Breakthrough in power storage allows a year's driving without recharging

Originally posted by ArchAngel
BSEE University of Miami.

This means what exactly? That you can spell? Surely you're not implying that anyone who went to university is less naive then someone who didn't. If you are then it might be a good time to stop bragging about your education.

Originally posted by ArchAngel
If it works there is always a simple way to test it, yet they all shy away.

I don't think they shy away, I think some of them don't get the attention they should. There are probably alot of scams out there, as has been pointed out, but I don't believe they are all making stuff up.
Not that I ever attended one but it appears to me alot of people working on these devices gave enough demo's and allowed people to test or take the device apart.

Whether a new technology gets developed rests on its economic viability.
Will the inventor's new technology be good for the companies business or bad?

There a surprising number of great inventors out there who have made marvelous prototypes of out of the box engineering designs but they affect the revenue too much of the existing technologies of the company which could be interested: hence the technology isn't taken on.

Examples?

Here's a couple.
There's a british inventor called Tony Cuthbert who has radical new ideas and developed simple prototypes for propelling boats. Very low energy , very simple and very very fast. Yet, the companies weren't interested because it would hurt them economically.

Another one is the guy who invented a revolutionary new design for spark plugs. This is for real and has been tested by Bosch and others. It's called
Firestorm sparkplugs. I saw it on a German decumentary in the late 90s.
The inventor is Robert Krupa. The plug increases mpg by nearly 50% and increases horsepower and lasts a hell of a lot longer than conventional plugs.
Companies weren't interested. He got death threats on the phone.
The problem was, too much money would lost by changing their inefficient 100 year old design of sparkplugs.

Money just isn't interested sometimes.

So, as to the validity of this Chinese guy. Perhaps it is true, perhaps not. It doesn't matter. All you have to do is ask the question: Will this invention take away from the world's money supply? Yes - won't be developed. No - bring it on and make is billionaires.

labasta, I agree that if there is no money in something the companies that can make it happen won't be interested, and if it threatens their income stream they might restort to all kinds of dirty tactics. I have heard the stories about people who have developed 60+mpg carbs, or kits to retro fit a combustion engine to run on water and the inventors disappeared. Just think if you developed some system that allowed an electric car to run for a year without a charge and what the oil companies would be willing to do to prevent it from coming to market.


thanks for posting the info on Robert Krupa and his firestorm spark plug as I had never heard of it, and I am really into cars!

I was reading this link and found it fascinating that Krupa is soley responsible for bringing the Splitfire plug to the market

The article mentions how Boasch conducted extensive tests over an 8 week period and basically determined that the plugs had 0 percent gap growth meaning they would never wear out! It also says that Krupa's patents are so extensive that nobody would be able to make knockoff's. It says that Krupa's company CDI is building its own sparg plug manufacturering plant to make them and is sekking investors and venture capital.

If his patents are so extensive he will be the only one with the technology I don't see why some disgustingly rich entretrpenuer that is not connected to the auto or spark plug industry like a Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban or even the Google guys wouldnt fund him?

From reading about the firestorm it sounds like it utilizes a plasma arc which Krupa claims allows for a much leaner air/fuel ratio without causing damage to the engine which how it improves fuel mileage.


Now this is the part from that link I posted above that makes no sense to me:

"Performance and Testing
When I asked Krupa if there were any other advantages to using FireStorm spark plugs, he explained: "If there is a vehicle that requires premium fuel and they install FireStorm plugs and perform the modifications I suggest...they could run regular fuel in the engine and it won't detonate, hesitate, ping or misfire. The only reason you need higher octane fuel is for higher compression engines. And if an engine is pulling a heavy load, it has a tendency to go into detonation with a regular spark plug."

So he is claiming that the firestorm can prevent detonation I don't see how a sparg flug could prevent detonation as it's caused by high combustion chamber temps from air being compressed at high ratios which causes the fuel to ignite prematurely before the piston is at TDC and the plug fires. Higher octane fuel prevents detonation because it's harder to burn and can thus survive higher temps before being ignited. I know high performance turbo car and even the diesel guys use various forms of water, alcahol, propane and methanol injection to cool the combustion chamber which prevents detonation and ultimately allows them to run higher turbo boost and cram more fuel in thus making more power. So how can a spark plug prevent detonation

I was on robertstanley.biz and found this really cool animated gif of a firestorm vs a regular plug in action!



The Firestorm is on the left, and the regular plug on the right

[edit on 4-11-2005 by warpboost]

High octane fuel contains higher amounts of light hydrocarbons than low octane fuel. Light hydrocarbons detonate faster than heavy hydrocarbons allowing for shorter burn time therefore reducing detonation as well as the cooling the combustion chamber as you discribed also reduces the detonation of the cylinder. Also detonation takes place mostly along sharp points along the edge of the piston. A sharp point burns longer than a smooth surface. These points ignite the fuel as well causing detonation in some cars. Carbon contributes to detonation as well by building up on the top of the piston over time causing the piston to gain compression due to the reduced space in the chamber as well as producing sharp points on the piston.

Complete vaporization of fuel is far from perfect in cars and trucks. A certain amount of residual fuel in most engines remains liquid in the hot chamber. In order to be fully combusted, the fuel must be fully vaporized. The light hydrocarbons in high octane fuel improves the fuel's ability to vaporize completely by reducing the surface tension that inhibits vaporization of some fuel droplets by bouncing light and heavy hydrocarbons around in the combustion chamber before ignition. This is why so called swirl type combustion chambers improve fuel economy, they atomize more of the fuel.

I think the plug by producing more of a spark would allow a higher percentage of a lower octane fuel to be burned the first time around allowing the fuel not to be unburned which contributes to carbon build up which would raise compression. Also because the plug creates more spark, this would reduce unburned low octane fuel build up around the sharp points in the combustion chamber which tend to be along the edge of the cylinder further from the plug. Because the fuel wont ignite at these points until the air/fuel ratio gets to about 9 to 1 or so the points wont ignite as much if they get hot.

I'm no expert but I have worked on a few cars. Just my opinion.

Not true. you can recharge the battery at the same time that you are using it. current flows two dircetions at once. there are electrons and ions. the ions hava high enertia. you can interupt the current flow and pulse it in the opposite direction breifly to keep the ions going in the opposite direction in the battery to keep it charged and then keep using the battery. all you need is a good capacitor infront of the load to smooth out teh small interuptions coming from the battery. The stuff you learned in school about electirity and electron flow is all false, they teach you that to keep you from finding out the truth. Check this out.
amasci.com...