Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Cold fusion power supply - What should I use?

Cold fusion power supply - What should I use?

Gooferking Science - 15-8-2013 at 10:26

I recently built a cold fusion reactor. A cold fusion reactor is made by using water with an electrolyte and two high heat resistant electrodes. You start out with a normal electrolysis of water, and once the temperature reaches 100 degrees F, you crank up the power and a plasma arc starts. At first this will just ignite the hydrogen and make an orange colored light, but once the right conditions are reached the hydrogen atoms will bond together forming helium, thus a mini sun is created in whatever container you are using. A blue light and lots of energy is put out.

Now for the question. I have seen people use a variac as their power supply, buy I don't have one. I do have a MOT however, but I don't think it puts out enough amperage. Does anyone have any suggestions on what power supply I should use?

Edit: Thank you all for your replies! Just so you know, I never actually tried this. I understood that it would put out radiation but I didn't know that it would be enough to kill me. I may be wrong, it might not be blue but I'm colorblind to shades, and have a hard time telling the difference between colors like blue and purple, green and yellow, orange and red.

[Edited on 16-8-2013 by Gooferking Science]

bfesser - 15-8-2013 at 10:32

What evidence do you have of the formation of He? Any evidence of <sup>1</sup>H fusion occuring <em>at all</em>?

woelen - 15-8-2013 at 10:33

If you get blue light and a lot of energy, then that is just energy from your power supply. You absolutely 100+ % sure have no nuclear fusion in your setup.

Getting a plasma can be done with a neon transformer. You can create nice effects, such as Jacob's ladders, but these have nothing to do with fusion.

Dany - 15-8-2013 at 10:36

Hello, Gooferking Science

It is cool to think that you are able to make a cold fusion in your garage or backyard. But until now there are a big debate about cold fusion. Since the first publication of a successful cold fusion, no laboratory in the world was able to reproduce the experiment. Don't wast your time and your money.

Dany.

Varmint - 15-8-2013 at 11:03

"Atom Smashers" (example: Van De Graaff generators) use hundreds of thousands ( or millions) of volts to accelerate atomic particles. The idea is to accelerate them, cause collisions with target particles, and analyze the results.

Still, this falls short of the classical definition of fission, you aren't really creating 2 or more lighter elements from the source and target, you are haphazardly busting them into unpredictable pieces.

The energy for FUSION is much higher, in fact a thermonuclear weapon uses a fission weapon as a means of creating the temperatures and pressures required to even begin the fusion process. You don't get those temperatures and pressures with ANY low votltage power supply.

I designed a Van De Graaff generator at home, but it uses a store bought dome (I can't do metal spinning at home!), and with the 14 inch dome, achieves voltages in excess of 450,000 volts. This is just barely enough energy to create radioactive Gold when the spark interacts with Lead.

If I were to run it for weeks, and have the spark hit the same spot, I could concievably create enough radio-active Gold for it to show up on a counter, but the trouble is, the interaction could strip away an electron one event, add it back the next, and so on, there is no control over it at the level required to guarantee ANYTHING.

Yes, I know we are supposed to think outside the box, and cold fusion is the preeminant example of this. If we think in terms of only what we know, cold fusion is dead, never having gotten started.

But here's the positive part: If cold fusion were a reality, there would be tens of thousands of experimenters dying horrible deaths from having watched the neutrons light up the water with the characteristic blue glow. If you are generating enough NEUTRONS to make the water glow to signal your success, you have irreversably poisoned yourself with neutrons.

I doesn't work, it can't work, and if it did, you'd need all the protection genuine researchers put in place, or you die. There are no "cold neutrons" that would make it safe, if you get it working, you die.

DAS

bfesser - 15-8-2013 at 13:05

BobD1001 & elementcollector1, if you have nothing to contribute but insults, don't post.

[edit] After reading and considering IrC's comments, I'm reopening this thread. He's right that I shouldn't have locked it in the first place. I'm pruning out the trash posting, and will remove any such further posts—you have been warned. Thank you, IrC for your perspective—I hope that you can appreciate that I'm willing to admit and learn from my mistakes.

[Edited on 16.8.13 by bfesser]

IrC - 15-8-2013 at 15:48

Gooferking, do a few simple calculations to determine the repulsive force between two protons separated by say the radius of an electron. Determine in your cell how close these protons are going to get to each other from the force supplied by your electrical input. Soon you will see there is no possible way you are producing Helium because the protons that close together are exerting a really mind boggling force between each other. Far more force than is possible from your electrical input.

http://jlnlabs.online.fr/cfr/diycfr/index.htm

I post this link so you can see an example of the power supply used. Possibly it will give you ideas on novel electrolytic cells useful for something completely unrelated to CF. This is the point of allowing uncensored debate. Ideas for other areas of research come out of these efforts whether or not there is any hope of you ever achieving CF. In my opinion CF is not something you will ever see in your home lab. Possibly not ever in any other lab either. Not the point. The beauty of the forum is in these failed experiments and endless debates leading to ideas for something else which you would have never thought of had you not been working in this area. I can think of several patents I have studied which came from people trying to achieve CF but failing. My wasted gallons of D2O over the years never gave me fusion but did lead me down other avenues I likely would have never thought of otherwise.

In any case I for one do not believe you will achieve Helium production and I base that upon thousands of dollars and many hours of pointless experimentation. However it did lead me into other areas of experimentation and gave me much insight into materials and electrode structures I now use in my Sonoluminescence experiments.

In the interest of full disclosure yes, watching the movie 'Chain Reaction' gave me the desire to see what is possible on the subject of Sonoluminescence.

[Edited on 8-16-2013 by IrC]

elementcollector1 - 15-8-2013 at 19:47

Quote:

A blue light and lots of energy is put out.

You know, I always thought excited hydrogen was purple rather than blue - is that just a different assumption of the same color or are these different phenomena?

IrC - 15-8-2013 at 20:34

Quote: Originally posted by elementcollector1

Quote:

A blue light and lots of energy is put out.

You know, I always thought excited hydrogen was purple rather than blue - is that just a different assumption of the same color or are these different phenomena?

Depends upon where in the Balmer series you are.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/hyde.html

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/properties/hspectrum.html

Gooferking Science : "I do have a MOT however, but I don't think it puts out enough amperage."

I shudder when I read this. Around 2KV @ 500 ma? Not enough for a cell full of conductive water using a transformer with no current limiting? Frightening. I have peppered myself and the walls with glass and scalding water at far lower power levels.

In any case you are not seeing fusion of any type. In fact your approach does not even mimic what virtually all others have done in CF experiments. Specially prepared Pd is slowly saturated at far lower power levels with deuterium. Yet they still many times have had fairly large and dangerous explosions. I cannot see how you are going to be around for long if you actually try some of the ideas you have posted here.

Bottom line is this. Years have been spent by probably thousands in this effort. People with vastly greater resources and training. Yet to this day I cannot find anyone offering a Mr Fusion for sale. This speaks very loudly, if you consider the ultra rich always looking for new ways to profit. By now one of them would have brought the concept to market.

zed - 18-8-2013 at 15:39

Something unexpected does sometimes happen, during the course of heavy water electrolysis with noble metal electrodes. The debate is over exactly what happens.

Some claim it is fusion, others say it isn't.

The PC term is LENR. Low energy nuclear reaction.

[Edited on 18-8-2013 by zed]

Endimion17 - 19-8-2013 at 02:16

Quote: Originally posted by zed

Something unexpected does sometimes happen, during the course of heavy water electrolysis with noble metal electrodes. The debate is over exactly what happens.

Some claim it is fusion, others say it isn't.

The PC term is LENR. Low energy nuclear reaction.

[Edited on 18-8-2013 by zed]

As few people said, and no one ever managed to repeat it, using the same procedure as the mentioned folks.

That's called "probable lie". People lie to get famous, too.

In order to debate the inner working of something, you first need to have that "something" proven. Otherwise it looks like you're trying to explain anatomic characteristics of a bigfoot.

[Edited on 19-8-2013 by Endimion17]

ElectroWin - 24-8-2013 at 10:44

Formation of helium is a hallmark of some of the LENR processes, and formation of copper in Rossi's proton-nickel apparatus is another. what is hard to figure out, though, is the absence of radioisotopes or gamma rays being produced in both kinds of setups.

I will touch briefly on the Rossi apparatus. Andrea Rossi has unfortunately been quite secretive about his apparatus, and that makes a lot of us suspicious. But we're living in a climate where the first thing out of many people's mouths is "it must be fraud, i refuse to look at it"; a climate where the patent office might just refuse to issue a patent in the territory; and where this would certainly expose an inventor to theft of intellectual property if it turns out the device does work.

So it should be clear to those wanting to pursue LENR that observations are desperately begging for some kind of physical theory to support them. And yet it should still be possible to ask and demand answers to scientific questions.

Particularly the absence of copper radioisotopes generated is quixotic. Can we not force them to be made by the apparatus?

"Naturally occurring nickel (Ni) is composed of five stable isotopes; 58Ni, 60Ni, 61Ni, 62Ni and 64Ni with 58Ni being the most abundant (68.077% natural abundance).[1] 58Ni may decay by double beta-plus decay to 58Fe." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_nickel

if we were to construct the Rossi anodes from five versions of isotopically pure, stable nickel, then run the thing for some time, then look at the copper produced, it seems impossible to me that they should all generate stable copper. I expect some should generate radioisotopes, or stable species other than copper, or nothing at all.

This is testable, if we can replicate the Rossi apparatus.

[Edited on 2013-8-24 by ElectroWin]

Bezaleel - 26-8-2013 at 07:27

Quote: Originally posted by ElectroWin

This is testable, if we can replicate the Rossi apparatus.
[Edited on 2013-8-24 by ElectroWin]

Exactly here lies the big problem. From the experiments Rossi published earlier this year, it is clear that the composition of the "fuel rods" is really kept secret. In addition, the fuel rods were produced by an external company.

ElizabethGreene - 26-8-2013 at 11:17

Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17

Quote: Originally posted by zed

As few people said, and no one ever managed to repeat it, using the same procedure as the mentioned folks.
<snip>

The Fleischmann and Pons effect has been reproduced a prodigious number of times. The difficulty is that the repeatability is very poor and unpredictable. It appears to be something "special" about the electrodes, but the exact secret sauce remains elusive. Have another look at what's been published, please. The US Navy's work on it is particularly encouraging.

Note: I'm specifically ignoring Mr. Rossi's work as he has chosen to break the "Peer review or it didn't happen" rule.

Back to the original question:
You can make a poor man's Variac by rewinding the MOT core with a new secondary of the same gauge as the primary. As you are winding it, bring off several new "taps" at various positions in the new secondary. Each will give you a different voltage.

If I remember the original LENR work correctly (it's been years, so please double check) they used a constant voltage variable current supply to load the palladium electrodes with deuterium. A Google search will give you a prodigious number of schematics if you want to build one of those.

[Edited on 26-8-2013 by ElizabethGreene]

hyfalcon - 26-8-2013 at 14:52

Coming up with the palladium and heavy water is the fun part.

ElectroWin - 26-8-2013 at 15:15

Quote: Originally posted by Bezaleel

Quote: Originally posted by ElectroWin

This is testable, if we can replicate the Rossi apparatus.
[Edited on 2013-8-24 by ElectroWin]

well, we are told it is nickel. i really doubt chemical composition is a factor, unless crystal configuration is important. can nickel be coaxed into different crystal forms?
(including at elevated temperatures?) is nickel hydride possibly needed?

so just maybe isotopic purity is significant. what would be the cost of producing a few hundred grams of isotopically pure Ni?

[Edited on 2013-8-27 by ElectroWin]

ElizabethGreene - 26-8-2013 at 15:45

Quote: Originally posted by hyfalcon

Coming up with the palladium and heavy water is the fun part.

Ebay! I was able to find both palladium and D₂O last time I looked. I haven't pursued it because of cost and lack of knowledge around calorimetry.

Edit: Just checked, and there is none on ebay now. That's odd.

Quote: Originally posted by ElectroWin

well, we are told it is nickel. i really doubt chemical composition is a factor, unless crystal configuration is important. can nickel be coaxed into different crystal forms?

It's quite possible that it's something to do with the crystal structure or an allotrope or possibly some sort of dopant. IIRC he indicated that the fuel rods were 95%+ isotopic-ally pure, and the most common isotope.[citation needed]

It baffles me why he won't publish. If the science works, he'll earn a Nobel prize and enough money to make Scrooge McDuck's vault look like a piggy bank.

[Edited on 26-8-2013 by ElizabethGreene]

ElectroWin - 26-8-2013 at 16:55

Quote: Originally posted by ElizabethGreene

ok! this is important.

and i could believe maybe hydrogen is a dopant.

so let's make some anodes from 58Ni > 95% isotopic purity; and doped with 1H in various arrangements and concentrations up to i guess 0.002% by mass.

[Edited on 2013-8-27 by ElectroWin]

watson.fawkes - 26-8-2013 at 17:53

Quote: Originally posted by ElizabethGreene

If the science works, [...]

If there's science at all, and if it works [...]

ElectroWin - 27-8-2013 at 06:18

Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes

Quote: Originally posted by ElizabethGreene

If the science works, [...]

If there's science at all, and if it works [...]

ok, we get it. Watson doesnt believe in any of this. so then why clutter the discussion? instead, please add useful references.

watson.fawkes - 27-8-2013 at 07:50

Quote: Originally posted by ElectroWin

ok, we get it. Watson doesnt believe in any of this. so then why clutter the discussion? instead, please add useful references.

Clutter? Do you think you have a right to talk about this subject exactly as you want, excluding anybody who disagrees with you? You do not have such a right here, particularly when the issue is whether there's science here at all.

I looked into this a few years ago, in rather greater depth than, in retrospect, I should have. The most likely scenario with Rossi is that he's an outright and conscious fraud. There's no actually independent verification of any of his claims, although he's put on a show to try to claim such. He's made some paranoid defenses about the patent system, and as someone who's spent rather more time than average around that, he's making newbie claims that you clear up with a first or second meeting with a patent lawyer. This is on top of the extreme secrecy and refusal to disclose. There's an enormous absence of scientific evidence here, and a lot other social cues that something entirely different is going on.

Useful references, for me, would be proof of fraud, which I think are more likely to exist that experimental evidence in favor of his claims.

ElectroWin - 27-8-2013 at 09:33

Watson, w.r.t Rossi actually i agree with you. couple years ago i saw a plot of the changes in composition of the anode surface from spectral analysis and saw aluminum in there. and it made me think that he is using nickel-plated aluminum anodes instead of solid nickel, which would account for his finding copper there, since nickel wont plate onto aluminum directly and needs zinc/copper strike to make the nickel adhere. it raises huge doubts.

and yet we could still do science here.

watson.fawkes - 27-8-2013 at 10:34

Quote: Originally posted by ElectroWin

and yet we could still do science here.

Yes, but not about Rossi, the only one about whom I was speaking. The larger field of LENR is rather more interesting, at that almost pre-scientific state where replication of results is still inconsistent and hesitant.

gregxy - 27-8-2013 at 14:16

Rossi's experiments are also deceptive. The last time I looked he was using his device to generate steam and from the amount of steam estimating the power output. The problem is that the amount of power required to produce steam is highly dependent on the amount of atomized water in the steam.
(For example a simple sprayer will convert a liter of water into mist for a small fraction of the energy required to boil the water). A simpler and more accurate way to measure the power/energy is to use the device to heat a large volume of liquid water and then measure the temperature change.

If you do some digging you will also find Rossi was charged with fraud in the past. It's a scam pure and simple.

Cold (Trans)fusion Power Supply - What you should use.

bfesser - 27-8-2013 at 17:57

<img src="http://tshirtvortex.net/wp-content/uploads/unicornblood.jpg" />

ElizabethGreene - 28-8-2013 at 05:36

@bfesser

I lol'd.

Then I thought.. I do not understand the red box warning against using this product on zombies. It was found to be effective in palliative care of the undead in a single patient uncontrolled study (Rowling, 1997)

Ref:
Rowling JK. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Bloomsbury Press, London, 1997

morganism - 15-9-2013 at 13:27

Brillouin says you need a pulsed power supply.

Rossi's original reactor was a fraud, but his new "hotCat" may actually work once he tweaked it with understanding from the Brill Corp info.

What is really interesting, is that in the new hotcat, the nickle is actually a melt pool, and it still is taking nuetron donors, so the crystal structure of Pt,Pd, or anything else must only be required to get the reaction going.
He melted down a couple ceramic tubes with the new cat. think he is using corundum now, and they glow !

Last test i read about, they used a remote thermal gun to measure , still no calorimetry.

http://pdxlenr.blogspot.com/2012/10/thoughts-about-godes-bri...

http://pesn.com/2012/04/19/9602078_Brillouin--Understanding_...

http://shutdownrossi.com/