Really... I CARE. Ainslie has presented these daft manuscripts as "scientific reports of an experiment". They do not rise to the standard of anecdote, even, since they contain so many misrepresentations, inconsistencies, fabricated or covered up data, and outright lies. In addition she has carried on a campaign of relentless insult and disrespect for me and for all of her critics. I will not rest until every bogus point in Ainslie's entire opus is revealed, explained and if necessary refuted. She's a liar, a troll, a fool, and an idiot, and I am not just repeating the experiment to higher standards, I am exposing Ainslie and Martin for what they are.

Furthermore, since she so vehemently denies the validity of what I am doing, I am actually _pre-empting_ her by removing the valid methodologies from her armamentarium. She won't use the methods I am using... she can't, she dare not, without revealing her ignorance and hypocrisy yet again. This gives me the lulz to the max.
 

What I see that is valuable is the record you are publishing of how to perform good experiments with various types of apparatus, and how to find and cope with real limitations, including a budget.  I don't personally see value in tying any of that good work to the irrational rants of someone whom very few take seriously at all.

I think I'll commence experimental runs with the Quantum Box circuit that Ainslie shows in the photographs and which Steve Weir has decoded and schematized.

I have the thing built up already, the exact circuit Steve drew up, with the same NE555N (although mine is Philips not STMicro brand), the same Spectrol Model 534 ten-turn 50 k wirewound pot and the same IRFP450 (not PG50) mosfet that is shown in Ainslie's photographs of the "lost" box that was "not actually" ever lost at all.

The circuit of course produces nothing like what the original Quantum publication schematic does. This circuit makes short, highfrequency ON duty cycles, no oscillations, but some ringing when the Gate series resistance potentiometer is very low.  The frequency range is about 20 kHz - 185 kHz -- far faster than the original claimed circuit -- and the duty cycle is not adjustable, so the "freq" control is really the "off" time control and the "on" time is fixed by the RC programming components of the 555 circuit. In constrast to the claimed Quantum magazine circuit there is only the one adjustable pot, not two. I've left in the series Gate resistance control present in the original Quantum schematic because it does have some effect on the circuit's performance.

This is the circuit that was installed in the Lost Grey RatsNest Box sometime after 2007, so that the Ainslie mob could reproduce Glen's (FuzzyTomCat's) work in preparation for the submissions, rejected of course, to the IEEE journals.  At the time, Ainslie was ecstatic and endorsed the waveforms that Glen produced as "authentic" and proper for the performance of the experiment to show excess energy production from this circuit.

A blast from the past:


(By the way... if any of the screen images of Ainslie's posts don't bear the date, because they may have been captured the same day as they were made.... just look at the date of creation of the image file.)

Is that oscilloscope that was out for repair the one that she didn't damage?

Ah yes, the LeCroy makes its first appearance that I can find on November 19, 2010. So it is not the one she is talking about in July 2009.
This was during a time when I really wasn't paying much attention to the Ainslie affair, as I had already debunked the Q17 circuit sufficiently already and was quite bored with Ainslie's posturings and insults.

Here's the first rough "shakedown run" of the Thermal Efficiency testing of the Quantum -17 Grey Box circuit at around 17 Watts DC input power. I haven't plotted the data yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0QeZf5Q6hY

I disagree with calling the drain voltage high interval 30%.  It looks like about 70% high / 30% low.  I recommend explaining why the gate high interval of ~15% is shorter than the MOSFET low period of ~30%.

Sorry, my fault in not being clear on the terminology. The mosfet  Drain signal is HI, at battery voltage, when the mosfet is OFF, nonconducting. I should have said that the mosfet is ON, or something like that, 30 percent of the time, supplying power to the load.

Looking at the way the drain trace develops, due to the slow response of the mosfet at 164kHz, and factoring in the ringing, leads to the estimated 30 percent ON time corresponding to the shorter Gate HI pulse of around 15 percent. The mosfet's gate capacitance takes time to fill and discharge and this means high peak gate drive currents and fast gate signal risetimes are needed at these fast frequencies, and the 555 timer clock just can't source or sink the fast risetime high current pulse needed for good clean switching of the IRFP450 mosfet.

These are just eyeball duty cycle estimates. I suppose I should break out the Link DSO to get real numbers on these.

Some versions of Ainslie's claimed schematics include a diode across the load; this will probably have a big effect on that ringing.

ETA: I haven't graphed the data but the one-hour stable temperature rise was 27.4 degrees C over ambient, and this corresponds to a power dissipation at the load of just a hair over 13 Watts. The DC input power was 16.9 Watts, and this gives an efficiency of about 77 percent, far higher than I expected. The mosfet on its heatsink was warm to the touch but not "hot". I'm sorry I didn't measure this temperature.

ETA2: This slowness of the mosfet also accounts for the seemingly anomalously high power throughput at the frequencies Glen used, around 300-500 kHz. A 20 percent duty cycle gate pulse results in the mosfet staying fully or partially ON for nearly the entire period, and I've noted this before when discussing Glen's work.

Sorry, my fault in not being clear on the terminology. The mosfet  Drain signal is HI, at battery voltage, when the mosfet is OFF, nonconducting. I should have said that the mosfet is ON, or something like that, 30 percent of the time, supplying power to the load.

Looking at the way the drain trace develops, due to the slow response of the mosfet at 164kHz, and factoring in the ringing, leads to the estimated 30 percent ON time corresponding to the shorter Gate HI pulse of around 15 percent. The mosfet's gate capacitance takes time to fill and discharge and this means high peak gate drive currents and fast gate signal risetimes are needed at these fast frequencies, and the 555 timer clock just can't source or sink the fast risetime high current pulse needed for good clean switching of the IRFP450 mosfet.

These are just eyeball duty cycle estimates. I suppose I should break out the Link DSO to get real numbers on these.

Some versions of Ainslie's claimed schematics include a diode across the load; this will probably have a big effect on that ringing.

ETA: I haven't graphed the data but the one-hour stable temperature rise was 27.4 degrees C over ambient, and this corresponds to a power dissipation at the load of just a hair over 13 Watts. The DC input power was 16.9 Watts, and this gives an efficiency of about 77 percent, far higher than I expected. The mosfet on its heatsink was warm to the touch but not "hot". I'm sorry I didn't measure this temperature.

ETA2: This slowness of the mosfet also accounts for the seemingly anomalously high power throughput at the frequencies Glen used, around 300-500 kHz. A 20 percent duty cycle gate pulse results in the mosfet staying fully or partially ON for nearly the entire period, and I've noted this before when discussing Glen's work.

On the 30% versus 15% I know that you know why it occurs.  I just think that you want to explain that in video.  A 555 is not a high current gate driver.  The efficiency is relatively good because the rise and fall times are relatively good.  The rest is just the ON resistance of the MOSFET.  When you switch over to measuring Q2 oscillations, the efficiency will plummet.  A fast catch diode like a Schottky will do a lot to suppress the rising edge drain ringing.  A slow diode such as they had won't help so much.

The other thing that will be very difficult to reproduce, because there are no good measurements of it, is the extent of disruption of the 555 caused by noise in that rat's nest of a test box they built.