Dave's next birthday present

[cncjerry]

interesting box.

Jerry

[Towger]

I am sure he has already done one of these.  May not be the exact model.

[Ranayna]

If Dave thinks that YouTube might give him trouble over such a Teardown, why not make such a video exclusive to LBRY? 
Might give another big push to his subscriber count there

[edy]

Already done, not taken down yet. Channel title says it all... "Play with Junk". 



Somebody download it before it disappears! Also look at the comments... at least a few people over the years have suggested to send it to EEVBlog. I wouldn't touch that turd with a 10 foot stick! Not worth it!

[schmitt trigger]

Over 40 years ago, a Scientology member came to me to see if I could "repair" one of those units.

It was an ancient unit with point to point wiring, and all I can remember that the wiring was such an incredible rat's nest that I just gave it a quick look and said no.

[Ranayna]

Does not matter (in my opinion) that someone else has already done this.
I would very much like to hear Dave talking and ranting about that thing.

Sometimes I am sad that he stopped his videos (virtually) shredding those scam letters  I wonder if is *still* getting those.

[edy]

Well what I would watch is a video of Dave explaining the circuitry and function of the device... not a "bashing" of the purported usefulness or cost or cult/religion. We all know it's an expensive piece of crap that if there's any influence on a person at all, will be due to the placebo effect.... on people who are already indoctrinated in whatever they believe, and claim it has the desired effect on them.

But a purely objective electrical teardown analyzing what the device is actually measuring electrically (or outputting) and what the controls and readings actually mean would be interesting. Entirely electrical discussion. For example, by the quick look at the previously linked video I am seeing the needle goes up whenever you squeeze the handles, and I think he used a resistor decade box of some kind to test it further. Is it measuring any other property? Inductance, capacitance? Is it driving the signal at some AC frequency or purely DC? What would an oscilloscope and various other types of testing instruments show? At the end we would have a purely electrical scientific understanding of what is actually going on.

Dave wouldn't have to state the obvious... if you tell me the thing measures resistance across your chest (from your hand across one arm to the other hand) or some other electrical property, then fine. The cult will have you believe it means something more than just resistance and that you should do such and such a thing.... Dave could have a field day calling this out for the BS that it is, but at the end of the day he won't convince those who have "bought in", and may attract some lawyers letters. A purely electrical review may be a way to avoid legal threats and still learn something. By the way, you wonder if they just repurposed components from some other test equipment and used them in a different housing, or if most of the circuitry and other stuff in there's does nothing and is there for "show". I can't believe they would do an entire production line for something like this, although that also could explain the high cost.

By the way I've attached a photo from an eBay item being sold now (just search for Scientology equipment). It clearly states in RED that it is all BS... only used for "religious purposes" whatever that means. There is also an Australian patent number on there, US patent numbers and UK patent numbers. I'm sure we can dig up the patents which may explain the electrical function....

OK here we have it:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=0264,877.PN.+4,459,995.PN.&OS=PN/0264,877+OR+PN/4,459,995&RS=PN/0264,877+OR+PN/4,459,995

And I've attached the patent PDF as well. There is also a ton of information and even more patent numbers and links on the Wikipedia article on the E-meter (which seems to be some derivative of a dubious pseudo-scientific Keeler lie-detector test, and may have been used as a "screening" tool for potential indoctrinates of the cult to see if their intentions were true during the interview process):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-meter

Given the amount of stuff we already have seen about this, I understand why Dave would not bother wasting his precious time reviewing the device. Reading up the patents, Scientology's own RED disclaimer sticker and the rest pretty much sum up the entire turd-box.     

[magic]

It actually seems surprisingly complex. And look at all those trimpots

Not sure if there is much value in reverse engineering it

[SiliconWizard]

I doubt a teardown would be very interesting.
And as the bottom tag states, this item is strictly for "religious" use, and they are not claiming anything else. So there's nothing much to debunk here. Just because it contains electronics doesn't change that.

[langwadt]

If Dave thinks that YouTube might give him trouble over such a Teardown, why not make such a video exclusive to LBRY? 
Might give another big push to his subscriber count there

Youtube wouldn't care, but CoS has piles of money and lawyers and have shown before that they are willing to ruin peoples lives. So I don't think it is worth the hassle

[magic]

I doubt a teardown would be very interesting.
And as the bottom tag states, this item is strictly for "religious" use, and they are not claiming anything else. So there's nothing much to debunk here. Just because it contains electronics doesn't change that.

Well, some people like to debunk religions themselves

As for a teardown, go watch that video somebody posted here. It could actually be interesting, for certain perverse value of "interesting" The device is rather complex, including a long row of 20 turn pots and a PIC pretending to be an 8051. You could do not one video but a whole series trying to figure out what it does and how it does it.

That being said, I have a suspicion that whatever it does isn't terribly useful outside of COS and whatever techniques it employs aren't perhaps the most efficient. But hey, maybe it actually contains some sophisticated voltnut technology