Author Topic: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!  (Read 43017 times)

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Online plurn

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #75 on: March 03, 2019, 04:39:26 pm »
Please join my kickstarter for μWave™ heater that will save you 80% of your wasteful Solus heater electricity usage. It will use 38 watts of microwave energy to directly heat the people in the room without wasting energy heating the surrounding air and walls. Sign up for the premium package and we will include aluminium foil wallpaper for your walls to stop the microwaves escaping. ;p
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #76 on: March 03, 2019, 05:40:38 pm »
Quote
=SiliconWizard link=topic=172401.msg2236977#msg2236977 date=1551579173]
Looking at this company for instance:
https://www.theglobalgraphenegroup.com/thermal-paste
looks like the form of graphene as a paste is typically used as thermal paste. I can see how it has high thermal conductivity, but I'm not sure how it would act as an heating element at this point (but I must admit I haven't looked at Solus' claims extensively as the 95% off was already hilarious.)

Strange how the definition of one single atom layer of carbons suddenly is misused to turn it into a paste. ::) While it for past 50 years been labeled as graphite paste. Perhaps sales goes up?! The Noble price in 2010 for graphene:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2010/press-release/


Well, techically, graphite is multiple layers of... graphene. ;D

Graphene itself is nothing new, it was theorized in the 60s (or even earlier)? And the term coined in the 80s I think.

Of course the graphene frenzy is backed by this initiative: https://graphene-flagship.eu/
A one-billion euros project from mother EU, nothing less!


 

Offline richnormand

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #77 on: March 03, 2019, 05:49:01 pm »
Please join my kickstarter for μWave™ heater that will save you 80% of your wasteful Solus heater electricity usage. It will use 38 watts of microwave energy to directly heat the people in the room without wasting energy heating the surrounding air and walls. Sign up for the premium package and we will include aluminium foil wallpaper for your walls to stop the microwaves escaping. ;p

This seemed to actually have been proposed in 1996... |O
New Scientist link:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15220615-500-not-cooking-but-warming-serious-researchers-are-turning-themselves-into-living-radiators-by-walking-into-giant-microwave-ovens-pete-moore-wonders-why/

This was the December issue. I was expecting an April 1st special though.

Never mind having everything in the room microwave safe with the exception of your tinfoil hat and eyeballs and some lower appendages too  of course.... :)
Repair, Renew, Reuse, Recycle, Rebuild, Reduce, Recover, Repurpose, Restore, Refurbish, Recondition, Renovate
 

Offline JimRemington

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #78 on: March 03, 2019, 06:23:10 pm »
This sort of crap will never end.  The internet connects a very large number of con artists to a truly infinite supply of suckers.

They aren't even clued in by the phony name of the project creator, "Maxim Interbrick", who also seems to have founded a company of some sort:

Quote
Engagelink SA is a Digital Integrator based in Switzerland and operating across Europe.
The Head Office is located in Lausanne, Canton Vaud.

We are specialized in all possible integrations of digital platforms of any kind. Currently,
we provide mobile infotainment solutions and digital signage for major clinic groups in
Switzerland, as well as multi-touch table solutions for worldwide aviation lounges in some
of the most important airports.

We combine precision and highest quality with flexible, fast and custom-tailored solutions.
We are engaging Swiss quality and innovative technologies in a digital world. Our main goal
is to reach out to hospitality and healthcare sectors by providing them with dedicated media, information and health platforms.
https://www.engagelink.net/about.html
« Last Edit: March 03, 2019, 06:30:18 pm by JimRemington »
 
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #79 on: March 03, 2019, 06:31:33 pm »
Well, he seems like a real person: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximinterbrick

From his profile, looks like a serial founder of dodgy startups though ;D
 

Offline JimRemington

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #80 on: March 03, 2019, 06:34:28 pm »
Well, he seems like a real person: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximinterbrick

No doubt of that. But don't you wonder what his real name might be, after the authorities catch up with him?
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #81 on: March 03, 2019, 06:37:35 pm »
Well, he seems like a real person: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximinterbrick

No doubt of that. But don't you wonder what his real name might be, after the authorities catch up with him?

Granted LinkedIn doesn't check identity... ;D
 

Offline JimRemington

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #82 on: March 03, 2019, 06:41:24 pm »
If you look at the "Maxim Interbrick" LinkedIn page, the skills listed for the entity are marketing and sales. No science or engineering, of course.

Con artist from about age two, most likely.
 

Offline bsfeechannel

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #83 on: March 03, 2019, 08:04:58 pm »
You want to save on heating? Let's use a little science. Supposing your room is spherical, the heater is in the center, the thermal properties are homogeneous (doors and windows have the same properties of walls) and you are a reptile, this could be an equivalent thermal circuit.



The solution to cut on heating expenses is to find a heater with the least RθEC and provide your room with the highest value of RθWA. Q will be minimal, TC and TW will be the highest possible, and you'll be comfortably somewhere between these two temperatures.

Problem solved.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2019, 08:06:38 pm by bsfeechannel »
 

Offline golden_labels

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #84 on: March 03, 2019, 08:38:15 pm »
I am wondering, what was the actual idea behind SOLUS. Most snake oil manufacturers are actually believing in their inventions. Following the AGF rule, let’s assume that those people are trapped in some misconception. But which one, exactly?

Perhaps the original idea was that the resistive heater quickly heats up the glass, which — being a good thermal insulator — will not release the heat to the air, but mostly radiate it out as IR? This would make the device a directional IR radiator. In this scenario they would want to transfer heat from the heater as fast as possible to avoid losses at the sides, so using the best available thermal paste is consistent with the solution.

Of course even if one is following that logic, SOLUS would still output 50% of its energy to the wall behind, but hey… we’re talking about people, who are already having considerable gaps in their thinking.

;) time:
Following the idea presented by plurn, I have an even better solution. Mileage may vary, but on average $25350 would be saved¹. Just buy a gallon of gas, pour it at yourself and fire a lighter. You will oxidize in the process, but it should not affect the heating properties of this method — not as long as you are alive.
____
¹ Based on SOLUS data, $845/yr heating cost.
People imagine AI as T1000. What we got so far is glorified T9.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #85 on: March 03, 2019, 09:40:05 pm »
You want to save on heating? Let's use a little science. Supposing your room is spherical, the heater is in the center, the thermal properties are homogeneous (doors and windows have the same properties of walls) and you are a reptile, this could be an equivalent thermal circuit.
Actually there are rules of thumb to calculate the amount of power required for to heat a room:
living room / office: 80W / m^3
bathroom: 90W / m^3
other rooms: 65W / m^3

BTW I'm not sold on the 'glass is a thermal insulator' argument. The surface area is huge (think why glazing is usually double and the trend is to go for triple). The argument is just as useless as (for example) comparing the conductivity of steel versus copper without taking the actual size of the conductor into account.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2019, 09:44:23 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline HalFET

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #86 on: March 03, 2019, 11:37:53 pm »
You want to save on heating? Let's use a little science. Supposing your room is spherical, the heater is in the center, the thermal properties are homogeneous (doors and windows have the same properties of walls) and you are a reptile, this could be an equivalent thermal circuit.
Actually there are rules of thumb to calculate the amount of power required for to heat a room:
living room / office: 80W / m^3
bathroom: 90W / m^3
other rooms: 65W / m^3

BTW I'm not sold on the 'glass is a thermal insulator' argument. The surface area is huge (think why glazing is usually double and the trend is to go for triple). The argument is just as useless as (for example) comparing the conductivity of steel versus copper without taking the actual size of the conductor into account.

You're overthinking the problems with this thing.

For a heater of this type the thermal conductivity doesn't matter too much. The main effect it has is limiting the maximum temperature you can operate the heating element at (aka how much power you can dump into it). Any thermal energy you generate is still going to end up in the room. What's really going to kill this thing its performance is its very limited surface area. Normal radiators use every trick in the book to increase their surface area. For example, the water circulation based radiators common in Europe will use either multiple tubes (older design) or a massive amount of "cooling fins" attached to the panel in which the water flows. So a perfectly flat slate panel is quite inefficient as far as convective heaters go. So as convective heater this thing can't even stand up to fifty year old technology. But this thing is also crap as a radiative heater, because its power output is too low for a common living room, unless if we consider tiny Hong Kong apartments as the standard these days.

Another property which is important for electric heating is thermal capacity, usually you want to run the heater for a short time and then have it maintain the temperature for an extended period of time. This is especially the case when you have a day and night rate or solar panels, you want to run it on the cheapest rate and keep them running on their thermal capacity at other times. This is why you have storage heaters using water, oil, ceramic bricks, etc. You can then control the rate at which you lose air to the room by controlling the air flow through the storage medium or heat exchanger. This thing also fails in this aspect because tempered glass has a horrible heat capacity.

So yeah, it either needs to go up a magnitude in power or somehow extract zero point energy from the vacuum to make up the short fall (obviously through graphene magic).
 

Offline aram

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #87 on: March 03, 2019, 11:52:10 pm »
Good grief:

.
 

Offline wilfred

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #88 on: March 04, 2019, 12:08:15 am »
It's one thing to raise awareness of this nonsense to prevent uninformed ignorant backers from wasting their money. That's fine and laudible. But don't waste energy trying to convince this Maximum Dropkick fellow he is wrong. He either already knows it and is just exploiting others for his own greed, or he doesn't know it and is exploiting others for his own greed.
 
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Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #89 on: March 04, 2019, 12:35:09 am »
Why the number 8 appears so much in these sorts of products..?
The octavo may be involved. eight son of an eight son and all that stuff you know ...
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Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #90 on: March 04, 2019, 12:45:12 am »
i just had a brilliant idea : power this thing powered using a batterizer with a nearly empty cell. 5 times the efficiency in this thing , 800% in the batterizer. A half empty AA cell should be enough to heat the whole house for 24 hours.
i submit this idea as public domain.
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Offline SilverSolder

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #91 on: March 04, 2019, 12:46:45 am »
Is there really no comeback against scammers and/or fantasists on Kickstarter?
 

Offline bsfeechannel

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #92 on: March 04, 2019, 01:09:22 am »
You want to save on heating? Let's use a little science. Supposing your room is spherical, the heater is in the center, the thermal properties are homogeneous (doors and windows have the same properties of walls) and you are a reptile, this could be an equivalent thermal circuit.
Actually there are rules of thumb to calculate the amount of power required for to heat a room:
living room / office: 80W / m^3
bathroom: 90W / m^3
other rooms: 65W / m^3

BTW I'm not sold on the 'glass is a thermal insulator' argument. The surface area is huge (think why glazing is usually double and the trend is to go for triple). The argument is just as useless as (for example) comparing the conductivity of steel versus copper without taking the actual size of the conductor into account.
You're overthinking the problems with this thing.

We use this the whole time in electronics engineering. So for me this is second nature.

The thing is that what keeps me warm is not the energy dissipated by the heater, it is the temperature of the room. If I have a room with an incredibly high thermal resistance from its walls to the world, say, infinite, not considering the thermal capacity of the system, i.e., giving enough time, with a 1W heater, the temperature of the room will be infinite.

Conversely, if I have a room with a very low thermal resistance, say, zero, not even the most powerful heater will be capable of raising the temperature of the room, not even by one degree (Celsius, Fahrenheit or whatever).

Of course, if your heater has a poor thermal resistance, it will be hot, not the room.

So if you want an efficient heating system, make sure your house has a good thermal insulation, and that your heater is capable of producing the least temperature difference between the heating element and the room.

You can instantly destroy Solus's claim by showing that what makes heating efficient is the SYSTEM (heater+room) not the heater per se.

Any Inuit will tell you.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2019, 03:42:08 am by bsfeechannel »
 

Offline wilfred

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #93 on: March 04, 2019, 01:13:44 am »
Is there really no comeback against scammers and/or fantasists on Kickstarter?
It isn't unique to or new since KS came into being. This sort of thing has existed and will exist as long as people exist who want to believe it.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #94 on: March 04, 2019, 05:36:45 am »
This glass IR panel heater manufacturers has calc for room sizes:
Oops, 750W for the same size room Solus claims. But of course, no woo-woo graphene that produces energy with no input  ::)
And they have a proper calculator that takes into account the wall material type etc.

 
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Offline bsfeechannel

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #95 on: March 04, 2019, 07:41:40 am »
Their UK site has a more elaborate calculator. There, thermal insulation of the room is important. I chose cavity brick walls, single glazed windows, roof, floor and ceiling, all uninsulated. For a 12m² room with 4 external walls, and 4m² glazed area, they recommended four 700W panels, i.e. 2800W.

When I chose insulation for the walls, roof, ceiling and floor, triple glazed windows and 0 external walls, the recommendation fell to just a single 850W panel.

Besides, UK can have temperatures as low as -20°C. If you live in a subtropical area where the temperature will not be less than 0°C, your requirements will be obviously less.

I said earlier that the heater's thermal resistance was important. But it isn't. I mean, it is for the designer of the heater who needs to maintain its internal temperature under the specs. But not for the user. The user only cares about the temperature of the room. So as long as your heater dissipates all the incoming energy as heat in the room, the efficiency of the system is only a function of the thermal insulation of the room.

So, Solus' claims are totally unfounded in many levels.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #96 on: March 04, 2019, 08:58:50 am »
Is there really no comeback against scammers and/or fantasists on Kickstarter?

Yes, you an report it, but it has to be completely obvious to the non-technical reviewer at KS, or the floods of reports has to be so overwhelming that they have no choice.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #97 on: March 04, 2019, 09:03:01 am »
Their UK site has a more elaborate calculator. There, thermal insulation of the room is important. I chose cavity brick walls, single glazed windows, roof, floor and ceiling, all uninsulated. For a 12m² room with 4 external walls, and 4m² glazed area, they recommended four 700W panels, i.e. 2800W.

Yes, I used this in a video I'm rendering now.

Quote
I said earlier that the heater's thermal resistance was important. But it isn't. I mean, it is for the designer of the heater who needs to maintain its internal temperature under the specs. But not for the user. The user only cares about the temperature of the room. So as long as your heater dissipates all the incoming energy as heat in the room, the efficiency of the system is only a function of the thermal insulation of the room.
So, Solus' claims are totally unfounded in many levels.

As I explain in a new video coming out, it does depend on what you desire, plus placement in the room, and of course the room losses are the big thing is you are trying to heat a space fairly uniformly.
If you locate a big heater close to some large loss points for example, your system efficiency (as defined by a point in the room you want to heat up) get worse than having the heater elsewhere.

But yeah, the claims are essentially completely unfounded. And the claim about the graphene producing heat for no energy input is ridiculous.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #98 on: March 04, 2019, 09:16:14 am »
Good grief:

.

I can't wait for the video tomorrow, but I might have to lock myself in a padded while whilst watching...
 

Offline StillTrying

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Re: EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!
« Reply #99 on: March 04, 2019, 09:56:26 am »
They sometimes show this type of junk on UK semi-respectable :-DD shopping channels.

They switch the electric radiator on for a bit then use an IF thermometer to show that the surface temperature is still rising just after it's been switched off. :palm:
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 


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