Can reactive power be recycled fast enough to power resistive loads? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 07:07:13 pm
content: Jim Murray and Paul Babcock gave a demonstration of their S.E.R.P.S. technology at the 2014 Science, Energy and Technology Conference hosted by Aaron Murakami in Idaho. Their circuit was sequestered under a translucent plastic overturned box to hide their circuit since they hadn't received patents at that time. They have since done so. Please see attachment.They metered their wall outlet connection indicating that it was drawing around a watt. Yet, two 25-watt lightbulbs (incandescent) were fully lit up and connected in series to produce a 50-watt resistive load. This was their low-end setup. They claimed to have more efficient models capable of scaling up the output beyond this 50-to-1 gain.In a subsequent presentation, they claimed that trying to get backers and marketing to happen here in the West was impossible. Their best successes came about when they sold to third world countries.If we do the math, a 50-to-1 gain might imply that a mere 8V battery under the hood of a Tesla Motors car would be sufficient to drive their 400V motor. And if recharged with a rotary electric generator, similar to what's inside normal gasoline cars and not like the DC-to-DC converters within electric cars, and driven often enough to recharge the battery, then that battery might never need recharging from any external source?

author: UnijunctionTransistor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 07:16:56 pm
content: So…….Another Maxwell Chikumbutso?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pm
content: If they are creating power from nothing then, no, it's not possible. See the first law of thermodynamics.In any case, reactive power is already "recycled", since it is, by definition, not "real power". Any charge admitted to a capacitor in the positive half wave is returned when the voltage falls. Likewise, for an inductor, phase shifted by 180 degrees. There's no free lunch: net power is zero. Add a load in series with the capacitor and it will dissipate power, but you will pay for that.If the power meter was 'legit', it was most likely not designed to accurately measure the very poor power factor that was created by the circuit, and so was showing a low power consumption. Either that, or the entire setup was a magician's trick. Free energy "scientists" have been fooled by power factor and real/reactive power many times over, so it doesn't surprise me.QuoteNo. First, you assume voltage is the important factor. It is not. I could make a Model S drive with an 8V battery if I wanted to and wouldn't violate any physical law. I'd just require a very large, high current 8V battery, and some way to boost the voltage up to the level the car required to run its inverter and other systems. Such boost converters are occasionally used, e.g. the Prius contains a 200V to 400V boost converter to allow for peak acceleration from a lower voltage battery. But from as little as 8V, this would be an impractical, expensive way to move the vehicle. Electric vehicles use high voltage batteries because if you need a car to have even 100 hp, that is about 80,000W. Providing that at 8V would require conductors, power transistors, motors, etc. capable of 10,000A. That would give the car comparable performance to a Nissan Leaf. Instead, Tesla use a 400V battery with a 1/10th that peak current capacity, which allows them to output around 400kW peak, or 500hp. In the second error, you assume even if such an 8V battery was used instead of a 400V battery, it could be much smaller. No, it would, if anything, be considerably larger due to the inefficiencies of such high currents being required. Energy is always conserved though, and the batteries would have similar kWh capacity. I am sure you could configure the nearly 7,000 lithium ion cells into a 2S3500P battery pack if you wanted to, but it would make no sense for the reasons above.

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 07:42:40 pm
content: Quote from: UnijunctionTransistor on May 09, 2025, 07:16:56 pmWho is he and what did he do, or attempt to do, and why haven't I heard of him?

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 07:44:14 pm
content: I thought reactive power becomes real power whenever it is passed through a resistive load. Isn't that why the lightbulbs lit up?

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 07:45:34 pm
content: Quote from: Chet on May 09, 2025, 07:07:13 pmit is a scam designed to extract money from the gullible that don't understand physics, so it is no surprise that it works better where people are less educated...

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 07:48:16 pm
content: Quote from: Chet on May 09, 2025, 07:44:14 pmNo, reactive power and real power are separate measurements, a way of characterising a complex waveform into two simple, easy to digest numbers. You cannot convert reactive power into real power. Power companies and large consumers will install reactive compensators at their facilities which offset the reactive power of their loads, but they do this by drawing reactive power in the opposite direction (so lagging reactive power, as is common with motor loads, will be compensated with capacitors). These compensation circuits aren't perfect and will dissipate some power themselves but this is due to parasitic components and is not a desired effect.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 08:03:58 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:48:16 pmreactive power is like borrowing money and immediately paying it back, you didn't spend any of it so you didn't get anything out of it, but the bank still wants to be paid to make the loan and interest

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 08:51:47 pm
content: An easy way for a stage magician to create an illusion of small input power is to use average-responding meters for voltage and current (with no phase measurement), such as Simpson 260s.Even "true rms" meters and not appropriate for input voltage and current if there is no phase information.A theoretical measurement takes instantaneous readings of voltage and current at simultaneous times, multiplies the two readings (which can give positive or negative products), and then averages the result over many cycles of the AC power. Even with a sinusoidal voltage from the wall outlet, the current is not necessarily sinusoidal, depending on the load.

author: UnijunctionTransistor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 09:13:07 pm
content: Quote from: Chet on May 09, 2025, 07:42:40 pmA pair of very manyhttps://youtu.be/ukJkRQscNb0?si=4c8oJaPcFravNUkshttps://youtu.be/_B-EZCvYJNg?si=hy358rplzD4792tZ

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 10:29:50 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pmI wouldn't call it the creation of power. They're increasing the work which reuse would imply. "Nothing" is not applicable since they measured some input from the wall outlet.I think the problem here is whether or not imaginary power can clone itself? Or put another way, whether or not reactive impedances can continuously create imaginary power at a rate which does not obey conservation since imaginary power does not exist without a time-shift having occurred in the format of a lagging or a leading power factor. This time-shift invalidates calling imaginary power, power, or affiliating it with energy (power over a duration of time) according to Emmy Nother's theorem which defines energy in terms of its conservation so long as time never shifts.This puts into doubt whether all reactive impedances involve some form of time-shift and whether a pure power factor of positive one is the only restricted case of the non-shifting of time?Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pmYet, since the refractive index of prismatic materials, such as: glass, is the square root of the dielectric constant of dielectric materials or dielectric mediums, such as: a vacuum, then a capacitance which is of a low enough value no longer functions as such, but becomes prismatic in which the current passes through the so-called dielectric medium of capacitance while the voltage reflects and both occur simultaneously creating a phase displacement of exactly one-half cycle between current and voltage satisfying the definition of the generation of power.Coils cannot accept this format of power any more than capacitors can exercise a time-delay for its absorption or discharge (since capacitors are doing neither), and so the coils receiving this type of power refuse to become saturated.We have not created power. We've merely converted the consumption of power into its generation.But what this implies is that the generation of power can merely accumulate. It cannot be lost nor spent except through a resistor or anything else similar (such as: a heating coil of very high resistance) since this format of negative watts is not consumptive power. Am I right in assuming that only (and exclusively) power which is undergoing its consumption can be lost or spent when that power possesses a power factor of *positive* one, but must accumulate if the power factor is *negative* one?Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pmSome of the major factors of a "cost" to a non-free lunch are the "costs" of: duration (for having to wait for the accumulation of negative watts to amass enough momentum (ie, amplitude) to amount to something useful when exclusively converted by a resistor into positive watts (or concerted by the elevated resistance within heating coils), and frequency (since this is a race against entropy wherein both the frequency of negative watts and the amplitude of entropic losses are counter-opposing forces).Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pmYes, a capacitor corrects for a lagging power factor for the entire circuit. But a resistor will dissipate reactive power as heat, without the ability to benefit the overall power factor of the entire circuit. A hot resistor is an indication of real power being converted into its dissipation which implies that a resistor can only correct for power factor within itself for its own dissipation into the format of heat.Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pmIt is the only factor worth considering since Watt's Law can safely live without any mention, or occurrence, of current by substituting voltage divided by resistance in place of current. Since voltage squared doesn't say much, I would venture to guess that Watt's Law is an over-simplification.The true definition of Watt's Law is to recognize that it is a fantasy since it ignores time. And if it included time, then it would have to be renamed Joules' Law or something other than Watt's Law since it would no longer be a relationship involving power. Instead, it would be a relationship concerning energy.Since the squaring of voltage suggests a certain degree of ignorance, the proper manner of rephrasing Watt's Law would be to say that...The application of voltage (its input) times the resultant voltage (its output) divided by any and all impedances plus resistances -- and all of this placed within a frame-work of time, namely: per unit of time, only then will it amount to a more accurate depiction of what Watt's Law is merely alluding to without Watt's Law specifying this discretely nor accurately.Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pmThis is an unfortunate side-effect of assuming that the only place wherein we can get current is from a voltage source such as a battery. I would much rather borrow voltage, or reuse it, and get the current from somewhere else by making use of reactive impedance in a manner analogous to heat pumps.Heat pumps transfer heat from solar collectors to reservoirs at a cost of energy far less than the energy coming from the Sun. Like that, "reactive pumps" are capable of transferring current from potential sources of current, such as the Earth through ground rods. And if this transference of current is not DC, then the increase of the alternating frequency of its transfer will perform more work per unit of time without requiring excessive quantities of amp-hours (as you suggest, up-above).Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:37:17 pmThank you for articulating a well-versed response!

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 10:34:10 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 09, 2025, 07:48:16 pmWhat if a parasitic frequency were to become a desirable effect along the lines of "controlled chaos"? Isn't this what free energy amounts to? The manifestation of chaos?Maybe unstable circuits are undesirable from the standpoint of extreme examples of their instability (exploding transformers, etc). But what about less embarrassing anomalies which may prove useful?

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 10:43:44 pm
content: why is this in general technical chat, and not in dodgy technology like all the other free energy scam nonsense ?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 10:46:35 pm
content: That's impressive word salad, Chet - every bit as good as AI/LLM slop.Amusingly the OP's first post on this forum is "I am a not an idiot"https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/free-energy-scams-and-fakes/msg4358314/#msg4358314

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 10:57:00 pm
content: Voltage isnotpower. It is the energy in Joules per Coulomb of charge. In scientific and engineering usage, power is the rate of energy per time: 1 J/s = 1 W.In popular natural language, there can be confusion between the words "strength", "force", "energy", "power", etc., but we are technical adults on this forum.If you know that the load that you apply the voltage to is a pure resistance (obeying Ohm's Law), then you can calculate the power from the resistance and voltage.If you know the current and voltage, you can calculate the instantaneous power and average it to get mean power.

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 11:48:29 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 09, 2025, 10:57:00 pmFrequency can substitute for an inadequate voltage input especially if it is parasitic.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 11:53:13 pm
content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 11:54:12 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on May 09, 2025, 10:46:35 pmLest I be misunderstood, theory is every bit as real as is experience except that theory is an abstraction without any of the limitations of concrete experience.The only thing missing from an abstract theory -- should we fail to materialize it -- is adequate technology. Without adequate technology, no theory is safe from failure.Da Vinci's helicopters couldn't fly if anyone had built them according to his vague specifications. That technological know-how had to wait a few centuries to catch up with his vague (ergo, abstract) vision.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2025, 11:56:04 pm
content: Quote from: Chet on May 09, 2025, 11:54:12 pmQ.E.D.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 01:07:20 am
content: Quote from: Chet on May 09, 2025, 11:48:29 pmPlease introduce to the world this new concept of parasitic frequency.

author: UnijunctionTransistor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 01:16:49 pm
content: Quote from: langwadt on May 09, 2025, 10:43:44 pmI also think this thread belongs over there.Who can make the switch, an administrator?

author: paul cotter
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 02:52:48 pm
content: Hi there Chet, I think you know me from past communications. Unfortunately i have only bad news for you: What Babcock and Murray are doing is meter fooling by using a very unsinusoidal waveform and a digital scope would read a much higher input power. Reactive power is real power but instead of going from source to sink it is sloshing back and forth between storage components- the instant you consume some of that power in a resistive load there is a deficit that must be made up by a real power input and if there is no power input the reactive oscillations will cease. This is my way of describing reactive power and others may disagree. One should also note that power companies do not like consumers with really bad power factors and wholesale use of such a device, IF it worked, would cause network chaos.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 03:57:52 pm
content: Babcock and Murray’s “meter fooling” is an example of what I called a stage-magic illusion.

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 07:45:06 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on May 10, 2025, 01:07:20 amparasitic frequency-- Bing search.According to the link, above, parasitic oscillations are an unwanted by product of an unstable circuit. But I want it as a venture into "Controlled Chaos".Theslow development of a spiked, parasitic, elevated frequency modulating a slower sine wave.The parasitic oscillation rides/forms piggy-back on top of its parent waveform. Yet, if the amplitude of this parasitic oscillation should happen to amplify its amplitude, then its parent waveform gets lost becoming an ever-shrinking parent in contrast to the amplitude of its child.

author: Chet
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2025, 07:56:32 pm
content: Quote from: paul cotter on May 10, 2025, 02:52:48 pmTime to get off the grid and hide, or ground out, the stray electrostatics and electromagnetics of this sort of device from the FCC.Quote from: paul cotter on May 10, 2025, 02:52:48 pmThis is where their explanation breaks down since they didn't want to claim that they were generating power, nor converting the consumption of positive watts into negative watts -- the difference being that the consumption of power (positive watts) depletes what is available for continued depletion while the generation of power (negative watts) does not. Instead, the generation of negative watts accumulates since it is lossless unless it passes through a resistive load at which point it becomes useful.And if negative watts can accumulate at least as fast as its entropic usage, then the lightbulbs will remain lit.=================================================That's a matter of policy. If enough people did this, they'd have to change their policy or risk losing their legitimacy as a government who represents the people.This is where I come in: informed consent. If the public is ignorant, then the status quo is ensured against its alteration.