EEVblog #751 - How To Debunk A Product (The Batteriser)

[Godzil]

Battery use 20% and their stuff 80?

I can read that, like their stuff have only 20% of efficiency

[miguelvp]

What I don't get is how noisy their "snail" is at 5 times the noise to signal ratio, surely battery consumption is not as noisy as they claim to trigger the cut-off voltage prematurely.

[Fungus]

He sure does make a lot of basic math errors for somebody with an IQ of 1.3e+28 and over 500 patents to his name.

(...and that's still not what it says on their IndieGogo page).

[edy]

See that's the confusing part. Tapping into 80% MORE of something doesn't mean you are getting 5x more energy (going from 20% to 100% by using the remaining unused 80% is multiplying the energy 5x).

That means if you tap into 100% MORE, it means you are getting INFINITELY more energy because that means going from 0% to 100%.... 100/0 = undefined!

So the question is, when you see a box of CEREAL and they tell you the box now contained 10% MORE CEREAL, clearly if the old box was 100g, the new box has 110g. If it says 20%, the old box was 100g and the new box 120g. Then 80% more means the old box was 100g and new box 180g. 100% MORE would simply be old box 100g and new box 200g, or DOUBLE the amount.

So according to this logic, 80% MORE would mean going from 100g to 180g means the Batteriser is helping you extract roughly 1.8x the energy compared to the device WITHOUT the Batteriser (which is as reference considered "1").

That seems a lot more reasonable (although still likely to be only in a handful of very inefficient low current devices).... But the math is VERY SLIPPERY INDEED!

And I'm the one who didn't solve the Snail Riddle at first glance. 

[firewalker]

They are contradicting them selves in 5 lines of text... 

Alexander.

[ccs46]

They are contradicting them selves in 5 lines of text... 

Alexander.

Are you the Alexander who comments on their videos?

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi group,

Dave has some completion !!

Watch this:



Jay_Diddy_B

[miguelvp]

I recognize that radio, that has to be a friend of Arlen

[EEVblog]

Perhaps they even let Dave have one of those kits.

They haven't contacted me yet.
You'd think they would, I'd be happy to sing it's praises if it works as well as claimed.

[EEVblog]

I just noticed this (maybe it was there before?) but on the BATTERISER.COM home page, it now says:
"Tap into 80% more energy with Batteriser."
So 80% more means if think you used 100% of your battery, then 80% more gives you 180%? So you are just slightly less than doubling your battery use (1.8x use)? I mean, it stands to reason that if someone says "Get 100% more of something" you get DOUBLE of something. No? Or do they mean you use 20% of your battery and then the remaining 80% is unused so you are going from 20% to 100% which means you used 1/5th of your battery and you now tap into the 4/5th with the Batteriser?

Yep, completely baffling that it's always changing. The "x8" claim is gone form their logo, and it seems form their website?

Although they are making very specific and definite claims on their website still :





One implies that all products only tap into 20% of batteries energy.
The other says that most products only tap into 20% of batteries energy.
Both are demonstrably incorrect 
And after all this time and effort on their part, still no hard evidence of those claims, just lots of hand waving.
It's incredible simple to test. Take a dozen typical products, measure time it takes for them to die normally. Insert Batteriser, time how long extra they last.
Why can't they do this?
If any one gets some of these things, that's the test that should be done, nothing fancier needed.

[firewalker]

They are contradicting them selves in 5 lines of text... 

Alexander.

Are you the Alexander who comments on their videos?

No.

Alexander.

[Godzil]

By the way, I havn't tick on that before, but the girl that put the battery with the sleeve inside the Apple Keyboard seems to push it with some unnecesary amount of force, a normal battery should slide without any force on this device..

I fear that when they are put in such a device, it will be nearly impossible to remove...

[EEVblog]

I fear that when they are put in such a device, it will be nearly impossible to remove...

That could be a problem for a great many products.

[onlooker]

Has this been discussed? With the electrcally serial and physically parallel settings, the sleeves can easily touch each other and form short. The best can be just drained betteries (with OCP) and the worst can be fire. The risk is high for household users. Extra insulation coatings will make it harder to use in even more devices.

On the other hand if the miniaturization is really achieveable with given specs(?), it may be more useful as a modular component for circuit designers. They need just seal the whole thing in a small metal can with 3 leads (similar to a linear regulator) out and both the thermal and emi(?) problems may be reduced a bit too. And the potential sales can be high too.

[amyk]

I am sure sex was part of the game. The girl in the famous "Batteries are not power supplies" video sounded almost as if she was undressing when reading the narrative.

IMHO that voice sounded smug and smarmy, and was more irritating than anything. Not what I'd consider "sexy" at all. Then again, I'm not a guy...

Has this been discussed? With the electrcally serial and physically parallel settings, the sleeves can easily touch each other and form short. The best can be just drained betteries (with OCP) and the worst can be fire. The risk is high for household users. Extra insulation coatings will make it harder to use in even more devices.

I think it was brought up somewhere in this or the other thread. A small length of flex would've been better, although perhaps slightly more fiddly to install.

On the other hand if the miniaturization is really achieveable with given specs(?), it may be more useful as a modular component for circuit designers. They need just seal the whole thing in a small metal can with 3 leads (similar to a linear regulator) out and both the thermal and emi(?) problems may be reduced a bit too. And the potential sales can be high too.

Integrated boost converters have been around for a long time - TI has some, for example.

[FrankBuss]

On the other hand if the miniaturization is really achieveable with given specs(?), it may be more useful as a modular component for circuit designers. They need just seal the whole thing in a small metal can with 3 leads (similar to a linear regulator) out and both the thermal and emi(?) problems may be reduced a bit too. And the potential sales can be high too.

Many devices would need more than 1.5V output, or have other requirements, better just build your own boost converter with one of the available ICs. For high power there are a lot of modules, I guess because it is more difficult to build your own and easier to replace a module if it gets broken, but for low power battery devices it is no problem. Maybe this is the reason I can find only one low power DC/DC converter module for low input voltage:
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?keywords=893-1207-1-ND
Input voltage 0.9V-5V, output voltage 3.3V, 100mA, 2.5mm x 2.0mm x 1.0mm. Needs only external capacitors, inductor included.

[Fungus]

Has this been discussed? With the electrcally serial and physically parallel settings, the sleeves can easily touch each other and form short. The best can be just drained betteries (with OCP) and the worst can be fire. The risk is high for household users. Extra insulation coatings will make it harder to use in even more devices.

From the Batteriser FAQ:

Q) You have mentioned the sleeve is made of stainless steel…is there a possibility of the Batteriser shorting?

A) No, the sleeve is covered with a non-conductive coating, which prevents shorting.

[Fungus]

On the other hand if the miniaturization is really achieveable with given specs(?), it may be more useful as a modular component for circuit designers.

Already been done: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271734570473

The converter IC is probably this one: http://www.mpja.com/download/ce830.pdf

And there's hundreds of variations of those things.

[LabSpokane]

Has this been discussed? With the electrcally serial and physically parallel settings, the sleeves can easily touch each other and form short. The best can be just drained betteries (with OCP) and the worst can be fire. The risk is high for household users. Extra insulation coatings will make it harder to use in even more devices.

From the Batteriser FAQ:

Q) You have mentioned the sleeve is made of stainless steel…is there a possibility of the Batteriser shorting?

A) No, the sleeve is covered with a non-conductive coating, which prevents shorting.

It's worth noting that Batteroo added the coating after reading about the shorting issue here and Dave pointing that issue out on his video.  Before that, the clip was uncoated stainless.

It's so great that the EEvblog has been so instrumental in the Batteriser's development. I wonder if there will ever be attribution, or at least a simple thank you.

[PeterL]

It's worth noting that Batteroo added the coating after reading about the shorting issue here and Dave pointing that issue out on his video.  Before that, the clip was uncoated stainless.

Let's not get carried away now, there is already a picture of 2 coated batterisers in the very first pcworld article.

I only wonder how this coating is gonna hold up after a few uncareful battery changes, but in the whole scheme of things, I would one just call a minor issue.

[LabSpokane]

It's worth noting that Batteroo added the coating after reading about the shorting issue here and Dave pointing that issue out on his video.  Before that, the clip was uncoated stainless.

Let's not get carried away now, there is already a picture of 2 coated batterisers in the very first pcworld article.

I only wonder how this coating is gonna hold up after a few uncareful battery changes, but in the whole scheme of things, I would one just call a minor issue.

Those look like copper to me.


This is what happened after the shorting issue was pointed out.  And of course, Batteroo added text to address the shorting issue that was raised:


EEVBlog forum points out a serious shortcoming.  Batteroo makes a change shortly thereafter.  Repeat.  It may all be a series of incredibly remarkable coincidences.   

[rollatorwieltje]

Those look like copper to me.

Probably heat "treated" stainless. It also seems a little bit more purple at the top, if I remember correctly this happens at about 350 degrees C. Maybe they tried to solder the thing by preheating it, until they figured out stainless barely takes solder.

[HighVoltage]

until they figured out stainless barely takes solder.

I don't think there is a reliable way to soft-solder anything to stainless.
That is why stainless is usually hard-soldered or spot welded.

[Godzil]

What is really incredible, is that they plan to release this stuff in november, and there are at least 5 or 6 different version of this that has been show, the copperish one, the one with pink, but we can see more different design on the videos they show..

[Bud]

Font face on the product is totally different from the font in their logo, i'd think this is a big mistake.