Electricical

I know I’m dating myself by this word.  In the 1960’s sitcom Green Acres, Eva Gabor consistently used this term to refer to electricity.

In 1975, I graduated from college with a degree in Electrical Engineering Technology.  Today, I call it my degree in Electricical Engineering Technology.

After all these years, I finally understand why the letters B.S. preface the degree.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

I began studying electricical and electronics in 1966 or so in my teens.

I went to college and graduated in that field.

I thought I might actually know something about it.

Within the past year, that happy opinion was challenged by the following experience:

My friend’s son had installed a new engine in a 1990’s truck.  He had it all back together.  It would not crank.  When the key was turned to crank the engine, the headlights came on, but nothing else happened.

The switch on the dashboard was turned off.

The circuit was the standard age-old battery, switch, headlights.

I put my smart charger on the battery.  It indicated the battery was strong, but not fully charged.  For chuckles, we charged the battery until the smart charger (the only thing I hate worse than an appliance that thinks it is smarter than me is when the durn thang is right!) said it was fully charged.  Meanwhile, we discussed a myriad of possibilities.

When the battery was fully charged according to my smarter-than-me charger, we tried again.

The truck started.

The headlights did not come on.

Not one single wire was connected differently.

Looking back, I remember circuit analysis 101.  You could Thevenize any component in an electrical system.  That is, you could model it as a voltage or current source in conjunction with a resistor and either a capacitor or inductor.  This is based on a theory proposed by a guy named Thevenin if memory serves.

I’ve tried every way I can imagine to model this simple headlight circuit to explain what I saw that day with my own eyes.  Nothing works.  For the life of me, I cannot imagine using the tools I was given in college how this works.

And that is why I renamed my degree field as Electricical Engineering Technology.

Obviously, I was not taught about electricity.

I was taught about electricical, and I might not understand the subject of electricity any better, if as well, as Eva Gabor’s character on Green Acres.

Surprise! 

At least, it was a surprise to me when I thought about it.

Not that it should have been.

In my senior year, we were given the assignment of designing a MODEM.  A modem is a device used to allow separate computers to communicate.  In 1975, the Apple personal computer and the Radio Shack Model III units were just around the corner, and the internet was not yet developed.

The MODEM is an abbreviation for modulator/demodulator.  It could simultaneously send and receive data.

One frequency represented a binary 1.  A different frequency represented a binary 0.  That is the language of computers.

We used a program called PCAP – (the Princeton Circuitial Analysis Program).  We all Thevenized the heck out of the components of our design and ran the feet off the university computer.  We worked it so hard, its mouse ran away.

The computer would say, use this combination of components.

Nothing the computer spit out would work.

One guy had the ingenuity to use a decade resistor and capacitor box to find the solution!  His design worked.

I had stacks of 11 X 17 green bar paper shoulder high.  It was all wrong.

As was the case with the partially charged battery, the Thevenin model failed to account for something that was there and affected the solution/result.

At the time, I subscribed to the Newtonian billiard-ball-universe world view.  The linear processes of the PCAP program struck me as highly promising.  The only problem with that is that it failed to work.

Both the weak battery phenomenon/observation and the failed MODEM design still elude me intuitively.  I suspect there’s something non-Newtonian going on here, perhaps something quantum.  Tesla may have understood it.

One of my professors repeatedly told the class that the materials he was allowed/required to present obscured what was going on.  I did not believe him back then.

Today, I see he was telling the truth.

Spark Gaps

We had a local mechanic who died a few years back.  He was known for being able to make things work.  A customer came in off the highway after the parts places were closed.  He had a fouled plug and needed to be on his way.  The mechanic cleaned the plug, but it continued to miss.  The motor was shut off and the mechanic reached under the hood again and manipulated the plug wire.  When the customer started the motor, the miss was gone.

What had the mechanic done?

He had pulled the spark plug wire off the plug sufficiently to create a gap between the contact in the end of the wire and the contact on the free-air end of the spark plug.

This is counter–intuitive, but it works.  A spark gap there increased the strength of the impulse inside the engine to allow the spark plug to “hit”.

Newman’s Engine and the Spark Gap

One of the features of the Newman engine is an old style commutator and brushes.

These devices create visible sparks.

At one point, Richard Grove speaks of modern designers trying to design out that spark.  He is right about that trend in motor technology.  Slip rings are often used.   There is also a design of a brushless dc motor used in spacecraft.

If Newman’s machine does in fact produce more energy than is input to it, that spark gap may be the source of the gain in energy.

Newman’s Credibility, Part 1 of 4

Here is a link to Newman’s website

On that website, I find the following quote:

I, Joseph Newman, have repeatedly stated that mass means NOTHING if it does not have a MECHANICAL UNDERSTANDING . The equation for horsepower of rotating motor shaft so PROVES - "ft. lbs X rpm divided by 5252 = HP". Yet that equation does not designate the TIME of said horsepower. Constant of mass - rpm implies horsepower per minute.

This is a classical Newtonian billiard-ball-universe equation.  The four parameters of Newtonian’s universe are:

Mass

Distance (space)

Time, and

Force

I seem to recall that for any Newtonian equation to balance, all four parameters must be represented.  Newman asserts that the TIME of said horsepower is not designated.  It’s not?!  What is the M in RPM?  It’s minutes.  That’s time.

The underscored statement is simply wrong.

The Wikipedia Article on Newman is not very supportive.  He is accused of using pseudo-science in his arguments.  Certainly, the above-cited statement from his website is wanting.

Newman’s Credibility, Part 2 of 4

In 1986, I traveled 300 miles to New Orleans to see a presentation by Newman.  Impressed by what I heard, I later traveled 200 miles to Jackson Mississippi to see another.  To this, I invited a friend who happened to be an electrical engineering professor.

Newman was going to demonstrate a car powered by his engine.  He was going to drive to Jackson from New Orleans in that car and drive it around in a rodeo arena.  After a speech and presentation about his device, he was going to allow the audience to walk up to his car and take pictures, view it for themselves, talk to him about it, etc.

The car was hauled to Jackson atop a trailer.  It was pushed into the arena by supporters.  Newman gave some lame explanation about technical problems.

My professor friend immediately pooh-pood the exhibition as a scam.

Maybe he was right.

Interestingly, he seemed to be doing very well at his job, but was passed over for tenure.  He speculated that his attendance to that exhibition may have been a factor.

Even if that is so, that is by no means an affirmation of Newman’s work.

To plan such an exhibition and publicize it prior to having a robustly exercised prototype, at the very least, calls Newman’s judgment into question.   He may have overestimated himself.

Newman’s Credibility, Part 3 of 4

$100,000.00?!

To come to Phoenix with his machine?!

Did not Earnest just travel to New Hampshire with geodesic dome in tow to participate in Porcfest?  I didn’t hear Earnest say anything about being paid thousands of dollars.

‘nuff said.

Newman’s Credibility, Part 4 of 4

I worked in a medical electronic manufacturing plant in Houston in 1976.  We built medical gas analyzers.  One of the devices measured carbon monoxide (CO).  One of these units was driving the technician crazy.  There was noise in the circuit that caused the indicator to fluctuate erratically.  He could not identify the source of the noise.  He showed me the signal on his oscilloscope.  Immediately, I recognized it as the modulation envelope of a AM radio station.

One of the gals had a radio at her work station.  We asked her to switch to the AM band and tune in some stations.  About the 3rd station she came to was the source of the signal in the CO analyzer.  The sound from the station’s program exactly matched the fluctuations in the CO analyzer’s noise.

I say this just to show that power can be induced from mundane sources into other devices.

In the Midwest, power companies began to notice significant power losses in their backbone transmission lines.  The level of losses were significantly higher than should be occurring due to resistance in the wire over huge distances and minor insulation/insulator leakages or bad connections.

Extensive investigation led them to dairy farmers who discovered that large coils of wire placed near the backbone transmission lines could pick up significant amount of power that they could use for heating.  Conservation of energy means that every watt of power the dairy farmers got this way was a watt the power company failed to receive revenue for.  The financial losses were significant.

One of the components in Newman’s machine is a large coil of copper wire.

One challenge to Newman that I think may have been made, but which he dodged, was to test his motor in a room shielded from outside electrical fields.

If you get him to come to Phoenix, challenge him to set the thing up 10 miles from nowhere in the desert away from major electrical lines, radio stations, etc.

I seem to recall that Newman’s first prototypes had small margins of excess energy.  Another professor told me that these amounts of energy could easily be derived from ambient stray electrical fields.

Newman’s Credibility, Summary

Suffice it to say, I have concerns regarding Newman’s credibility.

Earnest asked him why the thing hadn’t been built.  Newman responded with something like, I have a secret plan that is only available to sophisticated investors.   When asked how much capital he needed, he said $100,000,000.00 (yep 100 million dollars).

A question that Earnest didn’t ask, but which occurred to me later was, If you have a book out that explains your principles and this thing works, why hasn’t everybody gone down to the hardware store and built these things themselves?  At one time, I owned a copy of Newman’s book.  Frankly, I didn’t “get” it.

Then again, I’ve been studying the US Constitution for 23 years and am still learning about it.  So maybe it’s no wonder I missed Newman’s point.

The book had a lot of familiar jargon about gyroscopes as I recall.  From there, Newman asks the reader to take a leap to gyroscopic motion of electrons or something like that.  It sounds good.  I was never quite sure whether I could believe that or not.

At the exhibition I went to in New Orleans, there was a devotee who had built a small Newman’s engine, per the book.  His model was maybe 2 feet tall, or less.  He explained the operation of the commutator as “negative positive positive negative etc. ad infinitum.  He convinced me that he believed what he was saying, but I just wasn’t sure whether to buy into that beyond the price of the book or not.  (about $40 at the time)

The Greater than Unity (GTU) Energy Cycle of DC Treybil

Around 1973, we had the oil embargo and the 55 mph national speed limit.

I became interested in alternative energy sources.

I had never heard the term GTU, but that’s the direction my intuition took me.

I began to imagine a cycle that would be simple, non-polluting and easily built.

My first concept was based on the idea of boiling water, letting it rise, condense and fall.  As it fell, it would do work.  That work could be used to drive a generator with enough energy to boil the same amount of water with something left over.

So where is the break-even point in height?

Well, it takes a 1,000 BTU’s (approximately) to boil a pound of water.

And, a BTU is 778 foot pounds.

This means that 778,000 foot pounds of work is required to boil a pound of water.

To do 778,000 foot pounds of work, a pound of water must fall 778,000 feet.

How far is 778,000 feet?

Approximately 140 miles.

So the break-even height for the DC Treybil GTU energy cycle is 140 miles, minimum, assuming no losses.

To achieve GTU operation, the thing would have to be 200 miles tall or taller.

Except for this one itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-yellow-pokadot problem, it’s a positively brilliant idea.

What is called for is a liquid with lower latent heat of vaporization.  Common refrigerants take about 20BTU’s per pound.  This would get the break-even point to a pyramid-building-scale project of 3 miles.  It’s doable, just not by me.

Something with a lower latent heat of vaporization would bring the GTU practical height to a few hundred feet.  This would make it possible for tall buildings to generate their own energy with towers-of-power enclosed in the structure.

I swear I recall hearing some guy in a bar say this was being done in Houston skyscrapers.  But that memory is highly vague and of very low confidence.

The GTU Energy Cycle of Physics Professor TG

One of my college physics professors proposed a device that would spin water in a tall column or stand pipe maybe 100 feet in height.

This would work something like a washing machine in spin cycle.  If you ever had a top-loading washer that would go into spin cycle with the lid up, you know what I mean.  (and they say nothing exciting ever happens in a small town!) As the tub spins, the water leaves the bottom for the sides.  There’s this hole in the middle of the water created by the centrifugal force of the spinning.

Of course, you have to impart considerable energy to the water in a stand pipe to get it to rise 100 feet due to centrifugal force.  But, based on the law of the conservation of angular momentum, that energy is still available to you when the water reaches the top.  Also, the water is 100 feet high.  Each pound you raise that high does 100 foot pounds of work as it falls.  That’s the GTU margin, or the basis for hoping it might be there.

You can model this thing all day long and write all the equations you want to.  But the only way to know if it will actually work or not is to build it.

A GTU Energy Cycle Based Upon the Sterling Engine

One ton of refrigeration capacity is the equivalent of melting a ton of ice in 24 hours.

To melt a ton of ice requires 288,000 BTU’s of heat.

This comes to 12,000 BTU’s per hour.

A typical one-ton window unit air conditioner has a 1 hp compressor motor.

12,000 BTU’s per hour divided by 3,600 seconds per hour yield 3.33 BTU’s per second being moved by that 1 hp motor.

This is very interesting because as was noted earlier, 778 foot pounds of mechanical work equals one BTU.  When you take into consideration that 550 foot pounds of mechanical work per second is one horsepower, 778 foot pounds per second is almost exactly 1.5 horsepower.  Hence, 1 BTU per second is 1.5 horsepower.

If that’s true, what is 3.33 BTU’s per second?

5 horsepower.

Which means, a one horsepower compressor is delivering 5 horsepower worth of heat at the output.

That’s a huge GTU margin.

Which brings us to a Sterling engine.

If you apply heat to the correct end of a Sterling engine, the engine turns.

If you mechanically spin the shaft of that same Sterling engine, the end where you apply heat to make it run gets cold while the other end gets hot.

Imagine a 1 hp and a 5 hp Sterling engine coupled thermally and mechanically.  The hot end of the small motor is connected to the cold end of the large motor. 

The two shafts are directly coupled.

There are practical considerations to this arrangement.  The physical configuration is driven by the shape of the two engines.  The hot and cold ends of the two engines must physically touch.  Depending on how the two engines wind up being oriented with respect to one-another, the shafts may have to be coupled using a series of shafts and gears or some similar such transmission.

As the two engines are spun up by an outside motor, the hot end of the small motor heats up driving the shaft of the large motor by heat transferred to the cold end of the large motor.

1 hp of the large motor’s output drives the small engine.

4 hp of the large motor’s output is available for external work.

This is the theory.  I have a more clear recollection of being told about a VW Beetle being powered by an engine that was covered in ice.  This was demonstrated to TPTB and no more was heard of it.

Summary

I, DC Treybil, firmly believe that a GTU energy cycle exists.  Whether Joseph Newman’s device actually is a GTU energy cycle is an open question to me.  I’m not sure it is.  I’m not sure it isn’t.

Whether or not any of the other devices I described will work is also an open question.

Here’s hoping such a device exists and that it finds its way into production soon.

I don't know whether to actively pursue that or just to have a diploma replica printed declaring my field of study to be Electricical Engineering Technology.

DC Treybil