Author Topic: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"  (Read 18647 times)

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Offline rrinkerTopic starter

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Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« on: February 14, 2018, 02:47:34 pm »
http://voltserver.com/

Once you get past the marketing wank (and boy is there a lot of it...), it looks to me what thy are doing is combining data and power via square waves with variable duty cycle. Sounds to me an awful lot like DCC model train control. One of our (non EE background) guys went to a demo and was describing it as the power going into a capacitor bank and the data comes out the other side. One of our sales guys has an EE degree (background in PIR design) and I overheard this conversation and we were both like - there has to be more to it, capacitors alone can't store and recreate digital information. Poking around on their web site eventually gets you to a page describing the technology at least a little bit, and the first thing that struck me was that it looks like DCC for trains.

 

Offline StillTrying

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2018, 04:21:57 pm »
"VoltServer Raises $5 Million to Expand Digital Electricity Commercial Deployments

VoltServer receives $1M Department of Energy Grant

VoltServer closes $2M Series A financing

Slater Invests $250k in Energy Management Startup"



It doesn't have to produce or have anything.

I think I'll develop a new Digtal Light Bulb, with two special Digital Modes, - ON and OFF. :)

https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/868253
http://www.google.com/patents/US8068937
« Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 04:37:28 pm by StillTrying »
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 

Offline frozenfrogz

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2018, 05:37:08 pm »
So basically they are advertising for two halves of a high frequency switch mode power supply that can modulate additional data packets onto a DC / PWM Signal?
Sounds like a "War of the currents" re-enactment somehow.

Another patent for "Packet energy transfer" from that company. Man have they filed a lot of these!
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Offline phil from seattle

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2018, 09:01:01 pm »
Man I hate marketing crap that completely hides what the product actually does.  Best I could tell from looking at their installed products page, it's some sort of power supply - mostly POE.  Meh.  Whole lot of words over a whole lot of nothing.

But perhaps the worst is their attempt to brand electricity. Digital Electricity - I think I puked a little over that one. If I heard someone say "we're using digital electricity!", I would be hard pressed not to give them a round-house bitch slap. And using Edison and Tesla in the same image?  WTF???  What's next, 64-bit power?
 

Offline frozenfrogz

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2018, 12:04:53 am »
And using Edison and Tesla in the same image?  WTF???  What's next, 64-bit power?

Next up in line would be »quantum state electricity« or »quantum entangled electricity« :popcorn:
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Offline Neomys Sapiens

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2018, 12:42:23 am »
Packet energy transfer?
That seriously sounds like a former-eastern-block euphemism for frequent power outages!
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2018, 03:40:11 am »
Quote
crap that completely hides what the product actually does

You mean 'how it works'. What it does is the point of the marketing (crap or otherwise) - the end user doesn't care about how it works, they want it for what it does. No-one buys an audio system because 'the flexible horns vibrate and cause pressure waves in air'. They buy the stuff because, in hi-fidelity, it 'transports a magical music performance right there to your front room for your personal listening'.
 

Offline phil from seattle

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2018, 03:55:04 am »
Quote
crap that completely hides what the product actually does

You mean 'how it works'. What it does is the point of the marketing (crap or otherwise) - the end user doesn't care about how it works, they want it for what it does. No-one buys an audio system because 'the flexible horns vibrate and cause pressure waves in air'. They buy the stuff because, in hi-fidelity, it 'transports a magical music performance right there to your front room for your personal listening'.

So, Digital Electricity is what it does?  Thanks for straightening me out.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2018, 05:04:59 am »
Quote
So, Digital Electricity is ...

The brand name. Hence the use of 'TM' - which means 'Trade Mark'. Some reference material you may find useful:

Trademarks according to USPTO

See also:

About brand names

"Dunkin' Doughnuts" don't actually dunk, you know. It's just a brand name.

Quote
Thanks for straightening me out

You're welcome.
 

Offline ajb

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2018, 06:25:27 am »
Reading the articles linked from the website is a bit more enlightening.  It seems it's a low voltage power distribution system that has some sort of handshaking between end points and fault protection. The real selling point is that, since it's low voltage, it's a lot less expensive to install and move around than mains wiring--more akin to telecom or alarm wiring in terms of wiring techniques and code requirements--while being capable of delivering higher power levels than PoE.  They claim up to 1kW, which must be something like 20A @ 48V, although it's not clear if that's on a single line or spread across multiple outputs on one supply.  They claim they can power an entire PoE switch which can then power multiple WAPs, or cellular stations, so it seems like there's a niche for it in wireless deployments in existing buildings or in buildings that are expected to see frequent renovation, so aiming the pitch at the commercial real estate market makes some sense. 
 

Offline Berni

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2018, 06:42:39 am »
I don't get it. What does this actually do?

Are they trying to put 1kW trough ethernet cables? Well... technically if you parallel enough of them...
 

Offline frozenfrogz

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2018, 08:18:08 am »
Reading the articles linked from the website is a bit more enlightening. It seems it's a low voltage power distribution system that has some sort of handshaking between end points and fault protection. The real selling point is that, since it's low voltage (...) They claim up to 1kW, which must be something like 20A @ 48V (...)

No. It is high voltage, low current otherwise you would need thick gauge wire.

He’s like a trained ape. Without the training.
 

Offline BrianHG

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2018, 08:32:56 am »
Why does this seem like a cheap re-branding of these existing technologies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication
 

Offline frozenfrogz

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2018, 08:56:15 am »
After reading up a bit on the subject:

The difference is, that for power lan you have AC current on the line and data packets get modulated on there. Power lan absolutely sucks by the way. I am having one machine connected that way and it is slow and unreliable. The voltserver is more like power over ethernet but with focus on energy transfer, thus giving you the option to use up to 1200W over a CAT6 cable. The amount of data to be transfered is limited though.
POE: Lots of data, up to 90W of power
PET: Up to 1200W of power, some data for switching applications
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Offline donotdespisethesnake

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2018, 09:19:55 am »
Yes, it's time multiplexing power and data. Or, they pulse power and use a dead time to detect faults. They can use the dead time to transmit data as well.

Not an expert in the field, but it sounds quite novel to me. It's only possible with modern electronics.
Bob
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2018, 09:48:26 am »
My quick understanding from the video and stuff, and I'm not an expert, is that they send a pulse of juice followed by some data. The USP is that it's safe power and turns off withing 3ms, which is short enough to not kill you if you touch it. Hence why the power pulse is 1.1ms wide.

So, the supply sends a 1.1ms pulse of HV power, some data bits, then waits for the far end to say, "OK, send me more". But this is also supposed to work over thousands of feet and there's a round trip time involved which goes up as the wire goes long. At first I thought this would be a killer since it would slow down the pulses, but I am stuck in data comms mode. Does it really matter if the pulses are taking longer to generate? On the face of it, all that would do is reduce the throughput of power (it would look like PWM, although it isn't really). As the cable gets longer your power capability reduces. Just like resistance, kind of. Actually, 'in addition to resistance'.

There would need to be some clever smoothing out of these power pulses, but it's surely doable. On the face of it, calling it digital electricity wouldn't be far off the mark. To anyone with a scope it would look like that and they are effectively packetising the power. Could well be one to keep an eye on.
 

Offline rrinkerTopic starter

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #16 on: February 15, 2018, 02:29:24 pm »
"VoltServer Raises $5 Million to Expand Digital Electricity Commercial Deployments

VoltServer receives $1M Department of Energy Grant

VoltServer closes $2M Series A financing

Slater Invests $250k in Energy Management Startup"



It doesn't have to produce or have anything.

I think I'll develop a new Digtal Light Bulb, with two special Digital Modes, - ON and OFF. :)

https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/868253
http://www.google.com/patents/US8068937

Oh they most definitely have something. The only reason I even heard of it is because one of our clients installed it. The physical devices exist, and it does work.

 

Offline rrinkerTopic starter

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #17 on: February 15, 2018, 02:36:32 pm »
 It is most definitely high voltage - the specs on the label for the box at one end say 332-346V DC. Or something like that, I only got a glance at the picture, the low end is > 330V though.

 It's not trying to shove this over thin twisted pair cable, it uses something that's around 18 gauge. And multiple pairs for redundancy of both signal and power. The client's installation has 3 modules in the source unit, which drives a total of 3 pairs out to the destination.

 The diagrams and signal graph shown in their patents are not what I expected. This is the power transmisison one:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2016/0134331.html

and this is one for another critical piece - the fault detection method, given they are passing > 300VDC. Love the stick figures..
https://patents.google.com/patent/US8781637

 

Offline StillTrying

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2018, 03:51:06 pm »
"Oh they most definitely have something. The only reason I even heard of it is because one of our clients installed it. The physical devices exist, and it does work."

Does it look like $10m worth of development?

If you needed/wanted to semi-remotely power and control some expensive/sensitive equipment. Are we sure that sending it 500Hz 300V pp square waves is the best and much more efficient way than just using a power and data cable?

It might "work", but even a stopped watch is correct twice a day. :)

I don't get it, are we sure it's not just expensive snake oil?
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 

Offline frozenfrogz

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2018, 06:50:35 pm »
As far as I understand it their selling point is that retrofitting buildings with additional power lines is more cost efficient because you don't need certified electricians and heavy equipment to do the job due to system safety and less regulations but just a technician that runs some 18 gauge twisted pair cables - "as used for security cameras and is cheaply available" (quoted from the vid) - into existing data cable trays.
They have some real world examples in the video I posted earlier. However since the audio quality is a little fatiguing I did not watch all of it but skipped through to get a bit of an overview :/
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Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2018, 06:54:14 pm »
Maybe they will be mixing in happy pixies along with the angry pixies, so this will be like binary.  :P
 

Offline StillTrying

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2018, 10:51:40 pm »
They have some real world examples in the video I posted earlier.

I've just watched most of the video, the more I watched the more I thought it was snake oil.

50/60Hz power cables cause enough problems without converting it to 600Hz 336V square waves.
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2018, 11:39:05 pm »
They have some real world examples in the video I posted earlier.

I've just watched most of the video, the more I watched the more I thought it was snake oil.

50/60Hz power cables cause enough problems without converting it to 600Hz 336V square waves.

Exactly, this crap will never pass FCC, let alone EMI!  It's a stupid idea! Square wave power! :-DD
OH HELL NO!!!
Just imagine anything with a speaker turning into...
*BZZZZZZAAAAAP*
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Offline rrinkerTopic starter

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #23 on: February 16, 2018, 05:21:08 pm »
 After looking at their patents, it doesn't look like a square wave (despite the marketing wank showing just that). There seems to be some sort of sawtooth where the power component is switch off for some small number of microseconds.

 I haven't seen the equipment at this client in person, just in photos. It LOOKS like decent gear, not something thrown together on a lark, the main unit is neatly rack integrated, the remotes by design are just plain boxes which look decently ruggedized like most industrial gear.

 I doubt the idea and a proof of concept cost them anywhere near $10 million.
 

Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Has anyone seen this - Voltserver: "Digital Electricity"
« Reply #24 on: February 16, 2018, 07:27:11 pm »
Sawtooth is just as bad. When you have a sharp transition, you get unwanted radio waves, just like with a triac chopping a sine wave. So unless they have extensive shielding and filtering (expensive!) it will be aweful at long runs!
« Last Edit: February 16, 2018, 08:11:14 pm by Cyberdragon »
*BZZZZZZAAAAAP*
Voltamort strikes again!
Explodingus - someone who frequently causes accidental explosions
 


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