EEVblog #708 - Free Energy BULLSHIT!

[EEVblog]

Are the laws of physics being bent?
Dave explains why free energy / over unity / quantum vacuum circuits are bullshit. And how to find out what's really happening here by using basic engineering principles.
Can a bunch of toroids, some wire, and a simple circuit boost converter really generate more power than you put in and power 23 LED's for 52 hours?
He goes through the claims and debunks them one-by-one.
Explains how the circuit works and then builds up the circuit and takes some measurements to show that the energy can easily come from the battery and not some quantum vacuum.
This is as much a demonstration of basic ballpark system engineering, calculations, and understand, as it is debunking.

The video in question is here:
Original forum thread with author comments is here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/how-does-this-snake-oil-really-work/

[EEVblog]

Interesting, thanks.
Another 60Hz video? Quality is poor again on my TV.

50fps
How can the quality be "poor"? in what way?

[German_EE]

Video quality is fine on the 1920 x 1200 display of my laptop, no worries.

[elgonzo]

There comes a Free Energy Bull. Shit!

[Smokey]

HA!  Hilarious!
He would have been fine if he hadn't come on the forum and tried to defend his bullshit.
Any good con artist knows not to try to sell their crap to people who technically understand their con.

[EEVblog]

Any good con artist knows not to try to sell their crap to people who technically understand their con.

He's not a con artist, he thinks it's real.

[Pentium100]

When I see/read about "free energy" devices, it's always some kind ovf very complicated circuit and always very low power. If your device produces more energy than it takes, then connect a few of them in series and power a 40W incandescent lightbulb from the single AA battery. That would be impressive.

[max_torque]

When I see/read about "free energy" devices, it's always some kind ovf very complicated circuit and always very low power. If your device produces more energy than it takes, then connect a few of them in series and power a 40W incandescent lightbulb from the single AA battery. That would be impressive.

Not to mention the fact that (in the UK) an AA battery costs approximately 40 pence, and as Dave's debunk vid shows us, delivers a max of about 4WHrs.  Yet, that same 40 pence, currently buys you in the order of 2.5 KWHrs of mains electricity.

By that token, even if this device did posses some physics bending properties (which it doesn't) then it is not "Free energy" whatsoever, and in fact is "extemely expensive" energy!!!

[bodshal]

Even a straight wire without the ferrite core is a bloody inductor. Good job Dave, I thoroughly enjoyed this debunking.

[TerminalJack505]

I'm guessing Dave's circuit was more efficient than ManOfStone's since ManOfStone used a Darlington.  You definitely don't want a Darlington--with its high Vce--for this circuit.

If you're going to build such a circuit and you are already using a ferrite core then you might as well wind the core as a transformer and use the Joule thief circuit.  This will eliminate the PNP transistor.

[DH2ID]

Hi Dave,

thanks for your rant  . Hilarious! 

I love how you explain things, there's nothing like it here in good old Germany 

One thing, though: If you just feed a constant current through these LED's without all the
fancy circuit, the power source would surely be earlier depleted than with these spikes at
91 kHz?

Calculating the amount of power contained under these curves should show that a lot
less is needed to light those LED's at 91 kHz, which no eye can follow and which seens
like constant lighting.

Gosh, how I love electronics and high frequency experiments. I have set up quite a nice
little bench here for my radio amateur equipment...   

Keep up  the good works down under, Dave! 

Alex DH2ID

[Gridstop]

Yeah when Dave mentioned it was a Darlington i was somewhat surprised the original circuit worked. If it was half as efficient as Dave's, it's around 25% or so?

And modern high efficiency red LEDs are unbelievably bright. 20mA is like 'clearly visible outside at noon in direct sun' power levels on those.

[f4eru]

Please, guys, what the world needs NOW is :

Free Energy Overunity solar roadways !!

 

[max_torque]

I suspect that the "original" circuit oscilates somewhat faster than Daves, as it has a lower inductance value.  Hence it will transfer more energy to the LEDs than Daves, and hence draw more input current.....

And like i said, even if it somehow breaks all known laws, the inventor is just "generating" energy that costs several thousands of times more per KWhr than the electricity you can just get from the socket in your house....

[EEVblog]

Calculating the amount of power contained under these curves should show that a lot
less is needed to light those LED's at 91 kHz, which no eye can follow and which seens
like constant lighting.

That's an entirely different argument to what is being discussed here.
I might actually do a video on this, as I have access to a way to accurately capture and measure true light output.

[Hydrawerk]

ROFL. https://www.youtube.com/user/Deirones

That guy is crazy. Well, you have probably seen his videos.

[wholder]

As free energy contraptions go, this one was nice and simple so it was fairly straightforward to analyze.  However, there are some "inventors" in this space that build amazingly elaborate contraptions, such as this guy:

  https://www.youtube.com/user/PMMG4HYBRID

I wouldn't even know where to start taking some of his mechanisms apart for analysis.  I have to applaud his ability to build complex-looking electromechanical devices.  If he was just selling them as artwork, I'd be impressed.   But, of course, it's all to prove he's unlocked some sort of miraculous source of energy.  Sigh...  One common threads I've noticed with many of these guys is to misunderstand voltage and current.  This leads them to think that an increase in voltage is an increase in total energy.  At least, that's how it seems to me that he explains how his devices work.

Wayne

[economist]

Great video. Odd how these magic devices always require a power source. Nobody every fires one up and then pulls the battery. Wonder why? 

[Smokey]

Great video. Odd how these magic devices always require a power source. Nobody every fires one up and then pulls the battery. Wonder why? 

This guy does...


It was actually featured on a discovery channel show about fake science on youtube.

[amyk]

When I see/read about "free energy" devices, it's always some kind ovf very complicated circuit and always very low power. If your device produces more energy than it takes, then connect a few of them in series and power a 40W incandescent lightbulb from the single AA battery. That would be impressive.

Not to mention the fact that (in the UK) an AA battery costs approximately 40 pence, and as Dave's debunk vid shows us, delivers a max of about 4WHrs.  Yet, that same 40 pence, currently buys you in the order of 2.5 KWHrs of mains electricity.

By that token, even if this device did posses some physics bending properties (which it doesn't) then it is not "Free energy" whatsoever, and in fact is "extemely expensive" energy!!!

I hope this post won't encourage those guys to plug their contraptions into the mains instead.

[MickF]

Thanks Dave, great tutorial as it turned out.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[GoldSrc]

Damn, people should learn that "free energy" is bullshit, there's nothing wrong with accepting that you have been proven wrong with real experiments and math.
Sadly, there are plenty of nutjobs who buy into the free energy bullshit.

Good video Dave.

[SeanB]

I am running a yellow LED at 900uA, and there it is pretty bright for an indicator. It is replacing a neon lamp as a power indicator, using about the same resistance as the original lamp. Green LED next to it is running at just over 1mA, and it is bright as well.

I ran some at 5mA, and they were bright enough to see in daylight, and at night were usable as a night light. You could play shadow puppets on the opposing wall with the light from the single red LED power indicator.

[rr100]

Outstandingly cool :-)

Funny thing is I've been using precisely THAT oscillator for EVERYTHING during the 80's. Signal generator, resistive touch detector, humidity alarm, light activated alarm, DC-DC supply...

[firewalker]

Just a simple simulation.



Alexander.