Fusion at home, open source, funding

[Centraflow]

I thought I would post this video, just shows what can be done if positive feedback is given to thoughs not trained or qualified in what they are doing, egotistic critics are not wanted, here even top scientists in the world gave positive help to him and not try to shoot him down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jvkoklpubiw

Mike

[PhysicsProf]

  Shows what a person can do at home -- hurray for him and his work!  Very positive, and encourages us to press forward likewise.
Thanks, Mike.

[Peterae]

Fantastic, probably an eye opener for a lot of people been put of attempting complicated stuff, very interesting about the tech he has implemented to achieve his goal including the possibility of raising funds.

Major breakthroughs and research is now not needed to be funded by big corporations, maybe we will start to see cures for illnesses instead of treatments only, maybe one day a crowd funded trip to mars will be possible, maybe crowd funding can be used to launch satellites to keep an eye on our governments LOL.

We are in the age of information and soon we will be in the age of people power.

[AllPhase]

Tell me if I am wrong here, BUT even if a person had a WORKING Fusion Machine it is NOT the ultimate device, because it doesn't produce any electricity or mechanical motion.

Fusion devices just output Heat.  Therefore, it would REQUIRE a BOILER to produce steam.  Then the steam has to drive a High Speed TURBINE.

Then the Turbine has to drive a TRANSMISSION to lower the RPMs to drive a 1800 or 3600 RPM GENERATOR.

I am PUZZLED why anybody is excited about this invention.  Comments welcome.

.


                                                                                         .

[Peterae]

I think the important thing here AP is that the fuel is Hydrogen and is abundantly cheap, the fusion process is clean & non polluting, the resulting heat could be used in a number of ways using existing tech.

The planet needs a clean source of energy fast, the problem with Fusion is that the people in charge are not very interested because we could all have one in the boot of our car or basement how do you tax that, it's almost on par with Tesla and his energy transmitting tower, the plug was pulled then and the plug is pulled now for fusion, People funding may just do the job.

[Allcanadian]

@Allphase

Tell me if I am wrong here, BUT even if a person had a WORKING Fusion Machine it is NOT the ultimate device, because it doesn't produce any electricity or mechanical motion.
Fusion devices just output Heat.  Therefore, it would REQUIRE a BOILER to produce steam.  Then the steam has to drive a High Speed TURBINE.
Then the Turbine has to drive a TRANSMISSION to lower the RPMs to drive a 1800 or 3600 RPM GENERATOR.

It may help to understand that the system you have described is archaic if not completly obsolete. Almost all new micro-generators use a high speed turbine directly coupled to a brushless PM generator having a high pole count. The high frequency output 600Hz+ is rectified then inverted to 60Hz in some cases but most often "chopped" and assembled into a 60Hz sine waveform.

As well the working fluid is not confined to water and can be refrigerants or gasses such as propane or hydrogen gas. A MHD generator could also be used to reduce the part count or a pulsed plasma generator.

AC

[evolvingape]

Tell me if I am wrong here, BUT even if a person had a WORKING Fusion Machine it is NOT the ultimate device, because it doesn't produce any electricity or mechanical motion.

Fusion devices just output Heat.  Therefore, it would REQUIRE a BOILER to produce steam.  Then the steam has to drive a High Speed TURBINE.

Then the Turbine has to drive a TRANSMISSION to lower the RPMs to drive a 1800 or 3600 RPM GENERATOR.

I am PUZZLED why anybody is excited about this invention.  Comments welcome.

Heat sources are extremely important for generating power, heat engines are the device of choice for doing useful work. As such any heat source prime mover device I am extremely interested in, fusion especially. I do not do any work on developing heat source devices, there are many working on that path, I focus on what to do with the heat once it becomes available to me.

You are correct in that heat can be used to phase change the working fluid, producing static pressure head potential, this potential can then be used to do work. The speed at which the pressure is released is critical for maximising power, and you will often hear me refer to this as Time = 0. I would suggest you study piston dump valves and superheated steam for this aspect.

Turbines... hmmm... you are once again correct the steam produced must drive a turbine. However, it is important to distinguish between pneumatic turbines (gas) and hydraulic turbines (liquid). At best an axial steam turbine (gas) will operate at 50% efficiency, in comparison a hydraulic turbine will operate at 90%+ efficiency and have been around for thousands of years. The problem we have is converting the steam (gas) to hydraulic potential (liquid), if a method for doing this is developed and approaches 90% efficiency then you are really onto something as the 10% loss in the conversion from gas to liquid potential, pneumatic to hydraulic potential, is more than compensated for by the efficiency gain of the turbine choice itself. You will end up with a cheap hydraulic wheel, perfectly scaleable, that massively outperforms an extremely expensive taxpayer funded axial turbine. The key is the energy conversion of the injector process...

Hydraulic turbines, water wheels, rotate at low speed high torque and so no transmission should be required if the injector is correctly sized to the water wheel. Seemless integration with 1800 or 3600 RPM existing technology is a viable option for the correct frequency output. 1800 and 3600 RPM technology is not obsolete, it is everywhere, if you walk into your local machinemart (UK megastore) you will find 2 pole and 4 pole devices everywhere. Pretty much every generator, every pump you can buy, is operating at this rotational frequency and it is an established technology, nice and cheap! To hear that AC considers it archaic and obsolete made me laugh and also triggered "big business" in my mind... hmmm...

This community must use the resources it has at hand, and high speed high pole count chopped AC output is not something that you can do on a shoestring budget, using what is easily available and cheap is something you can do and is a proven technology. As an example modern cars have electronics all over the place, ECU's etc, reliability has gone up and so has the bill if something goes wrong, you can no longer fix it yourself, you gotta pay the monopoly! It is also much harder to innovate and thus prevents the maverick from improving on the system.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that for small scale power generation at home frequency is less of an issue because the generator output can be rectified to DC easily and the energy stored in a battery bank. It is not practical to do this on a large scale and is why the grid is managed to respond to demand. Have a look at this link and study the load profile graph:

http://www.windbluepower.com/Wind_Blue_Motor_Hydro_Permanent_Magnet_Alternator_p/dc-500.htm

1800 RPM should produce enough voltage pressure to charge a single DC battery, 3600 RPM is enough to charge 2off 12V batteries in series (24V). Whatever the rotational speed of your turbine is, as long as it can sustain 14.4V under load it will be enough to store the energy in a battery. If the battery you have cannot accept the high current you can downsize your alternator, there are other lower output versions available that achieve 14.4V at lower speeds:

http://www.windbluepower.com/Permanent_Magnet_Alternator_Wind_Blue_Motor_Wind_p/dc-512.htm

@Allphase
It may help to understand that the system you have described is archaic if not completly obsolete. Almost all new micro-generators use a high speed turbine directly coupled to a brushless PM generator having a high pole count. The high frequency output 600Hz+ is rectified then inverted to 60Hz in some cases but most often "chopped" and assembled into a 60Hz sine waveform.

As well the working fluid is not confined to water and can be refrigerants or gasses such as propane or hydrogen gas. A MHD generator could also be used to reduce the part count or a pulsed plasma generator.

AC

[Paul-R]

Fusion devices just output Heat.  Therefore, it would REQUIRE a BOILER to produce steam.  Then the steam has to drive a High Speed TURBINE.
                                                                           .

or possibly some type of Peltier direct heat/electricity conversion solution.

or possibly the heat could improve the efficiency of a heat pump (fridge cycle) device.

or there are people producing quite clever new design Stirling engines.

or enjoy the space heating benefit.

[Allcanadian]

@Evolvingape

Hydraulic turbines, water wheels, rotate at low speed high torque and so no transmission should be required if the injector is correctly sized to the water wheel. Seemless integration with 1800 or 3600 RPM existing technology is a viable option for the correct frequency output. 1800 and 3600 RPM technology is not obsolete, it is everywhere, if you walk into your local machinemart (UK megastore) you will find 2 pole and 4 pole devices everywhere. Pretty much every generator, every pump you can buy, is operating at this rotational frequency and it is an established technology, nice and cheap! To hear that AC considers it archaic and obsolete made me laugh and also triggered "big business" in my mind... hmmm...

You have taken what I said out of context, it is generally cheaper and more reliable to transform electrical energy than to transform the same energy mechanically through a transmission ie... a buck/boost converter versus an expensive and bulky step-up/down transmission.

This community must use the resources it has at hand, and high speed high pole count chopped AC output is not something that you can do on a shoestring budget, using what is easily available and cheap is something you can do and is a proven technology. As an example modern cars have electronics all over the place, ECU's etc, reliability has gone up and so has the bill if something goes wrong, you can no longer fix it yourself, you gotta pay the monopoly! It is also much harder to innovate and thus prevents the maverick from improving on the system.

I would disagree, micro-controllers are a very simple way to add intelligence to any system and if my 12 year old daughter can do it I imagine you could as well with some practice. You need a $14 Arduino controller, a few Mosfets @ $3 a piece, a coil of wire, cap, resistors and a few diodes... let's say around $40. You have it backwards because now we can fix it ourselves and define how it works in an intelligent manner which increases innovation because we are no longer limited to "dumb" mechanical controls. We now have more control options than we know what to do with and this is a good thing.

No offense but I see a lot of people just like you with big theories and dreams and I think that is great. However at the end of the day we must deal with reality and the harsh reality is that mechanical systems always fail over time and generally cannot cope with the changing variables they encounter... mother nature. Now if you actually built the system your talking about, which I doubt, you will have encountered an almost endless series of problems you have had to deal with. I deal with similar Engineering problems on a daily basis and it is my job to solve them, to find real solutions that work, so please don't imply I don't know what I am talking about.

What the community needs is something not made of baling wire and binder twine that will operate for more than a month without imploding and scattering its internals across the garage floor. That may be the difference between you and myself, I am an Engineer and design high efficiency automated devices which hopefully last years if not decades without maintenance. For instance just last night I built a 220v,40A AC motor controller/timer for my irrigation pump. Now most people would use an off the shelf mechanical relay or contactor however I would not touch them with a ten foot pole because I know the outcome from experience. I used two 40A SSR's integrated with a micro-controller also sensing an over current condition on both L1 and L2 conductors and I made it in around 20 minutes for about $35. It is superior to anything I could buy off the shelf and cost hundreds of dollars less and I expect it to last decades with zero maintenance while also protecting my expensive pump. Better does not mean more expensive in my book however it does require intelligence.

Do it right the first time and build it to last, it is an old saying but it is as true today as it was back then.

AC

[Allcanadian]

@Paul-R

or possibly some type of Peltier direct heat/electricity conversion solution.

or possibly the heat could improve the efficiency of a heat pump (fridge cycle) device.

or there are people producing quite clever new design Stirling engines.

or enjoy the space heating benefit.

I like the new high frequency stirling engines using a metallic diaphragm versus mechanical seals and I have seen a few video's from backyard inventors which I found very impressive. It would seem to be variant of a Helmholtz resonator and the standard Beta type engine. In which case less may be more and they are saying the efficiency is respectable while the maintenance is almost zero. I live on an acreage and have learned that time is a valuable commodity when one is always running in circles or 20 different directions at once. Very low or zero maintenance is huge in my opinion and when we speak of anything running 24/7 it becomes a major issue.

AC

[evolvingape]

I never intended to take what you said out of context, if you had been clearer in your post what you meant it may not have happened, or I misunderstood. The general impression of your post was the attitude of big business not open source in my opinion, and I didn't imply it, I said it. The system I described requires no smart controller or transmission, if you believe there will be problems with the implementation of this system please detail your concerns and not allude to them. I implied nothing about you not knowing what your talking about, just that you made me laugh. Maybe one day I will show you some of the stuff I build, however for the moment I am happy to proceed at my own pace and leave you to your assumptions.

"Do it right the first time and build it to last, it is an old saying but it is as true today as it was back then."

hmmm...

"Do it right the first time and design it to fail just after the warranty expires and ensure a spare parts cash stream for years to come until the next bigger and better model is released"

Seems more accurate.

[Allcanadian]

@evolvingape

"Do it right the first time and design it to fail just after the warranty expires and ensure a spare parts cash stream for years to come until the next bigger and better model is released"
Seems more accurate.

Not in my case, you see I was raised on a farm and we never had anything repaired by someone else we fixed it ourselves. In which case either WE did it right the first time or WE would be doing it all over again ourselves. Which is why I am so interested in automation and the fact a machine could be intelligent enough not to destroy itself in which case I don't have to fix it. I'm not sure how much you understand about the farm but generally speaking it is a community and if you screw someone over everyone knows about it the next day and refuses to do business with you. Thus a person quickly learns about respect and integrity and pride in a job well done, growing up on a farm taught me everything I see lacking in the big cities and their corporations, no offence.

Maybe one day I will show you some of the stuff I build, however for the moment I am happy to proceed at my own pace and leave you to your assumptions.

I know you keep mentioning this over and over so maybe I should clarify my opinion... I don't care what your doing. I have enough projects and problems of my own without having to worry about what everybody else is doing.

AC

[evolvingape]

No offence taken, it is healthy we have different opinions and backgrounds.

I know what you mean about not caring what others are doing, and for me this is true in part. What others are doing can save me a lot of time in R&D, especially in fields I am less familiar with. As you don't care what I am doing I will tell you...

A simple HHO BSP wet cell of my own design is powered by a 12V DC power source. I currently use a 12V 6A battery charger and a 12V car battery, either one works just fine. The cell is mounted in a BSP structure of N type design around 3/4" and 1/4" fittings to facilitate hydraulic mechanical advantage. Now all I have to do is turn the cell on and I pump water and store that potential in the gravitational field.

The water is now in the upper reservoir and can be released by a simple cork float switch to drip through Lord Kelvins Thunderstorm creating a spark. The HHO meanwhile has finished charging the upper reservoir and can freely pass the water in the bottom of the U bend and carries on up past the upper reservoir to a higher potential in the gravitational field.

You now have a choice, you can use the solar pump in Pulsometer mode and trigger the HHO in the chamber releasing it's heat potential and phase changing it to liquid water. This closes the NRV at the upper spark reservoir due to the relative vacuum created and opens the NRV water inlet valves in parallel to achieve faster flow and refill time. Your main water reservoir level is just above the top of the HHO cell but below the upper spark reservoir. The cycle now repeats...

The second option is to run the solar pump in hydrogen torch mode which only needs a flashback arrestor that breaks in both directions. The HHO is burned at a constant rate charging a reservoir higher up and storing the waters potential energy in the gravitational field. The heat has also been released at this stage and thermoelectric generators (TEG's) like PaulR mentioned are turning that heat potential into DC which can be added to the HHO cell production, increasing work done by recovering waste process heat.

The 12V has been set deliberately high for electrolysis to produce water vapour and steam which dilutes the HHO out of detonation flammability limits and runs lean. Combined with the single location weak spark from the water dropper ignition system (approx 25 kV estimated but very little amperage). The two systems have different requirements though so you gotta know which variables to tweak and what the design differences are. Either one will pump water uphill using sunlight as the prime mover if you swap the battery input for a solar panel, say 100W should be more than enough. Pump water all day and produce power all night is the idea.

Being modular and fully scaleable, and with photovoltaic panels and TEG's dropping in price and increasing in efficiency the solar gravity pump might have a bright future.

[Allcanadian]

@evolvingape
That sounds like something Victor Schauberger might build and it is not common knowledge but he supposedly wrote a letter to his son stating the technology is based on Lord Kelvins water drop generator. Now how do we produce a volume which is heating/contracting?, well we introduce water vapor and charge the vapor so each particle attracts...contracts. How do we produce a volume which is cooling/expanding?, well we introduce water vapor and charge the vapor so each particle repels...expands.

It is also interesting to note a scientist built a meta-material (nano) in which water droplets flow upward on the surface due to the electrostatic forces. As such it should come as no surprise that Victor Schauberger was utilizing nano-technology he just so happened to be a many decades ahead of his time thus to the masses his technology appeared as magic.

Now imagine what could be possible if we could use an external force to render a fluid volume such as a mass of water vapor and air rigid, if we could cause a volume to contract as it gets hotter and to expand as it cools in contradiction to what generally occurs. I believe Victor Schauberger was a genius and the father of nano-technology however his work is cryptic at best and his terms mind-boggling. I spent many years studying his work in depth and can tell you most have literally no idea what he was doing. His magic vortex was nothing more than a high frequency high volume low friction check valve so the contracting/expanding volume was forced to move forward incrementally. At the heart of all his machines you will find Lord Kelvins water drop generator however it is hidden in the form of a high velocity flow over a metal catalyst, Kelvins induction ring.

As for the source of energy Schauberger all but said it was in fact environmental heat which powered his first devices, a high frequency, high volume low friction heat pump/turbine.

I hope this may help you in some way and maybe give you some idea's.

AC

[evolvingape]

I have come across Victor Schauberger and found his work stimulating but also cryptic like you say. Interesting stuff though, I am a fan!

The solar gravity pump is the habitation engine I have designed for the nuclear family biofarm project. An underground home with the solar engine rising up from the foundations and supporting the gravity drip feed irrigation system via pin pricked microbore tubing. A basic water wheel for emergency power and lighting and possibly a ram pump integrated somewhere along the line.

My favourite application for it's simplicity is the hydrogen torch option. Water pumped 1 metre above sea level and stored in a small reservoir has enough gravitational potential to power a Kelvin water dropper ignition system. The other thing I like about this system is that sea water is salty and a natural electrolyte solution. The HHO is pure hydrogen and oxygen in a stoichiometric ratio and therefore burns completely to produce H2O as it's product, and heat as a new input.

This system has only two valves, the flashback arrestor on the torch essential for safety and the atmospheric gas  blow forward valve set at 1 Bar, 14 psi cracking pressure and has zero parts. The Polypropylene BSP fittings used as dielectric insulators for the wet cell can also handle the temperature and operating pressures of this low pressure system.

[Allcanadian]

@evolvingape

The solar gravity pump is the habitation engine I have designed for the nuclear family biofarm project. An underground home with the solar engine rising up from the foundations and supporting the gravity drip feed irrigation system via pin pricked microbore tubing. A basic water wheel for emergency power and lighting and possibly a ram pump integrated somewhere along the line.

It's funny you should mention that I just added about 800' of drip irrigation on my acreage and found a novel solution for the emitters. I tried stainless screws which are backed out to allow more water however my unfiltered supply plugged them. My solution was to use 1/2" poly tubing for each stringer then drill a 1/8" hole at each plant. Next I cut a 3" piece of the same 1/2" tubing and make a cut across the length. This leaves me with a "C" shaped piece of 1/2" tubing which is simply slipped over the main tubing to cover the 1/8" hole. I move the 3" piece left or right or turn it to allow more or less water. Basically the circular form of the split tubing has enough tension to hold it tight over main line hole however because it is the same size as the main line there is always a small gap which allows water to pass.
I'm not sure how a person could build a cheaper emitter as it is simply a 3" piece of the same tubing as the main line, necessity is the mother of invention, lol.

AC

[evolvingape]

Drip irrigation is definitely useful and I have not decided on a flow control valve method yet, so I will give your method a go, sounds good. Once the water requirement is known for a biofarm of a defined size, supporting a 4 person family, the solar panels are expanded to meet demand. At this point you will know how many you need to run the system. It would roll out similar to the American Frontier with nuclear family units with nothing and no future being offered the opportunity to live at and manage the micro biofarm, for the good of themselves and the community. I am looking forward to seeing the replications of the technology when they surface, shouldn't take long as it's a simple system, use a dry cell if you want that works too.

[Farrah Day]

I've been following your posts with mild curiosity, but have not really been able to get my head around what you are doing with the hydroxy you are producing with your wet cell.  That is, exactly how are you utilising the gas? Doesn't seem to me that you will have enough gas to do very much with.

I can see the reason why you might consider using Lord Kelvin's Dropper as an ignition source - well sort of - but I'm wondering whether the penalty in having to pump the water up to provide a gravity feed to the dropper is worth all the extra effort, especially given the fact that the sparking may be somewhat erratic. Surely a low power electronic module would be far simpler to implement, more reliable, relativity maintenance free and require far less power than a pump!  Or am I missing something  

My favourite application for it's simplicity is the hydrogen torch option. Water pumped 1 metre above sea level and stored in a small reservoir has enough gravitational potential to power a Kelvin water dropper ignition system. The other thing I like about this system is that sea water is salty and a natural electrolyte solution. The HHO is pure hydrogen and oxygen in a stoichiometric ratio and therefore burns completely to produce H2O as it's product, and heat as a new input.

When you say 'pumped 1 metre above sea level', do you mean 1 metre above the apparatus... or are you situated at sea level?

Seriously, you're not really expecting to get a stoichiometric amount of oxygen and hydrogen from sea water... are you?

[evolvingape]

The wet cell I use is not the most efficient around certainly but it is seamlessly integrated with the structure and is simple to build. Use a dry cell if you want, it's just not what I do. The apparatus is configured in an N type design because it is simpler than an inline version but I can build both with BSP fittings and have done so. I use the low pressure phase change gas expansion to pump water first and then I use the natural buoyancy of hydrogen in air to raise it up in the gravitational field before recombination on burning to phase change to liquid and release stored heat. A cyclical combination of the two systems is preferred but at this stage I am happy to keep them separate for reasons I will not go into.

The low pressure hydroxy expansion pumps water above the apparatus reservoir level, 1 metre is sufficient to charge a water dropper, less if I compact the design. The system is designed for coastal use at sea level but is not restricted to that, the gravitational potential difference between main reservoir level and spark reservoir level is what is important.

I like Lord Kelvin's water dropper spark system so much I integrated it into the design, I have previously proven that the spark can be utilised inside a hydraulic fitting with home made electrode glands and now I wanted to use HHO to pump water and charge the gravitational potential battery. I did it because I can, I strive for elegance in my designs and to me using the water dropper for an actual application in a system is elegant and fun. Sure you can use a modern low power ignition source if you want, and I do in some of my prototypes, just not this one... yet!

I am not expecting to get a stoichiometric ratio of H and O from sea water:

http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tofcj/articles/V003/1TOFCJ.pdf

[Farrah Day]

I see. You are using the gas produced from electrolysis powered by your 12v power supply to pump the water/electrolyte back into the Dropper reservoir - so no additional electromechanical pump is involved. I too can see the elegance of such a device, especially if utilising solar power to top up the battery/s.

I am not expecting to get a stoichiometric ratio of H and O from sea water:

But you say in your earlier post:

The other thing I like about this system is that sea water is salty and a natural electrolyte solution. The HHO is pure hydrogen and oxygen in a stoichiometric ratio and therefore burns completely to produce H2O as it's product, and heat as a new input.

You don't agree that your two statements somewhat contradict each other? 

[evolvingape]

You think you see, I think you don't.

I am interested in sharing with this community this invention.

I am not interested in springing your poorly laid traps.

You are wasting my time.

[Farrah Day]

 

You think you see, I think you don't.

I am interested in sharing with this community this invention.

I am not interested in springing your poorly laid traps.

You are wasting my time.

What? Traps?  

Jeepers, I comment on a minor point of confusion due to a blatant contradiction on your part and instead of clarification, you throw a paddy? Just what is it with you people?  

And I know who's time is being wasted here... and it's not yours!

[muDped]

The paper referenced by evolvingape:

Hydrogen Production Using Sea Water Electrolysis

addresses the difficulties of obtaining
pure Oxygen with seawater or sodium
chloride electrolysis.  While pure Oxygen
may be desired it is most often contaminated
to some extent with Chlorine.

I didn't see a trap either.

It may be the Full Moon.