to the >> contacts because the voltage drop across the big conductors will be small. >> Then you can capture the voltage waveform. I don't think it will exceed >> 50V. To test, you can put a diode to capacitor across the gap and capture >> the peak voltage to know what you will need to protect against. You will >> need the simultaneous voltage and current waveform to calculate the input >> energy. There are other ways to do this, but this provides a lot of >> information. >> >> So how do you measure the power out? You can build a water calorimeter. >> In fact, you could fire the whole thing inside high resistance deionized >> water which would do a pretty good job of capturing all of the heat. You >> would need to put a blackened piece of pipe around it in the water to >> capture the light and thermalize it into the water. If you embed the >> electrodes reasonably well into the water, you may be able to avoid most of >> the error for the heat that goes into the electrodes. Calculate heat by >> temperature rise of the water. With practice, you will be able to measure >> the joules (energy) in and joules out from heat rise. You will need to >> stir the water and measure the water in multiple points. You will need an >> insulated container. >> >> Either that, our you need to be good at telling stories about the big >> fish that got away (is this Mills?). >> >> BTW, I applaud your efforts. >> >> Bob Higgins >> >> >> On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 2:13 PM, Jack Cole <jcol...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Now that I have demonstrated a roughly equivalent level of light with >>> nitinol (comparing dry and dipped in water), I believe it invalidates the >>> hypothesis that there is something special going on here. The light >>> intensity with nitinol was far greater than any other trial with or without >>> the addition of water. So, it may well be that Dave's theory is >>> correct--that it is produced by higher impedance (and impedance matching >>> with the transformer). I wouldn't say this invalidates Mills work, but >>> strongly suggests to me that we are not seeing anything special with this >>> portable spot welder. I'll try some other things, and report back if there >>> is anything of interest. >>> >>> You can see what happens with nitinol here: >>> http://youtu.be/KTZ6UtUpvbg >>> >>> The full set of comparison photos is here: >>> http://www.lenr-coldfusion.com/2014/08/26/sun-cell-lite-testing/ >>> >>> Jack >>> >>> Hi Folks, >>> >>> I was excited to receive my spot welder today. After ensuring it was in >>> working order, I decided to get right to it and see if I could get anything >>> like what BLP showed. Lo and behold I got something on the first try. >>> >>> I remembered Mills talking about all the different possibilities for >>> types of conductors that they might use in the commercial device, and >>> copper was one of them. I cut a very small piece of copper wire, dipped it >>> in water, placed it on the electrodes, hit the switch, and pop with some >>> bright light! >>> >>> Here's a link to the vid. Sorry for the bad camera work. >>> >>> Let me know what you think. I'll do another vid soon in complete >>> darkness. >>> >>> http://youtu.be/d6XYqEhwZgA >>> >>> Jack >>> >> >> >
