Hi All,
what do you think about  the new selfcharging device Mark Dansie has shown on the recent BEM
Energy conference in Hilversum in the Netherlands ?

Here ia s video about it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcflOcL7Odk

Do you think this is some kind of electret material ?


Here is some summaries from Sterling D. Allan

http://pesn.com/2012/11/13/9602218_Mark-Dansie_Demonstrates_Solid-State-Chip_and_Water-Flashlight/

who gave me the permission to post this video on my youtube channel.

I think, if this technology can be scaled up we will see in about 2 years from now such
a chip in every new smartphone and we will need no more batteries anymore for our phones...

Very exiting !

Many thanks to Mark and Sterling to bring this forward.

Regards, Stefan.

The chip is remarkable. I think I heard Mark say that at this point only microamps of current could be obtained, but that's certainly better than zero ... I'd like to know if it can drive a load of any kind or whether it can only feed really high impedance loads like DMMs or scopes. It is very interesting that it works better, in colder temperatures. I wonder if it could be transducing mechanical vibrations (sound, etc) and storing the energy as charge separation.

I don't really think it could have much to do with the bright light shown in the very short "early video" from a couple of years ago, there on Sterling's site, though.

If it is getting its energy from thermal sources such as ambient environmental heat, then I would expect it to perform better when the material is colder as there would be a greater thermal gradient between itself and its environment.
I certainly think it is an interesting development, and one which potentially could be used for all manner of applications.

Cheers

It certainly looks interesting.  Mark is not technical so it's understandable that he did not quote the two critical electrical parameters for the device.  They are the open-circuit voltage and the output impedance.  With that information the next logical step would be to put the impedance-matched load across the device and just let it run.  By that I mean let it run for months.  You do this to rule out chemical energy as a possible power source.  The way it sounds one could assume that they have already done this, but they would have to share their data.  You can't forget that if the device is outputting only microwatts of power, then chemical energy could actually power it for months, i.e.; a battery.

I can't speak for this device but normally (in fact always as far as I can see) it's a misnomer to state that a device "collects electrons" from the environment, or wherever.  I know that this is commonly stated and I don't denigrate Mark or anyone non-technical for saying that.  However, for the sake of completeness, the device would not be collecting electrons from anywhere.  What it's doing is "boosting" some of the electrons that are already in the circuit up to a higher potential.  An "electron pump" would be a more accurate way to describe what the device appears to be doing.  You don't have to gather electrons from anywhere, you just have to pump up some of the existing electrons to a higher potential.

For me it's still way to early to have that Eureka! moment.

I wonder if the chip contains any magnetic material ?  I guess we'll have to wait and see if new
information gets released, that's as long as Lockheed Martin don't buy up the technology.

I think he is shorting because the voltage doesn't climb above 5V but 40 of those cells would give 200V but no sparks
This technology is indeed real and so are solar cells, I bed there are more sources to extract energy from.
thanks for posting Stephan

I would like to see that voltage climb to 200V or so. Why did he keep shorting it?

I sure hope that it's not the voltmeter that is charging that chip. 

Agreed, they need to show it powering some small load to be certain it is real.

I've just done a couple of little experiments with a piezo speaker element, a 1n34 germanium diode, and a mica capacitor that had some suggestive and intriguing results. I wonder what would happen if the appropriate materials were bonded together into a layered disk.

I wonder if the spring pressure of the alligator clips is powering it !!

I guess he shorted it to show that it recovers its charge quickly, over and over. I don't think the meter, if it is working correctly, can charge it up on a Voltage setting. At least my Simpson DMM can't charge anything that way. Of course if it's malfing, all bets are off.

What have you got against Dansie? I'm not arguing or challenging, just fact-finding. I thought it was a little weird that he is supposed to be sharing facilities and personnel with the makers of one or more of the products he brought, and I've see his name bandied about by third parties who apparently really _really_  want his endorsement for their claims for some reason. I always thought that, in the past, he was pretty impartial and hard to hornswoggle. I hope that hasn't changed....

It's just a sense I've gotten from reading his messages here and elsewhere as well as watching some videos.  I could be wrong but I'll go with my gut feeling and reading his body language (in the video above his eye movements can be interpreted as exaggerating the truth or outright lies - that of course is not proof or 100% reliable but can be a gauge) to not give him much trust until proven otherwise.   But I will hope he does really have something that can be useful.