EEVblog #1186 - Solus Graphene Heater Kickstarter BUSTED!

[EEVblog]

Anyone want a unit to test? 

[aram]

If they are willing to send units for testing, it means they are not simply scammers, but truly delusional.

[FrankBuss]

Someone should tell them that it doesn't need a scientist who specialized in thermodynamics. Just any high school student could tell them that they are wrong and could measure it. But easiest for them would be to watch Dave's video. And first step for them would be to buy a introduction physics book so that they don't write nonsense like "watts per hour" (still in the FAQ of their Kickstarter).

[EEVblog]

Someone should tell them that it doesn't need a scientist who specialized in thermodynamics. Just any high school student could tell them that they are wrong and could measure it. But easiest for them would be to watch Dave's video. And first step for them would be to buy a introduction physics book so that they don't write nonsense like "watts per hour" (still in the FAQ of their Kickstarter).

Or simply by the same IR panel on Aliexpress and do an A-B comparison. But of course that might shatter you illusion that the graphene woo-woo has magical powers.

[Nusa]

If they are willing to send units for testing, it means they are not simply scammers, but truly delusional.

It's not what they say, it's what they actually do. Elections should teach us that lesson, if nothing else does. Let me know when it happens.

[bsfeechannel]

Their test video where Solus needs only 66% compared to an oil heater is bullshit, because they measured the temperature only once at the beginning and then once after 24 hours. So probably the oil heater has heated the room to 20°C in an hour, and then maintained this for the other 23 hours, but we don't know how long Solus needed to reach this temperature. He even says in the video that it is more effective if you do the test for a week. Sure, if you want to freeze for 6 days until it gets to 20°C at day 7, then Solus is perfect for you and it might even work for bigger rooms

Well spotted.

[FrankBuss]

Thanks, but I think Dave mentioned it in his debunk video as well. Don't know if I would have spotted it. At first glance their video looks convincing, but it doesn't need a scientist to find the flaw, just critical thinking. I'm not sure if they are only delusional or scammers.

[golden_labels]

How does a 2kW oil heater use 31.1kW? Units problems again?

What they showed with this video is that they have no slightest idea about conducting experiments and publishing meaningful data.

So, the room is 16m². This is a bit smaller than the room I am sitting in right now. With the temperatures outside below 0°C and the heater not working at all, the only source of heat being my computer, me and — occasionally — cooking food, at the end of 2018 the air temperature was around 21°C. Since all three components are present anyway, they do not count to the energy consumption, so I may safely say that I used 0kWh. That is infinitely better than SOLUS!

Of course the magic comes from being in a large building, surrounded by from all sides by apartments — some of them inhabited by older people, who have opened the valves to max years ago and never cared about changing that. The point is that we know literally nothing about what is around the SOLUS test chamber. What we know is that sun exposure was uneven during the test. If the building is poorly insulated and dark, they may be getting few free kilowatts just from the sun.

[…] Sure, if you want to freeze for 6 days until it gets to 20°C at day 7, then Solus is perfect for you and it might even work for bigger rooms

Unfortunately this thinking is as flawed as the criticized product itself. If SOLUS is capable of going to 21°C in 7 days, it is capable of maintaining it indefinitely¹ later, using no more energy that it did for the initial heating. Therefore even if the oil heater is faster, with SOLUS you could just heat int up once and never turn it off through the cold saeson².

I'm not sure if they are only delusional or scammers.

Probably the former. This is why I was earlier trying to imagine, what they are actually believing in.
____
¹ Assuming the same conditions.
² Assuming that their claims would be true.

[FrankBuss]

[…] Sure, if you want to freeze for 6 days until it gets to 20°C at day 7, then Solus is perfect for you and it might even work for bigger rooms

Unfortunately this thinking is as flawed as the criticized product itself. If SOLUS is capable of going to 21°C in 7 days, it is capable of maintaining it indefinitely¹ later, using no more energy that it did for the initial heating. Therefore even if the oil heater is faster, with SOLUS you could just heat int up once and never turn it off through the cold saeson².

That's right. But if it gets colder outside, it probably can't maintain it anymore, if the isolation is not perfect.

[golden_labels]

Oh, I do not doubt it will fail. I was just pointing out mistake in the critique.

[Dr. Frank]

In this crude video, they measure the energy (i.e. the paid work) in kW, confusing it with power, that's  also clearly misspelled in all these overview tables.

Real power dissipation and switch on/off profile of the convection heater, and  the SOLUS panel is also not measured and transparent to the viewer.

Therefore, you can't even comprehend, what they have really measured on that meter, if it was power, energy, or something else. I could also not resolve the unit on that meter.

They also have absolutely no clue on relevant thermal units and parameters, and how to properly determine them, like temperature (in the right places), heat, convectional and radiation energy, heat capacity, room volume (speaking of 15m² AREA only), isolation, etc.

I wonder, if they really have no clue, or if they intentionally cheat with dirty tricks in this video.

Frank

[FrankBuss]

In this crude video, they measure the energy (i.e. the paid work) in kW, confusing it with power, that's  also clearly misspelled in all these overview tables.

Real power dissipation and switch on/off profile of the convection heater, and  the SOLUS panel is also not measured and transparent to the viewer.

Therefore, you can't even comprehend, what they have really measured on that meter, if it was power, energy, or something else. I could also not resolve the unit on that meter.

Right, energy is measured in joule. Watt is not energy, but power. 1 W is 1 J / s. But I guess they mean kWh, which would be energy, and those meters can do this. Otherwise the high number wouldn't make sense. Yes, they labeled it wrong in their video, saying it saved 20.5 kW. They should go back to school again and learn the basics

[madires]

I wonder, if they really have no clue, or if they intentionally cheat with dirty tricks in this video.

Apparently Dunning–Kruger effect.

[SilverSolder]

In this crude video, they measure the energy (i.e. the paid work) in kW, confusing it with power, that's  also clearly misspelled in all these overview tables.

Real power dissipation and switch on/off profile of the convection heater, and  the SOLUS panel is also not measured and transparent to the viewer.

Therefore, you can't even comprehend, what they have really measured on that meter, if it was power, energy, or something else. I could also not resolve the unit on that meter.

Right, energy is measured in joule. Watt is not energy, but power. 1 W is 1 J / s. But I guess they mean kWh, which would be energy, and those meters can do this. Otherwise the high number wouldn't make sense. Yes, they labeled it wrong in their video, saying it saved 20.5 kW. They should go back to school again and learn the basics

It is either a scam or monumental incompetence.  Either way, a fool and his money are soon parted!

[SenseofScale]

I just checked my email and received this (attached snip) from kickstater. Looks like some good came from all the complaints.

[GadgetBoy]

The end.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

[edy]

Suspended! Good work!

One of the ways they "scam" people with this graphene stuff is that people are confused by efficiency of electricity to heat conversion versus the radiative capability of the materials involved. Let's assume the following and you'll see why this scam works so well:


1. Imagine an electric element heating up a 10kg block of granite to a temperature of 100 Celsius (large thermal mass). That will require a lot of energy and will take time for the block to heat up.... and the surface area of that block will not dissipate the heat very well. However, once the element is turned off, that block will continue to radiate the heat for many hours while it slowly cools down even with the element off.

2. Now imagine the "graphene" or whatever flat radiator material with VERY LITTLE thermal mass. It takes very little energy to heat up the material, and it cools down very quickly. Air passes over the large surface area and "pulls out" the heat, equilibrating back the graphene surface to room temperature. You need to pulse the surface because it takes very little to heat it up, and then it cools down again.

You can see the fallacy in the logic and why it confuses so many people. The efficiency of converting electrical energy to heat is the same. The difference is that on one hand you have a more efficient (faster) transfer of heat into air compared to another. The graphene system will transfer the heat more quickly to the air due to it's large surface area and minimal thermal mass. The granite 10kg block will take much longer to heat up, but by the same token, continue to radiate heat for hours after the electricity is turned off.

At the end of the day, when you heat your room you will use the same energy since you have the same physical problem... and same input of electricity with conversion to heat through resistive element. The difference is whether you feel an immediate wave of heat coming off the thing and rapid cycling or gradual ingress with large thermal mass giving you a more steady curve.

[HalFET]

At the end of the day, when you heat your room you will use the same energy since you have the same physical problem... and same input of electricity with conversion to heat through resistive element. The difference is whether you feel an immediate wave of heat coming off the thing and rapid cycling or gradual ingress with large thermal mass giving you a more steady curve.

Or you can have both at once, which is why hot water radiators with a central gas heater are still very popular over here.  

[frozenfrogz]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solus-the-most-efficient-radiator-in-the-world--2#/

...just to have both Solus threads on the same page...

[FrankBuss]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solus-the-most-efficient-radiator-in-the-world--2#/

...just to have both Solus threads on the same page...

0 backers so far. Looks like people are not *that* dumb and to at least a google search before they back something.

[Kean]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solus-the-most-efficient-radiator-in-the-world--2#/

...just to have both Solus threads on the same page...

0 backers so far. Looks like people are not *that* dumb and to at least a google search before they back something.

No backers yet probably only because it just went up, and I'm sure that won't last.  They'll almost certainly have some shills backing it as well.  Of course they've gone with a flexible goal this time!

Also interesting to note how lazy/rushed they were getting this up.  The text still mentions Kickstarter in many places and the fact the campaign is going to end soon.  That could possibly lead to some people doing research and finding the KS campaign... 

[StillTrying]

Backers 0
Complaints 6
And they're still using Watts per hour.
Someone on KS is asking what happened, they mustn't be able to read.

[frozenfrogz]

Here is the answer email by Indiegogo:

"Hi there,

Thank you for sharing your concern with us. At this time, the campaign is under review to ensure that it adheres to our Terms of Use (http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms). We will follow up with you if we have any further questions.

So what happens now? We will include the information you have provided along with all other information at our disposal in our review of the campaign. In some cases, we will contact the campaign owner to have them edit their campaign and it will remain on our platform. If the project doesn't follow our rules, we may remove the campaign. We may also restrict the campaign owner's future activities on Indiegogo.

To protect our users' privacy, we're unable to share the action we take. At Indiegogo, we take the trust and safety of our community very seriously, and we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this review process. To learn more about Indiegogo’s Trust & Safety effort, please visit: www.indiegogo.com/trust

Please note that you do not need to contact us again. Doing so would create a new ticket and prolong the process. Thank you again for taking the time to get in touch with us and for helping to keep Indiegogo a safe and secure platform."

[HalFET]

I did some more hunting into the Interbrick character. It would appear some of his current Switzerland-based business ventures are registered through "Blue Lakes Advisors SA" in Geneva. (So I call letterbox operation on this one.) However, I couldn't find any registration details for Koleda, but given the pattern of other businesses I suspect it's also been registered through them if it actually exists. In fact, I looked very long and very hard and I couldn't find any legal entity which would go by the name Koleda anywhere. And while not the complete list, this gives you a pretty good idea of some of the stuff he's been up to in Switzerland: https://sogc.ch/#!/search/archive?keyword=Maxim%20Interbrick&executeInitialSearch=true

Since the documents are in French, let me summarise (no guarantee this is correct though, my French is very rusty):
The first Swiss venture he was tied to by name in the trade register is ALC Agency, which seems to be airport related advertising. However, this enterprise seems to have been disbanded after a few years (ALC Agency Sàrl was liquidated in 2011 after a sketchy run). The only trace of this company I could find was this snippet from himself. However, Adlux Sàrl does something very similar to ALC by the looks of it, so probably Adlux is some form of continuation business. Pretty much all his other businesses are also in this market, and he seems to have multiple legal entities for Adlux (Adlux Switzerland Sàrl, Adlux Holding SA, Adlux Sàrl - in liquidation) and EngageAd (EngageAd Sàrl, EngageLink SA). Not going to bother listing the rest since you can find it quite quickly if you start looking through the SOGC website. Now the interesting bit is that these companies don't even seem to have a completed website in multiple cases, which seems a bit odd for a business in marketing or advertising. But then again, he might simply have a solid customer base and not really bother keeping those up to date, so I'm not really sure what to think of this. You can also find some trace of him in the UK if you search Companies House, but that seems to be related to his Swiss ventures.

Anyway, I suspect Koleda brought him in to do the initial advertising campaign (something he does seem to be reasonably good at) and that he's not really the brain behind this product. It'd be interesting to see who's actually behind Koleda, but I sadly can't find any business registration. If someone wants to hunt for the legal entity that's running the Latvian factory, you can probably find the company registration information here: https://www.ur.gov.lv/lv/?v=en&v=en&v=en&v=en

[EEVblog]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solus-the-most-efficient-radiator-in-the-world--2#/
...just to have both Solus threads on the same page...

Just two backers so far, but both have shelled out over US$1k