30 second recharging Rechargeable Battery

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

Surely this is well into the territory of fraud now, and should be reported to the police.

I don't know about this, but if funds were received from International sources, does it constitute a fraud and an investigation by Interpol as a lottery?

[hamster_nz]

Surely this is well into the territory of fraud now, and should be reported to the police.

Did you have any success reporting it?

Or were you expecting somebody else to do it at your suggestion?

[Dongulus]

I'd say in the grand scheme of things it's better to put pressure on kickstarter to take a few of their million to keep engineers inhouse to vet the project, rather then giving people their money back.  That just perpetuates the problem.

I agree. If non-tech savvy people continue to get regularly burned on scams and projects that just fail to produce, then general trust in crowd funding will disappear and the crowd funding model will completely collapse. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that it has survived this long. If Kickstarter is to have a future, they need to employ a more rigorous process for verifying project feasibility. I think teams of seasoned professionals in different areas of product design and manufacturing hired to review campaigns would definitely be a good idea, even if just for high-profile projects that get into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

[Richard Crowley]

If non-tech savvy people continue to get regularly burned on scams and projects that just fail to produce, then general trust in crowd funding will disappear and the crowd funding model will completely collapse. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that it has survived this long. If Kickstarter is to have a future, they need to employ a more rigorous process for verifying project feasibility. I think teams of seasoned professionals in different areas of product design and manufacturing hired to review campaigns would definitely be a good idea, even if just for high-profile projects that get into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

Exactly the same thing happening at the USPTO (Patent & Trademark Office).  They appear to have given up trying to actually evaluate the applications or even give them a general sanity check.  In a way, it is no wonder. What kind of panel would you need to accurate evaluate all the patent applications.  It wouldn't surprise me if Kickstarter came to the same conclusion for exactly the same reason.

[PlainName]

What kind of panel would you need

I'm sure Dave could come to an arrangement with Kickstarter about sanity checking projects here

[tom66]

I think anything hardware related must have at least one working prototype of the ADVERTISED DESIGN (changes can be made later) and they must submit a document detailing manufacturing costs to Kickstarter to deem feasibility.

[rob77]

What kind of panel would you need

I'm sure Dave could come to an arrangement with Kickstarter about sanity checking projects here

don't forget that majority of the kickstarter projects are NOT related to EE. and actually the projects are from many areas - so you would need tens of experts to judge the projects.

As Richard mentioned - exactly the same happened to patent offices... you can patent anything if you pay the fees
and Kickstarter will let any project go if they get the money because they're simply not able to judge the projects

and even if you could set up a jury consisting of tens or even hundreds of experts.... it might happen that the jury will not allow a project because the subject will be beyond their understanding.... ( don't forget how effectively the christian inquisition judged the scientists back in the times of inquisition ) 

so in short.... we can't do anything about the shitty crappy scammers in crowd funding...

[PlainName]

don't forget that...

... some things are said in jest and don't want or need forensic dismantling.

[Corporate666]

Peer review is an established concept in the scientific community that works very well.  I don't see why it couldn't work here - doesn't have to lead to projects being allowed or disallowed, merely would be nice if subject matter experts could review and give their opinion on a project.

As it stands, commenters are anonymous and so the opinion of a shill/friend of the project creator is weighted equally to an engineer with years of experience in the field... which renders it virtually impossible for backers to judge the legitimacy of a given project.

[suicidaleggroll]

Peer review is an established concept in the scientific community that works very well.  I don't see why it couldn't work here - doesn't have to lead to projects being allowed or disallowed, merely would be nice if subject matter experts could review and give their opinion on a project.

As it stands, commenters are anonymous and so the opinion of a shill/friend of the project creator is weighted equally to an engineer with years of experience in the field... which renders it virtually impossible for backers to judge the legitimacy of a given project.

Agreed.  I don't see any reason why experts in various fields couldn't sign up on some version of Kickstarter's "expert witness database".  When a project is submitted, the applicable experts are notified to comment on it.  Rather than Kickstarter having to review every project for legitimacy, despite their lack of knowledge in the subject, they would simply need to review the credentials of those who sign up to be one of their "experts", and then leave the project reviews to them.

Maybe it could be an opt-in service?  The project submitter gets to choose if their project is submitted to an expert, and which category it fits in, for a reasonable fee ($50?), and the applicable experts in that category are notified.  The experts could receive a portion of the fee for their time, regardless of their determination of the legitimacy of the project.  The end result is developers either don't submit their projects to the experts, and are identified as such (which would be akin to all current projects), or developers do submit their projects to the experts, pay the fee, and the experts' reviews are posted on the project summary page, good or bad.

Honestly, just about anything would be better than the current strategy of doing nothing and hoping they don't get sued.

[0xdeadbeef]

Well, another "graphene" capacitor. 5 Minutes charging this time and more professional pitch, yet still not plausible:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zap-go-first-graphene-supercapacitor-charger
Flexible funding of course...

[daveshah]

Well, another "graphene" capacitor. 5 Minutes charging this time and more professional pitch, yet still not plausible:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zap-go-first-graphene-supercapacitor-charger
Flexible funding of course...

40A power supply in that? Yeah right.

[tom66]

Man, sometimes I wonder why I work in a 9-5 job when I can make $76,000 from some easy Indiegogo scam. 

[Jay_Diddy_B]

In these scams schemes Graphene is the new Snake Oil.

A quick search shows that Graphene caps are still in the laboratory. It will be years before (or if) we see them in production.

As far as Shawn West's IGG project, failure and delays are both undesirable but acceptable  outcomes. The complete lack of communication is totally unacceptable. This project has had a very wide credibility gap from the start.

Regards,

Jay_Diddy_B

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

I think this will sum it up:
He played you girl, and he ain't EVER gonna call you.

[daveatol]

40A power supply in that? Yeah right.

I think that's the less-unlikely part of it (actually 18A (or 108W) constant would charge a 1.5AHr "battery" in the stated 5 minutes). It's not an impossible ask, albeit a tough one at such small dimensions.

How and from where are all these graphene supercapacitors being sourced? Are they all just being knocked-up in the campaigner's backyard?

[tom66]

He's buying them from Mr West; that's probably why he's been so delayed recently.



Typical commercial power supplies are something like ~6W-10W/cubic inch.

They don't specify dimensions, but if we assume 4" by 1" cylinder with 100% available for the power electronics (unrealistic, given the need for the large graphene capacitor, connectors and casing materials) then that gives them ~3.1 cubic inches available.

Enough for an optimistic 30 watts, or more realistically something like 10~15 watts. Comparing the assumption to something like an iPad charger, which delivers 11 watts, and is about the same volume, this seems like a present limit.

To reach an optimistic 108 watts, they'd need about 12in^3, or in a similar form factor, make the device diameter twice as large, or length four times as long. This also assumes the graphene capacitor as being negligible in size.

Maybe they can get more peak power out of the device, but continuous power is less ... still, for power transistors, 5 minutes may as well be DC...

[daveatol]

I bet he's buying pencils as we speak.

He's buying them from Mr West; that's probably why he's been so delayed recently.

To reach an optimistic 108 watts, they'd need about 12in^3, or in a similar form factor, make the device diameter twice as large, or length four times as long. This also assumes the graphene capacitor as being negligible in size.

Well, I see no reason why the size of the graphene capacitor should hold this project back. 
Anyways, that estimate for power density is probably fine for a nicely made supply; a capacitor charger doesn't need to be that nice. Here's an example commercial supply which can supply "200W", and has a volume of 3.5 in³, including its package:  http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/200W-Max-220V-AC-0-91A-Home-LED-Halogen-Power-Supply-Electronic-Transformer-/270925841132
I don't know much about the supply, but I assume it provides a bi-polar HF (e.g. ~30kHz) switching frequency squarewave, modulated by the 50Hz line sinusoid (which allows the power factor to be 0.99 without a large input capacitor). Granted, this supply would require a rectifier.

[tom66]

I have some legitimate 75W electronic transformers for 12V halogens, they are about 3.5" x 0.5". I do not believe that Chinese e-transformer will operate for very long at 200W, if at all.

Mike's looked at the output of these:


A capacitor needs low ripple current, and the supply needs to be stable into a virtual short circuit.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

Any updates? Is he in jail yet?

Unknown, but wishing this liar anal warts would be a request, not out of line.

[Richard Crowley]

It really doesn't help that people just accept being ripped off. There should be a criminal investigation. I bet Kickstarter would love that.

How is this different than scores (hundreds?) of other Kickstarter (et.al.) projects/scams that took the money and failed (or simply ran without even trying)? Is it because of the subject? The outlandish claims? That some dilettante discovered the "secret" to violating the laws of physics?  And people in this very forum were silly enough to believe?  If the US Patent & Trademark office can't keep up with the technology to discern genuine gold vs. pyrite, how do we expect Kickstarter to have any effective control of this?  CAVEAT EMPTOR applies on Kickstarter just as anywhere else.  Perhaps more so.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

I wouldn't really say some people are "silly enough to believe". Some are do-gooders trying to make the world a better place, so they invest in someone who presents himself as a family man who is trying to do the same. Their lack of technical knowledge is a primary tactic to the con. They believed in the man and the idea.
I don't visit Kickstarter because I don't know you, so why would I give you money.
The outrage is that he brought his con to this forum and denied simple facts of nature, as well as proving his maths were in error by many in great detail.
These are my opinions of course, until we hear from him again. Me thinks Jimmy Hoffa has a better chance of dropping a quarter in a payphone and telling us where he's been, first.
 

[miguelvp]

The outrage is that he brought his con to this forum and denied simple facts of nature, as well as proving his maths were in error by many in great detail.

I don't recall him being in this forum or answering anything at all.

We have a very clear case of fraud here that could easily be proven in court after a bit of investigating to get financial records. It should be an easy case for the police and prosecutor. Criminal sanctions should be brought in cases of fraud like this, not only to punish the guilty but to discourage others from trying the same thing.

Are you sure you pulled your money out in time?
Also, how can you state it's a very clear case of fraud? You don't know what efforts he put but one thing is for sure, you keep bringing up this particular failed KS, there are others that took way more money and delivered nothing. If you want to do something about it then do it, instead of trying to entice others to do it for you.

[edavid]

Also, how can you state it's a very clear case of fraud? You don't know what efforts he put but one thing is for sure, you keep bringing up this particular failed KS, there are others that took way more money and delivered nothing. If you want to do something about it then do it, instead of trying to entice others to do it for you.

That's not really fair since he's not in the US.  What could he do?  However, I don't think he understands how hard it is to bring charges against someone for even blatant fraud.

[Richard Crowley]

That's not really fair since he's not in the US.

Well, we don't really know that, do we?  Since he(?) has chosen to obfuscate his location.