Fed up with dreamers and scammers rant.

[glort]

I look at the net as the greatest encyclopedia ever created. I have learnt so much about so many things that I would never have known about otherwise nor would people have had the opportunity to share.  One of those things is subject matter related to this site... Diy, Power generation, engines etc.

What REALLY ticks me off is every time I do a search for generators or power generation, alternative fuel or anything related, Google and my favourite, Youtube, throw up ( and the term is appropriate!) loads of idiotic garbage about " Free energy Generators"  and "free power"  and "HHO Generators.
There seems to be getting more and more of it.

I'm fed up with this crap! I can't believe people are so damn stupid and ignorant to fall for it nor are there so many people peddling it.  None of this rubbish has ever been proven to work, it's been in fact debunked so many times in so many ways by so many people and institutions it's  incredible.
Why it's not been outlawed is beyond me. 

I look for creditable information and examples of what ideas and things people have set up with real world technology, as boring and done as that may be. I'm not interested in dreamers and idiots that believe in the "free energy fairy" and pixie dust.  I want real info and not to have to sift through endless garbage from morons or con men and you would have to be one or the other to champion this rot in any way shape or form.

Maybe I'm the real moron.
I know sales and how to convince people and I'm good at it. Instead of getting ticked off with this, maybe I should be jumping on the bandwagon and cashing in on it too.
How can you go wrong?
If someone complains it doesn't work, you tell them they did it wrong.  According to the believers in this crap, anyone that does not create their own miracle and break every law and rule of every known applicapleable science must be doing it wrong because it's a proven fact it works right? Just look at all the other dreamers on the net that swear by it. 

If someone really bitches, give them their money back and you are in the clear. For every refund you give there will be 50-100 suckers that tell you how well your garbage works. Just create a set of really detailed " Plans" that the morons that believe in this stuff who inevitably can't nail 2 bits of wood together can follow.
Start with pictures and descriptions of what a hammer is, how it works and what you can do with it and go from there.
You can't get too basic for feeble minds that would pay money to own "Plans" for this rubbish.

There are a whole range of scams and cons that are illegal, this crap ought to be outlawed as well.

[quinnf]

No argument here.  There is a guy who was kicked off these forums many years ago who is now peddling just that sort of crap.  Start your engine on diesel and when it's up to temperature switch to water vapor and the heat of combustion will split the water into hydrogen and oxygen gasses under high vacuum which are drawn  into the intake where the gasses will, as if by magic, have waited for just that moment to recombine and release their stored energy, only for the cycle to be repeated, ad. infinitum.  A perpetual motion machine.  

A number of technical details were not explained, the problem of drawing hydrogen and oxygen gasses from a chamber under high vacuum into the intake of a reciprocating engine being one of the more interesting challenges.

There's a series of lectures on TED.com that I look at from time to time.  Some are simply hooey, while others are thought-provoking.  The most recent one is http://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_higher_than_our_grandparents.html  The speaker asserts that over the last few generations there has, for a number of reasons, been an increasing demand on people to abandon rigid pragmatic modes of thought and entertain the plausible; to take they hypothetical seriously, as the author states.  The way one approaches solving problems has everything to do with one's life experience.  If one has never taken a high school or college chemistry or physics course (or didn't learn what was taught in them) how are they, then, to know that there are well-founded technical principles that their ideas violate?  

q.

[Jens]

Ok ... we all know that internet stuff should be taken with several heaping shovels of salt so I didn't believe 100k hours for a Listeroid. I figured that since it runs slow and is massive, maybe 50k hours is reasonable. yeah, riiiight ..... sometimes you just have to go through the lesson in order to believe it. Having said that, I agree that anybody 'selling' stuff that flat out doesn't work should be reaping the consequences of his deceit.

[Tom Reed]

The fundamental problem here is that back in the day there were absolutes. Now they've become to inconvenient and everyone has their own truth and is permitted to believe there are no absolutes. This means that anything is possible if you just choose to believe that as your truth. 

[Ronmar]

Well it works on TV and the movies, so of course it can work in real life right?  You know like we can all just jump on a ship and hop right up into orbit with no consideration for the mass of fuel required to get just 1 pound of cargo into orbit...  

The 'pie-in-the-sky" salesman has always been with us, and I think they always will.  The internet and it's easy access to so many people just makes them so much more brazen.  

That is why I like this forum and the lister engine forum so much.  I can recall quite a few who have hopped on here and touted their snake-oil powered generators efficiency, only to choke on a large dose of reality and eventually leave in a huff, unable or unwilling to demonstrate by any reasonable method other than their gut, their claims to load capacity and fuel efficiency...  It usually turns into a food fight, with them yelling louder and louder and producing less and less data as their numbers get challenged...

I am not saying there isn't possibly a better way to do something, but  around here, you better have your math done right:)  

[mobile_bob]

thankfully 99% of the populace of this forum were born with the genes necessary to ferret out bullshit.

so the signal to noise ratio is pretty good in my opinion.

as for the net in general, most especially youtube these days... well?  hmmm
yup about 99% bullshit!
and if that specific topic is not 99% BS today, just wait a day or two and it will certainly get there.

as for the net in general, yes it is a good resource,  for idea's and most specifically "pieces" of a larger puzzle,  sometimes you run across the full picture but generally there is much missing requiring one to continue to research to find the missing pieces to more fully develop the overall concept. 

as bad as that might be it is a huge step above what most folks have at their disposal, most especially in small towns across the country or around the world.  the library we have here is pathetic when it comes to technical resources, hell my personal library is vastly superior to the best library in the county in that regard, that includes all the high schools, and the one private college.

this is probably the one area this forum could expand on, that being the collection of more info resources, titles/authors, journals and other stuff, good links and whatever else we might find and place here for the benefit of all that frequent the forum.

the hydrogen generator crap just makes my skin crawl, much like how an associate related to me years ago on another matter "it makes me feel like i have athletes foot on my tongue" nasty slimy bastards that are no better than the snake oil salesmen of old that would take the last dollar from a widow in trade for her hope of curing a sick and dieing child.  maybe that  is being dramatic, but think about it guys!  you tell me that these jerks would draw the line today just short of doing the same thing?  we all now the type
either they are too stupid or are just too criminal to care... either way they out to be put out of business for good and if that means imprisonment you got my vote!

you can plead stupid once and get a pass, and i am ok with that, but persist in selling this sort of lie and you go to jail for a year for the next offense, and two years for the second, three for the third...

its fraud pure and simple, that is if you try and succeed in selling it to someone... short of that it is entertainment i suppose?  or maybe even that ought to be classified as "attempted fraud"  and a 6 month prison sentence?

lastly

these scams have always been around, and yes the stupid get taken, however there are many folks that are just in a difficult time in life, such as the old folks...

i recall as a child my elderly grandmother who was on social security and getting 180 dollars a month to live on... she got taken by a scammer that sold her lamps that were battery powered with the promise they would dramatically reduce her electric bill that she was hard pressed to pay each month... well we all know how that works out!  zinc/carbon battery power was probably 100x more expensive that the utility power.  she got screwed and had it not been for her having family she would have either been eating cat food, living in the dark, going without meds, some/part or all ?

what about those that have no family?

i keep reading about "bending" the laws of physic's!

why do they call them laws anyway?   of all the sciences the one constant is mathematics and physic's is replete with mathematics as we all know.   and the one thing about math is it is a very BLACK AND WHITE proposition, 2+2 will always equal 4 and i don't care how you want to bend the law... it will always be, has always been and will continue to be 4, not 5, not 3, but 4!

the laws of physic's are the same damn thing!  they are laws, they always have been and they always will be, they have never been bent and never will be bent, let alone break them.

to think that some diy'er out in his garage is going to bend a "law" is just insanity... there have been some fantastically brilliant folks that came before use that spent every waking moment of their lives trying to circumvent these laws... they were unsuccessful at even tweaking a law, much less bend or break one.

if one is bent on trying to turn lead into gold, i say knock yourself out, but i don't need or want to hear about it, and i damn sure don't care to hear anyone supporting such a lunatic.  its bad enough being ignorant enough to go on a fools errand (even if we give the guy credit for effort) but unforgivable to be the guy that blindly supports the fool (we can't give him credit for effort).

nuf of my rant
bob g

[Jens]

i keep reading about "bending" the laws of physic's!

why do they call them laws anyway?   of all the sciences the one constant is mathematics and physic's is replete with mathematics as we all know.   and the one thing about math is it is a very BLACK AND WHITE proposition, 2+2 will always equal 4 and i don't care how you want to bend the law... it will always be, has always been and will continue to be 4, not 5, not 3, but 4!

the laws of physic's are the same damn thing!  they are laws, they always have been and they always will be, they have never been bent and never will be bent, let alone break them.

to think that some diy'er out in his garage is going to bend a "law" is just insanity... there have been some fantastically brilliant folks that came before use that spent every waking moment of their lives trying to circumvent these laws... they were unsuccessful at even tweaking a law, much less bend or break one.

if one is bent on trying to turn lead into gold, i say knock yourself out, but i don't need or want to hear about it, and i damn sure don't care to hear anyone supporting such a lunatic.  its bad enough being ignorant enough to go on a fools errand (even if we give the guy credit for effort) but unforgivable to be the guy that blindly supports the fool (we can't give him credit for effort).

nuf of my rant
bob g

While I have a tendency to believe everything you say, I have to shout out a big "whoah nelly !!!!" here. Everybody knew the world was flat until someone came up with the idea it's round. The other day I read about a compound that everybody knew was impossible to make until somebody forgot to clean up an experiment, it sat over the weekend and presto, here was this impossible 'stuff', one gram of it has something like 8000 square meters of surface area.
The 'laws' are written based on our current understanding. Change that and just maybe the 'laws' are not so rigid after all.
Put another way, keep an open mind because you never know .....
Of course you don't believe everything people come up with but don't dismiss it until you had a chance to investigate.

[glort]

Did the "Impossible' stuff defy multiple laws of Physics?
Did anyone purport to have a system to make it before they could actually demonstrate how their procedure worked? Was anyone selling plans or info on how to create the substance?

That's the difference between real discoveries and these morons and scammers.

Some years ago a friend and I were coming across this HHO stuff all the time.  We got into an online argument with a guy who wouldn't have it anyother way than it was an absolute fact it would increase the mileage of your vehicles, add power etc.

So with a large number of forum members interested, Him and I set up a practical experiment.  We had a small stationary diesel engine driving an alternator with a fixed load and a calibrated fuel line. The upshot was unsurprisingly that the engine used MORE fuel with the gas machine running than without and even when we added energy to the equation by driving the gas machine off a battery, the variance in the run times over various runs was within the margin of error we were getting.

Of course when we showed the pics of what we did and put up the data, the believers all said we used too much voltage or not enough plates or that we deliberately fudged the test or that the planets weren't in alignment with the lunar eclipse in the Zorg galaxy or...... What the hell ever.

The thing is there is nothing new under the sun with these shams. They are still doing them the same way they have for 50 plus years and still getting the same result.
Nothing.

Despite all the claims and assertions, not one of these clowns has been able to demonstrate under scientific testing conditions that their claims remotely hold up.
Look how many free energy nutters and con men there are on the net along with the hho/ browns gas twits. All saying their systems work but not one has taken it any further than peddling plans on the net.
If they had something and took it to a car maker, They would be rich beyond their dreams so why  aren't they doing that?
Oh, I know, because inventors of this stuff get killed and someone buys them out then hides the technology or.... There is always some BS crackpot excuse.


When someone can run a car on HHO gas using electrolysis  and has a demo model, as is the standard for all new technology, then it will be believeable. When people make claims for something that the product doesn't do, it's a sham.

The one thing these dreamers don't take into account that isn't a science is that EVERYONE wants to see and experience a miracle.  Everyone would love to get hugely improved MPG from their vehicle or run it on water.  The dreamers ridicule people that don't fall to bended knee in homage and praise but  the simple fact is people would if only they could PROVE their claims actually worked.

There are the people that Believe in fiction and then there are the people that put their faith in fact.

[Dualfuel]

Here is the only tidbit about HHO, that might, I say might, have some truth...

On gasoline engines, as one leans out the mixture, meaning increasing the air/fuel ratio upwards from 14:1 to 18:1 the flame speed of the mixture slows down. This is demonstrable by the "popping back" through the carburetor...the mixture is still burning in the cylinder when the intake valve opens, igniting the incoming charge, all the way back up the intake runner to where its observed as an eyebrow singing flame. I never knew why this happened until I read Ricardo.

So, it might be possible to introduce hydrogen to a lean mixture to increase flame speed. If that is what these HHO guys are doing, then  there might be some savings in gasoline consumption.
This is the only way I can think of where HHO may have some merit. Can I prove it? F%$K NO! I would not waste my precious time on this, when I have gas producers to weld, wind turbines to erect, solar trackers to build, and any number of other proven energy production methods to engage in.
I thought about this because I couldn't understand why so many folks were engaged in this scheme, especially when it is so easily proven one way or another. If  you are using HHO and it really saves you gasoline, you'd see it at the pump, but if you are using it with a diesel, its impossible to understand how it could save, or do anything beneficial. I have raised RPMs with a diesel by introducing producer gas into the intake, but a gas producer doesn't depend on the engine to make its fuel, it depends on two combustion reactions, releasing heat.
So I guess what I am asking, is for anyone, who can possibly speak in the scientific, engineering language, that I learned in school, to explain to me how HHO could possibly reduce fuel consumption. Pls, no hand waving, no videos, no "orgone", no mumbling, no stuttering, just some plain old thermodynamics, and I will take it from there.
DF

[Ronmar]

If there were any gains to be seen by intorducing hydrogen/browns gas into the engine when run very lean, how are they leaning the engine?  Most factory ECU's are not reprogrammable, at least not very easilly, and I have heard of none of these "schemes" requiring ANY modification to the engine other than adding their widget to the system for which you pay for the plans, then set back and have to siphon off the extra fuel from your vehicle lest the tank overflow...

THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!!!

[Henry W]

After reading here there is a positive way to look at it. After people get sucked into believing all the BS and spend a fortune purchasing equipment and than later find out they been miss led, and then find this forum and see we stand for truth and facts helps this forum. Some of our members been there and learned lots on microcogen.info. There are very few forums that have as much talent and smarts as we do.

Henry

[AdeV]

This, and the LEF, are two of my favourite forums. Mainly because they are mostly full of sensible level-headed people doing cool things with engines (and, one member at least, is doing VERY cool things with windmills...).

Other than the various engineering/model engineering websites I hang out at, my other two favourite places are http://www.lowtechmagazine.com, and it's sister http://www.notechmagazine.com. Low-tech in particular, reminds us of many useful - and largely forgotten - technologies harnessed by our forefathers which - given a sprinkling of modern attention, could even outperform the tech which replaced it.... in some cases at least.

As for the snake-oil salesmen? Well, I have to laugh, my cousin keeps getting tangled up in these sort of schemes. Everything from fuel magnets to "expended uranium pellets" (apparently, the mild radioactivity of these pellets - more like lotus biscuit size & shape - if dumped into a diesel tank with a load of sludge in it, would miraculously "untangle" the sludge back into pure sweet tasty diesel fuel..... er, yeah. (PS, Willem, it doesn't work, OK?)

[vdubnut62]

Ask Pepsi about HHO, some really slick salesman sold them units for all their Diesel trucks.
Ron.

[Jens]

Coke would have never fallen for that

[glort]

Ask Pepsi about HHO, some really slick salesman sold them units for all their Diesel trucks.
Ron.

I wasn't sure if to believe that or not.
A bit of research shows it to be completely true.

Apparently they did somewhere between 178 and 600 trucks.  They must have thought they were going to save some amount of fuel, price per truck was said to be $10 K each. Not only did they get them one time around, when they ordered new trucks to replace the aging ones they asked for the HOHOHO gas machines to be fitted to them as well.

Defies my imagination how they pulled that little scam off. Maybe the purchasing/ evaluations guy was a relative of someone on the board of the laughing gas company or had bought up stocks in them?

I have called people selling these things idiots and morons and a lot of other things but I'm fast begging to think the biggest moron and idiot is me for denouncing these things and not cashing in on them as well.
There are a whole load of dreamers out there that are always on the lookout for some miracle to throw their money at, seems a shame to let any of them go fleeced.