Progress on almost every front

It is hard to believe it has been only 5 days since we discovered that our cell temperatures rose as the pressures fell.  The results form our test last weekend sure stimulated some good discussion.  The announcement of the new test cells and the air flow calorimeter we are attempting has also lead to good suggestions.  We are simultaneously continuing along our path of creating the new cells, trying out a better way to measure the heat flow, and working to understand this significant pressure related effect in our cells.  Other open issues include a leak in our first test cell, a probably damaged Celani wire, and a ton of requested software improvements.  Fortunately, we are making progress on all those fronts.  We are assembling new cells to use with new wires.  We are almost ready to start the first flow through the calorimeter. We have open sourced our software on GitHub.com.  And we are learning more about the differences between our cell and Celani's.

Dialog with Celani

When I raised this issue with him, this is what I got.  

Dear Ryan,Dear Mathieau,

at first, I am very glad for the wonderfull, and high quality, work, all
of you are doing.

*BTW, now I stay, from several days, abroad because medical treatments to
my teeth. So, I don't have all the computer data, and log-book, with me.

* Anyway, watching in deeper details to my previous data (experiment
started 10 July), I realised:

A)even with pure He there his some loading of H2 inside the constantan.
I send a mail to Mathieau some time before, please read details in sch
document.

B) I can reconfirm that the pressure reduction of He has almost NO effect
on temperature detected OUTSIDE the glass borosilicate wall tube.

c) Amng others,I made specific experiments on October 3-10 2012, using He
at 2 different constant and variable pressures.
I will send the data starting from 5 December.

*Next Monday I will came back to Italy, the day later I will have a
meeting in Rome. So, only December 5 I will be at full work in my
Laboratory in Frascati.

*Please, be free to ask everything You like, WHITOUT formalities.

I enclose 3 jpeg pictures, I hope self explaining,bout the 10 July
experiment.

My best,

Francesco

*************

Celani has given  us permission to post some of his emails to us.  We are pleased to have this kind of working relationship.  It is encouraging that he did these tests and found that the external cell temperature did NOT change like ours did.  Since this test is in Helium, we just started that test with Cell1, this evening.  

Experiment Logs

We added another tool to help observers better follow the data stream.  Per one of the suggestion in the comment, we added links to an Experiment Log right next to the live data link at the top of the "Follow" section of the website.  It's not quite everything I ever dreamed of, but it should serve till we can better integrate it with the data viewer. 

New cells

One major change from the first cells is that the pass throughs are being made in a stem that will operate at much cooler temperatures and allow for many sealing layers in series.

The other obvious change is the use of the Macor ceramic instead of the mica.  The Macor is harder to machine - not as easy as the brochures would imply.  The advantage is that the Macor does not off-gas.  When we put together this one, it was a mechanical fit, no-glue assembly, eliminating one more variable and making it easier to change out the wire supports.

And, finally, here we see Malachi testing all the new power supply and data collector units.  

Weekend Results

Over the weekend I just let the cell run with both wires powered.  There were slight cycles, but nothing that I feel compelled to write about at the moment.  Last night I turned the power all the power all the way up on the NiCr wire and let it sit.  The impedance on the NiCr wire rose with a sudden jump in a way I can't explain.  

After that, there seemed to be a P_xs rise that lasted several hours.  The P_xs I believe I can explain by the curtain near the cell having shifted slightly and limiting the air flow some tiny amount.  The curtain has been more firmly fastened now.  After it was moved, the P_xs fell again.

Yes, we are biased

I would like to respond to some of the questions about our experimental bias.  I guess I can admit to being biased.  I really want to see this phenomenon work.   Does that mean I am going to fake results or deliberately misinterpret or misconstrue data?  No.  Am I going to inadvertently misinterpret data?  Probably, but that's why I publish the data and welcome the skeptics to keep watching this progress, as well.  Our goal is to make a demonstration experiment that will withstand the critics' arguments.  Succumbing to bias does not get the job done.  Mistaken conclusions don't heat air or water.  (Actually, if they do I'll make a new energy source out of them, instead)  But the point is, if it's not irrefutable, our job isn't done.  We are very optimistic, but optimism is not the same thing as a working demonstration of a new fire, and we understand the difference.  Once we know how to make a demonstration experiment, then we will welcome double blind studies with researchers and skeptics from all various institutions, every variation of calorimetry that anyone can devise, and anything else that we can do to test it.  What if we never get there?  Then at least we can say we tried. And given the potential importance of this energy source to the world, I feel pretty good about that.