Accurate Replications and testing of plasma electrolysis (LENR)

[pomodoro]

I've been interested in replicating the work of Mazuno, which was later attempted by Eugene Mallove and then JLN labs.  I'm about a decade late, but if the results achieved by JLN and others on his page are to be believed, this must be one of the easiest proofs of overunity of the heat kind. A little useless at the moment, since heat engines are so inefficient, nonetheless it is one way of proving that science has more to learn.  The great JLN page I'm referring to is here. http://jlnlabs.online.fr/cfr/

I've just built a small calorimeter, which logs temp , volts and amps to a PC for post processing.  it has passed calibration with flying colors.  I'm not going to bore you with fine details as most of us are already good builders of such apparatus, but here are some details, pics and a PDF of the results and calculations. The calorimeter is a small dewar flask with an oval magnetic stirrer. Temperature is monitored by a calibrated AD592 sensor in a glass tube. One of four  AD622 IN-AMPS take cares of zero and slope calibrations and sends the signal to a multi-channel 12 bit computer interface card. The other IN-AMPS will be used for voltage and current measurements.
Calibration has been done using a 5.18 ohm resistor is a test tube filled with parrafin oil. For this calibration, I attempted to measure the specific heat of water as well as its heat of vaporization. I used a precision multimeter for this calibration as the source voltage and current remained stable.
More results will be added as I begin to electrolyze solutions of potassium carbonate over the next few months.

The attached PDF has all the details.

[TinselKoala]

Excellent!

All I can recommend at this point is to get rid of the clipleads, make dedicated hard-wiring connections and keep all wiring as short and direct as possible. And of course your instrumentation amplifiers should be in a well-shielded, grounded container. Once you start the plasma electrolysis process there will probably be incredible amounts of electrical noise generated by the apparatus, which will affect your readings and which you will want to eliminate and control as much as possible.

Keep up the good work and reporting!

[nul-points]

It's good to see people pushing  back at the boundaries of 'accepted' wisdom, so much has been built on incomplete knowledge in some areas and the original scientific mindset of 'question everything' is in danger of being replaced by 'the grant-money is everything'

Mazuno, eh?  Inspirational !  ...make sure you keep a large bucket of water nearby!   ;-)

Thanks for sharing your progress - all the best for a successful investigation

np

[pomodoro]

You were not exagerating about the noisy current TK!  Although the ammeters gave a nice  stable average current, the 100Mhz oscilloscope across a 1 ohm series resistor revealed the truth. I eventually tamed the beast to a visible DC level but still with some ripple. This required a layout quite different to that recommended on DIY sites. I'm still not totally happy and will try experimenting with a thermocouple ammeter.  If anyone still reading wonders what the fuss is, only a true RMS value of the current is of any use. Multiplying this value with the steady voltage gives the true electric power supplied to the cell. Most ammeters will give some filtered value for the DC current, even when very noisy, but this value depends on the filter's RC constant or the response time of the needle for analog meters. This value  could be very close or quite far from the RMS value.  Many of the internet replications seem to have trusted their budget multi meters for their calculations. I'm sure expensive meters designed for such measurements will do a great job, but beware of the cheaper stuff (like mine).

[pomodoro]

Just a quick update.
I've been working on this for a while and should soon have some accurate results. Volume is now 2L and the plasma arc is stable for 1 hour or more at over 100w.This is vital as Mizuno, a renound electrochemist, found excess energy only after about 1000seconds. RF is no longer a problem after I drastically improved the input circuit from that of Mizuno and JLN. If you have ever looked at JLNs power vs time graphs you will know how bad the noise can be. I found that the easier method of boiling and measuring the weight loss gives an unstable arc in this solution and I went back to the more elaborate temperature rise method, very similar to that of Mizuno. Currently I'm running calibration curves against a resistive heating element. The calorimeter is no longer a Dewer flask and heat loss at higher temperatures needs to be measured and compensated for.  When I'm satisfied that the temp vs time data can be accurately traced back to the input joules, regardless of the input power curve shape, the tungsten plasma will be tested. I'm aiming for a system that can't be faulted and can be replicated by others with similar experience.