How to Debunk a Free Energy Device

[fleubis]

We have impending demo's of Daniel Pomerlou's technology again in Monteal....and without going into the merits or demerits of his offering, I am looking for suggestions as to HOW TO TEST for fakery, so far very knowlegeable people are coming away shaking their heads and the word "impossible" is being frequently used. He seems willing to allow tests at his demos, question is what instrumention to bring. Already tried ammeter, voltmeter, wattmeter, RF detector. We have high current, DC Voltage and no RF or AC detected. What else can we take to the demo to try and find the source of the power?

[David Rosignoli]

This is a common enough mistake - to use voltmeters and ammeters to measure non-sinusoidal waveforms. A high bandwidth scope is needed to measure current and voltage, multiply the two, and get the average power. For a nice summary of this, go to
http://www.padrak.com/ine/DANGERSPOWER.html

[Frank Sanns]

Ask him to produce a result that means something. Get him to power one city block in Montreal for 24 hours. If he does then he has something. But he won't because he can't.

If this guy really had something he would not be inviting people to try to figure out his Rube Goldberg but would be putting the effort into making money and getting it out to the market. You have already debunked him! Go enjoy the great city of Montreal and forget about the Charlatins.

Frank S.

[Todd Massure]

Someone else here - I forget who, suggested that one must be able to power the device with it's own output (assuming that it needs input power) This seems like the true test to me!

[DaveC]

There's a principle that could apply here: If there's no evidence that he has in fact produced output energy with no input energy, then no one is obligated to explain how he did it. He's a magician, and it's only a trick. Entertaining? Yes. Will it "power Montreal"... No.

But... to determine IF it is a trick, you need careful, accurate measurements of both POWER and ENERGY. Frequently, (in my experience with this type of claim) the inventor confuses power and energy. Electrical types can sometimes get drawn into a confused explanation and also mix these concepts.

As David has said, you need fast, multichannel real time oscilloscopes to simultaneously measure instantaneous input voltage, and current and output voltage and current - over a number of cycles of operation.

The scopes need to be fast, because, you need to resolve the fastest transitions in his signals. Then after a sufficiently long data run... the captured input and output traces, need to be digitally processed.

The input current and voltage data are multiplied, in narrow time slices, and the products added, (keeping the algebraic polarities correct) to give total input energy over a reasonable number of cycles. The same is also done with the output current and voltage - over the exact same time interval.

Device efficiency is just the ratio of output ENERGY to input ENERGY. Device power is the output energy divided by time.

Most of the confusion tends to come from considering the product of peak output voltage and peak output current to be the output power. It's not in most cases, since the current and voltage usually do not peak at the same time. Same is true for the input power.

Running a nice stout resistive load, a heater or good old fashioned lamp bank (100W incandescent bulbs) would be a good demo. Heating a measured amount of water, is also good.

Also, plan for a significant test time... perhaps an hr long... the shorter the test duration, the more opportunity for smoke and mirrors


The first issue is - Does it work. Not, How does it work?
If it works, then it's appropriate to talk about how it works.

Have fun. These things are neat, learning experiences...

Dave Cooper

[HighVoltageFox]

Last time I checked, energy cannot be created and 'Free' energy works on the basic idea that you can create energy. If they claim that the energy comes from the 'natural' energy floating in space, then it is not 'Free', it is basically the same thing as wind mills. And since energy does not just sit in space ready to be collected, by deffinition energy is movement, its collection from the 'ether' is impossible when there is nothing to collect. Hence a 'Free" energy machine would have to create energy to have more output than input, science says its impossible.

A.H

[001userid]

One may look for heat or cold in the devices. I remember years ago when playing with electrolysis, I went over unity (or at least I thought so). It turned out that sunlight was giving me a big helping hand. I was king of the world for about a day. Then sober reality set in.
Joe Sal

[fleubis]

I'd thought a scope would be the instrument of choice. I am considering taking a Scopemeter 199 with me. I had thought of taking an RF spectrum analyzer--but too bulky, and really don't expect to see much. Remember we get DC output with a diode in the line Don't really want to consider his claims--everyone here knows why it cannot work, but have got to prove that it is faked. The padrak link is very useful and I am very grateful for this info. Thinking of taking a Scopemeter 199. I think the bandwidth is wide enough, but am rather fearful of burning it out. Also am considering taking an antenna analyzer--I can meaure between 1 - 30 Mhz and see if there is a resonant frequency in this mess of coils. By the way most of his devices are self-powering--no batteries and no capacitors--just coils, no dropoff in power even using the output to do welding for half an hour.

[fleubis]

Did I mention that this device produces DC? My colleagues point out that the padrak methodology is centered on AC voltages, but at least we can establish if we actually have pure DC without a hidden AC component.

[Richard Hull]

I've see a million of 'em come and go.

Those looking to tap the quantum vacuum (zero point) are actually feeding off of quantum theory which posits that there must be such a thing (mathematically) for quantum theory to function! However, the quantumists are quick to point out that it can't be tapped as it is a uniform isotropic energetic medium with a macroscopically summed net energy at the zero point of .....you guessed it.....Zero.

This doesn't discourage many in the field who feel that they can create an anisotropic energy wedge and tap in to the universal dynamic. If these bastards succeed then all my thoughts regarding potential energies are the baby's bath water. Tesla's hopes and dreams would be realized and his worst fears cast off. I have always believed in Tesla worst fears to be the correct universal edict. We live in a totally potential energy universe. There is no pure, universal, omnipresent dynamic energy. We have all the energy we are going to get and it is potential in nature waiting for us to find it and use it to convert to useful, albeit temporary kinetic or dynamic energy.

On a universal scale, the net energy is 99.9999999999999999999% recyclable. On the microscopic, local scale in the .05 ev to 100mev range, potential energies can be almost totally exhausted. (Their are only so many localized PE bullets to put in our PE to Dynamic Energy conversion gun.) Of course there are bullets still laying all over the place, we just haven't obtained a gun chambered for those yet.

Richard Hull

[fleubis]

OK, some of his devices have 1 or 2 flashlight batteries, others have no input at all, no capacitors, in fact he passes the clear plexiglass boards with working devices around the audience with these ridiculous, apparently hapazardly wound coils--one of which is even wound around a piece of uncooked macaroni.

You don't need to tell me how impossible all this is, but I feel our chances of testing this are limited before someone shuts him down, and a best effort should be made to determine how his stuff works while we still have a change since he admitedly does not know himself. Some say this guy is a savant, others so not so. But anyway tests so far say pure voltage and pure amperage with no ac component discovered so far. Compare output vs input? Pretty tough when you can't find the input!

James

[Alex Aitken]

In my opinion there is no point going with devices expecting to test the validity. It simply isnt possible.

Treat it like a magic show. Ooooh and Ahhh at the right moment and try and enjoy it.

Powering input from the output works as a criterion, but only if you can build the device yourself, only if its honest.

If someone has set out to decieve, they could easily succeed. Anything from powering it with radioactive waste, to the plexiglass turning out to be a transparent gel battery is possible. If the things worked for real he wouldn't be letting anyone know, he'd start up a small power station, and sell juice to the grid - there are people doing it with water mills, he certainly could and he'd be rich by the time anyone noticed he never used any fuel.

Economics will be the true test of the technology where details are concealed from the science world.

Its nice to believe that there is a solution, if just you get there before the feds turn up with the brainwashing drugs, but this is a fantasy.