EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
EEVblog => EEVblog Specific => Topic started by: EEVblog on July 20, 2020, 11:14:06 pm
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The SunPlower is supposed to be able to power mobile phone towers, propel boats and submarines, and fly you around in an Air-Taxi!
Let's turn flat solar panels into wind turbine blades!
The laws of physics and engineering might have a lot to say about that...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvAlEe6qecM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvAlEe6qecM)
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Fascinating idea but obviously it would never work.
Everyone knows you can't power G5 death beam emitters with some puny little energy.
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It seems wrong video linked in forum *(EEVblog #1271)
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It seems wrong video linked in forum *(EEVblog #1271)
Oops, fixed.
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How do you couple the solar power from the rotating blades? That needs lots of slip rings, one set for each blade and and another for the main hub. Oh, wait, it’s wireless. Duoh :phew:
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SunPlower is just taking the piss out of alternative renewable energy. If you look at the website it has virtually no detail and claims of being the solution to just about everything from submarine propulsion to flying cars. Why waste any time on it.
In a brief (very) online search I found this
https://www.facebook.com/siva.raghuram (https://www.facebook.com/siva.raghuram)
https://www.sunplower.de/ (https://www.sunplower.de/) Just look at the photo of the mobile phone tower. No sign of any street address for contact.
https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/business/693410-we-humans-are-on-the-wrong-path-for-energy-risking-existence-ceo-sunplower (https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/business/693410-we-humans-are-on-the-wrong-path-for-energy-risking-existence-ceo-sunplower)
Someone by that name and Texas Instruments do have some patents but none I could find (brief search of 5 minutes) for Sunplower.
https://patents.justia.com/patent/20140218018 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/20140218018)
It is basically trolling.
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How do you couple the solar power from the rotating blades? That needs lots of slip rings, one set for each blade and and another for the main hub. Oh, wait, it’s wireless. Duoh :phew:
Plus solar panels are DC, so those slip rings are going to have a reduced life due to breaking high current DC.
Also as pointed out in the youtube comments for #1321.
MPPT tracker vs SunPlower blanes
W = V * I and ...
... hmm higher than last time, lets try I = 5A and...
That's way out, how did that happen.
Stay still.
Voltage is all over the place.
Just a minute W = V *... ARRRGHH!
Grrr... why is nothing staying still.
Did some dork attach the solar array to a propeller or something!?!?!
*fatal error rebooting*
MPPT tracker V1.3
Checking system....
Fail
Error 17 FUBAR
*magic smoke escapes*
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Their location shown on their website via Google maps is centered on the Valentin-Karlstadt-Musäum (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin-Karlstadt-Musäum) in München (Munich) Germany.
They only have a German Wikipedia page, here is a Google translate of the first paragraph:
The Valentin-Karlstadt-Musäum [ 'falɛntiːn ] - is a city museum in Munich, which is dedicated to the comedian Karl Valentin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Valentin), his partner Liesl Karlstadt (http://) and the Munich folk singer.
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hmm no impressum (name, address, VAT number, etc.) required by German law.
and why is the google map in Brazilian Portuguese, in a German company?
yeah this is a serious company...
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How do you couple the solar power from the rotating blades? That needs lots of slip rings, one set for each blade and and another for the main hub. Oh, wait, it’s wireless. Duoh :phew:
Plus solar panels are DC, so those slip rings are going to have a reduced life due to breaking high current DC.
Also as pointed out in the youtube comments for #1321.
MPPT tracker vs SunPlower blanes
W = V * I and ...
... hmm higher than last time, lets try I = 5A and...
That's way out, how did that happen.
Stay still.
Voltage is all over the place.
Just a minute W = V *... ARRRGHH!
Grrr... why is nothing staying still.
Did some dork attach the solar array to a propeller or something!?!?!
*fatal error rebooting*
MPPT tracker V1.3
Checking system....
Fail
Error 17 FUBAR
*magic smoke escapes*
:-+
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SunPlower is just taking the piss out of alternative renewable energy. If you look at the website it has virtually no detail and claims of being the solution to just about everything from submarine propulsion to flying cars. Why waste any time on it.
Because it's funny.
In a brief (very) online search I found this
https://www.facebook.com/siva.raghuram (https://www.facebook.com/siva.raghuram)
https://www.sunplower.de/ (https://www.sunplower.de/) Just look at the photo of the mobile phone tower. No sign of any street address for contact.
https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/business/693410-we-humans-are-on-the-wrong-path-for-energy-risking-existence-ceo-sunplower (https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/business/693410-we-humans-are-on-the-wrong-path-for-energy-risking-existence-ceo-sunplower)
Someone by that name and Texas Instruments do have some patents but none I could find (brief search of 5 minutes) for Sunplower.
https://patents.justia.com/patent/20140218018 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/20140218018)
It is basically trolling.
They are going to a lot of effort:
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by rotating the blades at exactly 50 (or 60) Hz, surely you could drive an AC transformer directly from the solar panels !!! :bullshit: winner, winner, chicken dinner :popcorn:
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Wow what a disgraceful personal attack on a year old startup and its founder. When did we as a society become so cynical?
I understand doing a hit piece like this on a company that raised Billion dollars in funding and having no product to show for. But this a startup that is less than a year old with no external funding and showing regular work in progress on their youtube channel.
I am sure technology sounds impossible and may be it is. But isn't that startup's should be striving for?
Founder has at least 13 patents to his name and obviously not just some random guy like some comments here seem to suggest: https://patents.justia.com/inventor/siva-raghuram-prasad-chennupati
At least have you tried to reach out to founder and pose the same questions before doing a nasty hit piece? Or would actually following some journalistic standards and doing real work cut into your ad $$'s?
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Ideas like this getting somewhere without people doing "back of the envelope" calculations is entirely due to the emergance of e-mail.
There just are not that many envelopes lying around...
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Wow what a disgraceful personal attack on a year old startup and its founder. When did we as a society become so cynical?
I understand doing a hit piece like this on a company that raised Billion dollars in funding and having no product to show for. But this a startup that is less than a year old with no external funding and showing regular work in progress on their youtube channel.
I am sure technology sounds impossible and may be it is. But isn't that startup's should be striving for?
Founder has at least 13 patents to his name and obviously not just some random guy like some comments here seem to suggest: https://patents.justia.com/inventor/siva-raghuram-prasad-chennupati (https://patents.justia.com/inventor/siva-raghuram-prasad-chennupati)
At least have you tried to reach out to founder and pose the same questions before doing a nasty hit piece? Or would actually following some journalistic standards and doing real work cut into your ad $$'s?
You mean evidence like this ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X_FbIN1g7U (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X_FbIN1g7U)
Or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbvAxv0N89Y (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbvAxv0N89Y)
Or even this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNU5JPyeDcU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNU5JPyeDcU)
Why not just build one (a drone, with this 'wonderful' new fan/wing type), and demonstrate it ?
How high can it fly ?
How quiet is it ?
How much energy does it use ?
How long does the sun/wind take to charge it up and how far can it travel from that charge ?
I.e. Demonstrate and prove it. E.g. Flying up at speed and reaching 100 metres up (safely please).
Those youtube videos, don't seem to show proper testing of it.
Yes, they show someone can make animated pictures of one working, a motor slowly spinning the fan, and a very powerful fan slightly/partly spinning the blades.
But that is just basic stuff.
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Wow what a disgraceful personal attack on a year old startup and its founder. When did we as a society become so cynical?
I understand doing a hit piece like this on a company that raised Billion dollars in funding and having no product to show for. But this a startup that is less than a year old with no external funding and showing regular work in progress on their youtube channel.
I am sure technology sounds impossible and may be it is. But isn't that startup's should be striving for?
Founder has at least 13 patents to his name and obviously not just some random guy like some comments here seem to suggest: https://patents.justia.com/inventor/siva-raghuram-prasad-chennupati
At least have you tried to reach out to founder and pose the same questions before doing a nasty hit piece? Or would actually following some journalistic standards and doing real work cut into your ad $$'s?
Did you register just to say this?
What does it matter if it's a year old startup, or where the money comes from? They've been at it for a year and still haven't figured out that it's a stupid idea.
Cynicism has nothing to do with this either. This is a criticism of a proposal.
Startups can strive for whatever they want. They don't get immunity from criticism.
Patents mean next to nothing. They certainly are not an indication of soundness of a proposal.
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Did you register just to say this?
What does it matter if it's a year old startup, or where the money comes from? They've been at it for a year and still haven't figured out that it's a stupid idea.
Cynicism has nothing to do with this either. This is a criticism of a proposal.
Startups can strive for whatever they want. They don't get immunity from criticism.
Patents mean next to nothing. They certainly are not an indication of soundness of a proposal.
Yes I came here from watching the video.
Nothing wrong with Criticism of a proposal or the idea, But personally attacking a founder of early stage startup is a no go.
Crazy ideas are what changes the world. And yes 99.999% of them fail. That doesn't mean we should be personally attacking the Founder.
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And yes 99.999% of them fail.
That's fine.
Let's say we are Edison, a long time ago, trying to invent the worlds first, working light bulb.
(Very, very approximately), you set up a glass test light bulb (which can be sealed and vacuumated, as necessary), which is ready, to take on lots of test filaments.
You get hold of something like 2,000 test samples. Cotton, carbon coated cotton, aluminium wire, gold wire, etc etc.
Most of them almost burn out straight away, and either give no light, or just light up for half a second and then go pop, and burn out.
Eventually, you come to carbon or Tungsten, 1999 samples later. You suddenly find it glows a really nice, semi-white, yellowish glow and lasts for ages and ages.
You then take the Tungsten (or carbon) filament, and refine/improve it, until it lasts for a very long time before burning out.
Finally, you go to the patent office, and say you have invented the worlds first electric light bulb, then manufacture and sell it. Then accept your fame in the worlds history books.
What you don't/shouldn't do, is try your first sample. E.g. Stone. It doesn't work, even slightly. Then stop, and tell everyone about your wonderful, stone filament light bulbs. Which glow, a really fetching shade of black/invisible light.
tl;dr
Fine, try the invention. If it doesn't work, don't tell people about it. Move on to the next thing. Because you may need to try 2, 10, 100 or even 2,000 things (such as lamp filaments, a long time ago), before you find something useful and sellable/marketable.
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tl;dr
Fine, try the invention. If it doesn't work, don't tell people about it. Move on to the next thing. Because you may need to try 2, 10, 100 or even 2,000 things (such as lamp filaments, a long time ago), before you find something useful and sellable/marketable.
Obvious, there are multiple paths to final invention. Not everyone choses the same path and who are we to dictate the path to anyone?
My point is Author/Blogger/YouTuber was being too juvenile in personally attacking founder of an early stage startup.
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Obvious, there are multiple paths to final invention. Not everyone choses the same path and who are we to dictate the path to anyone?
My point is Author/Blogger/YouTuber was being too juvenile in personally attacking founder of an early stage startup.
To a fair or even large extent, you are right. I agree.
Anyway, sometimes the path to success, is to take something, which doesn't work yet. Then ask/show other people and eventually find out what is wrong and/or how to fix it.
I HAVEN'T seen the video, in this thread. But, can guess what it would be like, from others I have seen.
I hope that there is no intention of starting up a kickstarter or something, as the invention is at way too early a stage to be something that the general public should be investing in. It really needs to show some kind of merit or performance, FIRST, before doing that.
tl;dr
You're right. It MAY be unfair to be making fun of the project. As I already said, I haven't seen the OP video (except a very quick glance), and don't know much about this project (read the spec, seen his youtube videos, and partly read this thread), so to comment much more, without knowing a lot more. Is not something I should do.
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hmm no impressum (name, address, VAT number, etc.) required by German law.
I also couldn't find a company named "Sunplower" in the company registers. Perhaps they use some other name for that or it is not (yet) a real company, just a one-man-show.
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Wow what a disgraceful personal attack on a year old startup and its founder.
Means nothing in terms of physics or for the ideas presented, even if the media is favoring personality cults and eccentric ideas.
When did we as a society become so cynical? [...] I am sure technology sounds impossible and may be it is. But isn't that startup's should be striving for?
If public funding is involved there should be questions about the viability of an idea, if its private funding ... well, their problem.
The thing is: no one would care about unfinished, bad or implausible ideas, but in the moment of publishing them, trying to get funds for them, getting products with them in circulation/on the market, these have to face skepticism and have to pass basic tests for plausibility - one way or the other*. Because this is what separates them from science fiction, which authors then also would classify as such. (* the other being financial ruin at the end)
Bolting solar panels to wind turbines is not even particulary hard, a working prototype is scaleable, but the fundamental problem is that wind direction and sun inclination are two separate things.
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How is pointing out the obvious stupidity of a device a personal attack? So what if the “inventor” is named? The internet is a public place. The device is such an obvious crackpot idea that it is good to know who is promoting such nonsense as they tend to be serial offenders.
Applying emotion to every situation and looking to be offended by basic human behavior is a sure pathway to constant, lifelong misery. A far better path is to engage and learn something new everyday which requires learning critical thinking skills. Seriously, those skills may save your life some day.
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Wow what a disgraceful personal attack on a year old startup and its founder. When did we as a society become so cynical?
A ridiculous impractical idea and wild claims will be ridiculed by the engineering community. Welcome to engineering.
I understand doing a hit piece like this on a company that raised Billion dollars in funding and having no product to show for. But this a startup that is less than a year old with no external funding and showing regular work in progress on their youtube channel.
Doesn't matter who it is, if you make ridiculous claims then don't be surprised when someone calls you out on it.
I am sure technology sounds impossible and may be it is. But isn't that startup's should be striving for?
They can do whatever they want, just don't expect to be immune from criticism and engineers laughing at stupid claims.
Founder has at least 13 patents to his name and obviously not just some random guy like some comments here seem to suggest: https://patents.justia.com/inventor/siva-raghuram-prasad-chennupati
So what. You make stupid claims you get called out, that's how it works.
At least have you tried to reach out to founder and pose the same questions before doing a nasty hit piece? Or would actually following some journalistic standards and doing real work cut into your ad $$'s?
Basic calculations and inspection of the design can prove these claims are utter rubbish.
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That doesn't mean we should be personally attacking the Founder.
What did I say that "personally attacked the founder"? Please be very specific.
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How is pointing out the obvious stupidity of a device a personal attack? So what if the “inventor” is named? The internet is a public place.
If the person behind this was deliberately trying to remain anonymous and I "outed" them or some such then that would be a problem. But this person is proudly putting their name behind this and attending public demonstrations and trade shows, so mentioning or showing their name or photo from a public event is fair game in reporting and criticism.
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What did I say that "personally attacked the founder"? Please be very specific.
Dave, Your video and comments are definitely out of line. You took a website and interview from when the company was 2 months old (I found that in the interview link you posted and website updates from wayback machine) and created a mocking video of the product and it's founders without even trying to reach out to its founder to understand where they are now? It literally took me 10 minutes after watching your video to understand this. Did you miss this in your research or intentionally miss it because it doesn't make a good story?
You are a business man, Obviously you had many ideas that took different form as they evolved with time. How would you like to be judged on the initial idea later and publicly criticizing without giving you opportunity?
Instead of creating +ve value in the community, you are creating a cesspool with your tone and attitude. See the kind of behavior you are fostering (attached screenshot). Really? calling someone with 30 patents to their name, a janitor?
I hope you will do the right thing.
Edit: fixed a typo.
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What did I say that "personally attacked the founder"? Please be very specific.
Dave, Your video and comments are definitely out of line.
I asked you very specifically to cite examples were I said something that personally attacked the founder.
You have provided zero evidence, so that's it, I'm done discussing this.
You took a website and interview from when the company was 2 months old (I found that in the interview link you posted and website updates from wayback machine) and created a mocking video of the product and it's founders without even trying to reach out to its founder to understand where they are now? It literally took me 10 minutes after watching your video to understand this. Did you miss this in your research or intentionally miss it because it doesn't make a good story?
So tell us, where are they now?
Go on, enlighten us.
If they have newer stuff to show then it's not my fault it's not on their website. I can hardly be expected to do any more than base my engineering opinion on the data shown on their own website.
You are a business man, Obviously you had many ideas that took different form as they evolved with time. How would you like to be judged on the initial idea later and publicly criticizing without giving you opportunity?
If my idea was fundamentally stupid and doesn't even work on the back of an envelope then I expect to be laughed at by my fellow engineering community.
Instead of creating +ve value in the community, you are creating a cesspool with your tone and attitude. See the kind of behavior you are fostering (attached screenshot). Really? calling someone with 30 patents to their name, a janitor?
I am not responsible for what people write in the comments. I in fact did the founder a service by pointing out that he has 30 patents and has worked in top notch companies. Hardly "creating a cess pool"
I hope you will do the right thing.
I do the "right thing" by debunking ridiculous impractical ideas like this and helping people understand the value of doing some basic engineering first to evaluate the practicality of the idea.
If this project has simply been an inclined variable pitch blade wind turbine then I and other wouldn't have battered an eyelid. But the founder had to promote the demonstrably ridiculous idea of putting solar panels on the blades, and saying it will be transportation vehicle. This is demonstrable engineering lunacy!
Again, welcome to the world of engineering.
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I am not responsible for what people write in the comments.
You are not responsible for comments on your article but you have no problem quoting old interviews of others (That too when the company was 2 month old?) and you don't see the irony in that.
So tell us, where are they now?
Go on, enlighten us.
If they have newer stuff to show then it's not my fault it's not on their website.
Obviously I am not privy to where they are now and I don't expect any non web based startup to update their website with latest. But since you were doing a review of what they do, you had the moral and ethical reason to reach out and find out.
I am sure you had good intentions Dave and I definitely enjoy your content. But this is definitely not the right approach.
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I am not responsible for what people write in the comments.
You are not responsible for comments on your article but you have no problem quoting old interviews of others (That too when the company was 2 month old?) and you don't see the irony in that.
You've gone from claims of "creating a cess pool" to simple "irony", nice backdown :clap:
That really had nothing to do with the meat of the video!
This video is about laughing at the (again) demonstrably ridiculous claims of solar power blades, air-taxies that can carry people, and underwater propulsion, all with the same technology. Every engineer with any clue at all looks at this and laughs their arse off at such claims.
Again, noted that you have zero evidence for your claim of me personally attacking the founder. Care to withdraw that claim?
So tell us, where are they now?
Go on, enlighten us.
If they have newer stuff to show then it's not my fault it's not on their website.
Obviously I am not privy to where they are now and I don't expect any non web based startup to update their website with latest.
But since you were doing a review of what they do, you had the moral and ethical reason to reach out and find out.
Bullshit.
A company can live or die by the claims on their website.
If they have newer tech or demos that proves they are on the right track then they are free to post that in response. Heck I'll even link to their video, and they can join this forum and post here and explain how wonderful their technology is.
I am sure you had good intentions Dave and I definitely enjoy your content. But this is definitely not the right approach.
It's my channel and I'll do things my way. Again, the claims being made here are demonstrably ridiculous from an engineering perspective. It's fundamentally an impractical concept like solar roadways.
I can tell you what would happen if I had contacted the company. One of three things:
1) No response
2) Some more BS pointing to existing content, boasting about the founders credentials etc.
3) "Just wait, don't make a video until you see our demo coming soon" where of course "soon" never comes, because he idea is impratical
I've been making debunking videos for a decade, I have vast experience in claims like this and how companies never come through.
Why would they give me exclusive data they haven't revealed to the public? Even if they did, it's the CLAIMS they are making I take issue at. They cannot provide prove of this because it's obvious this technology will not work for the claims they are making.
They can easily prove me wrong by posting demos of their technology publicly.
Again, the three things I take aim at are the solar generation, the air-taxi, and the underwater propulsion claims. There is zero evidence they have even tried these things. Their demo is just a variable pitch turbine blade, and a quite frankly piss-weak feable looking design at that, that even a non-mechanical engineer like myself can see it won't scale for basic wind operation let alone the other ridiculous claims.
You post ridiculous engineering claims and you get laughed at, that's how this works. Again, welcome to engineering.
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I would argue KumarM, that your attitude is actually far more harmful than Daves.
The space of engineering possibilities is absolutely vast. However the engineering possibilities that are actually practical are a tiny subset of the total possibility space. A good engineer should be able to quickly cut through all the unviable ideas whithout wasting too many precious resources, and spend time on ideas that actually have a chance of working.
I'm not saying that blue sky or cutting edge research is a waste of time, I'm saying that ideas which basic physics, economics and back of the envelope calculations say are impossible, should be put aside. (Sometimes constraints change with future technology developments and suddenly the unviable becomes viable). It's hard enough to make physically possible ideas commercially successful without adding being against the laws of physics or basic economics to your challenges!
Anyway, if you indulge widespread attitudes like yours, it very quickly turns into stupid wasteful million dollar cargo-cult projects such as solar roads. Dave has demonstrated many times over that there are an almost unlimited range of ways to spend that money more effectively. And yet effort and money is still poured down the drain on projects like this. Gone forever, with nothing of value to show.
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Looking at the reaction, intensity and the persistency, KumarM must be the founder or associate at the SunPlower.
I guess they're in the middle of approaching the victim eerr ... funding source, and bad luck happened at the wrong timing as Dave released this video, and the whole plan just went into trash can instantly. :-DD
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Looking at the reaction, intensity and the persistency, KumarM must be the founder or associate at the SunPlower.
I guess they're in the middle of approaching the victim eerr ... funding source, and bad luck happened at the wrong timing as Dave released this video, and the whole plan just went into trash can instantly. :-DD
The first thing to do is to establish Sunplower is an actual company before worrying about who might be a founder. It looks like a not very elaborate scam to make fools of the easily outraged or the associated nitwits who are equally easily deceived.
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Looking at the reaction, intensity and the persistency, KumarM must be the founder or associate at the SunPlower.
I guess they're in the middle of approaching the victim eerr ... funding source, and bad luck happened at the wrong timing as Dave released this video, and the whole plan just went into trash can instantly. :-DD
Really? I registered with my work email. I am sure Dave as Admin has access to my email and ip address. I am in US and the company is in Germany. I am neither founder or associate at SunPlower or have any financial interest in SunPlower.
By same logic does that mean BravoV (and everyone who defend Dave) is Dave pretending to be someone else or someone who works for Dave? Please stop this nonsense.
I didn't wanted to continue this argument as I realized Dave has no intension of changing his approaching (He made it clear that its his YouTube Channel and he will do what he wanted to. which is obviously his call to make as it is his channel). But you pulled me back with your comment. I will stop now and will not indulge further.
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I didn't wanted to continue this argument as I realized Dave has no intension of changing his approaching (He made it clear that its his YouTube Channel and he will do what he wanted to. which is obviously his call to make as it is his channel). But you pulled me back with your comment. I will stop now and will not indulge further.
I've had the same approach for 11 years, with millions of views on my debunking videos and countless thanks from all but the people behind these ridiculous claims. Why on earth would I change because one person got upset that I called someones idea dumb and I didn't ask them to explain their dumb idea further?
Some things are just obviously dumb and impractical, this is one of them.
To use Thunderf00t's analogy which I like, if someone designed a frying pan made of chocolate, should everyone who wants to critique the design have to ask the designer about the design first before laughing at the practicality of it? Same thing here.
As for your claim about "journalistic standards", ok, sure, that would involve asking an independent subject matter expert for their opinion on the concept. Guess what, I'm that subject matter expert. That's the entire point of this channel. The designer has already provided ample information to critique the design concept, no further asking is required. Because, as I said, in my experience they will just spin more bullshit, or try to convince you not to do a video on it at all.
And do you still claim that I personally attacked the founder?
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If inventor has anything to say, he should be able to counter Dave claims by numbers, here in forum. It will be best promotion ever.
If he have them. And i think, he dont have them.
For example, I had an idea to create an air conditioner powered by the sun (without electricity), i will take my time and tediously count everything, especially the economic part, before putting it somewhere, so as not to be ridiculed for idiocy, for promoting idea that doesnt work in reality. Sometimes an idea needs to be worked out for a very long time in details, so that it stop looking idiotic.
Or for example extracting water from thin air, stuff Dave laughed at several times, theoretically possible, but of course not by using electrical solar panels.
And i can say for sure, that ideas is less wacky and at least solvable, i have some number to say, instead of questionable PoC and computer graphics of weird idea placing solar panels on the surface of a propulsion propeller.
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(...)
I am sure technology sounds impossible and may be it is. But isn't that startup's should be striving for?
(...)
I am not sure you got the whole concept of "startup" right.
The goal is to make sensible business on economically and technically viable concepts, not striving for the demonstrably impossible.
Would you invest (i.e.: waste) your money on a technically unfeasible idea?
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(...)
I am sure technology sounds impossible and may be it is. But isn't that startup's should be striving for?
(...)
I am not sure you got the whole concept of "startup" right.
The goal is to make sensible business on economically and technically viable concepts, not striving for the demonstrably impossible.
Would you invest (i.e.: waste) your money on a technically unfeasible idea?
The ONLY reason KumarM joined this forum is to be a moral guru for Dave, as naughty Dave so cruelly shot down a new startup.
So when another new scam pop up, say like an inventor claims that able to convert sea water to gasoline cheapppppply :palm:, and then when any blogger/press that shot it down, trust me, KumarM will act as knight of shinning armor to criticize them, exactly like now, a noble man. :-DD
Btw, KumarM, is that you ? Siva RaghuRam Prasad Chennupati ? Or probably his son ? :-DD
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looks like the gearbox is the so-called big secret, here. a fail, needs all of its power just to keep the orientation of the wind.
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looks like the gearbox is the so-called big secret, here.
A beveled planetary gear-ish construction (similar to click (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsS3CX5AiqY). It is a very interesting mechanical concept and in itself fascinating in changing the angles from straight to perpendicular. But for wind power there is hardly a use for it, as straight on facing the wind with aerofoils gives considerably better efficiency. I guess thats where the "bolt solar panels to it" comes from.
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Inventors FIRST make a working prototype, proof of concept- before soliciting investors. Engineers knowing the Laws of Thermodynamics and Physics can spot a scam easily.
Something (fraud) has flipped this all backwards, so it's the fantasy you sell first to get money, and then try to make it work somewhat (Theranos) and giveup and leave town or go to jail :palm:
It's just a rehash of snake oil.
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I've got to add that for wind and solar power generation a judgment solely based on efficiency needs to be seen in the context of the free primary energy source. In other words efficiency is not as important as we are used to in other sectors or in the subsequent power transmission. What counts is average system output power and the net energy output/CO2 footprint (usually neglegible... because its wind/solar and pays off quick).
Of course it matters how much bang you get per buck and lower efficiency means less output for a given location, then there are design considerations how much larger this would need to be to get comparable output power to offset efficiency differences, but if it allows to fill niches that were not covered before it might be worthwhile to consider them. So i think it might make sense to present such a concept.
Too bad it is presented next to applications that have better equivalents and in which this would really be a loss... and i'd agree that some energy harvesting ideas are pretty much ignorant to even basic considerations.
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You are right SparkyFX. However if this is the case with the sunplower, then they need to lead front and center with identification of this niche, and justification for filling it.
Without that elephant in the room addressed, you’re just pretending at being an engineer.
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Wow what a disgraceful personal attack on a year old startup and its founder. When did we as a society become so cynical?
"Society" is nowhere near cynical enough, in fact many of it's members are downright gullible which is why bullshit schemes like this get any attention at all.
This forum has many professional engineers and keen hobbyists that are cynical because we have seen stupid, ill conceived power generation schemes come and go hundreds of times, and some basic critical thinking shows this is just another one.
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You are right SparkyFX. However if this is the case with the sunplower, then they need to lead front and center with identification of this niche, and justification for filling it.
Without that elephant in the room addressed, you’re just pretending at being an engineer.
Full ACK.
A comparison would be to ditch rooftop solar because tracked panels in solar parks perform considerably better. It also is a niche, but it does not matter, because it works good enough, far from being a total waste.
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Despite the rubbish published on their website, you can smell a rat when the website's inconsistent and illogical use of upper case in their sentences are not even to grade 5 primary school level :palm:. Any wonder they have no idea.
One might wonder if Sunplower is a subsidiary of "The Microsoft Help Desk" :-DD.