digital electricity

[thefinisher]

Is  digital electricity a thing now ?  I saw this video on a company named  3DFS (https://3dfs.com/)  that  claims they can save you 70%  power on the electric  grid  is this  true. This  product claims to analysis the input power and  in real time clean up all the harmonics and distortions and  create a perfect  sin wave out put.  it seems to me  it  really claiming to be a power factor correction device but  savings look  over blown.  another video

[Ian.M]

You don't even need to watch the video to know that a claim of 70% savings is pure platinum plated bulls--t and any device that claims to provide it is pure snake oil.

Start with the Laws of Thermodynamics which tell you that energy cant be created from nothing, and that all lost energy must eventually end up as waste heat.

Therefore that claimed 70% saving must mean that on average, your electrical appliances have an efficiency below 30%.   However most modern PSUs have efficiency over 80%, and air heating appliances  can have efficiencies up to 100% - as the 'waste' heat is the desired result, so unless you have a house full of valve amps or similar there isn't enough lost energy 'on the table' to get anywhere near a 70% saving. 

Then there's the results of waveform distortion on efficiency.  The most common waveform distortion - 'flat topping' caused by SMPSUs without power factor correction (PFC) drawing all their current at the peaks of the mains waveform actually increases the efficiency of other SMPSUs as it widens the effective peak so decreases I²R losses in the wiring, input filter and bridge rectifier feeding the input side DC bus, and in the PFC circuit if present.  Therefore claims of general efficiency savings by improving power quality have a fishy smell to start with - like last weeks fish guts left out in the sun!

When all's said and done if you could magically clean up the mains waveform without loosing any energy, I'd be *extremely* surprised to see even a 1% improvement in efficiency, and if the device actually does anything, it will be subject to the same constraints on losses as any other electrical or electronic device, so its likely that its losses will be a few percent of the load on it, wiping out any potential saving immediately.

Its true that way back in the day,many industrial and large commercial power users could make large savings by installing power factor correction capacitors, as traditionally commercial and industrial loads were typically largely inductive (think big motors and choke ballasted fluorescent lighting), and the tarrifs they were on often penalised power factors that were too low (excessive VAR) but nowadays there are very few inductive domestic loads that run for longer than a few minutes, and to meet national energy efficiency targets, most inductive loads will already have power factor correction components internally fitted.  Also domestic metering only measures real power, it doesn't measure VAR, so as you aren't on a tarrif + metering that penalises peak VAR the only saving to the user is reduced I²R losses in the wiring between the power factor correction device and the meter.  All I²R losses upstream of the meter come out of the power company's operating overheads so savings in the distribution network wont save the end users a single cent (though they'll probably make shareholders happy).

[niladherbert]

The company is really selling a nice way of cleaning up your power into a perfect sine wave, while claiming all sorts of things about it, but it would give marginal gains in efficiency (like the capacitor in a box teardown). The cub on the video needs an education on AC and DC, P=IV and V=IR. He also needs told that only as much current as the device needs to consume is drawn. He really hasn't done his research on how the grid is controlled though.
Just read that article. Here's a real gold nugget: “Smart meters are a few hundred bucks because they do not have processors inside them". I don't see how they can help on reasonably well built DC power regulation within normal electronics like they're talking about at the end though. And they're 'Not in it for the money as much as the improvements to society'

[JohnnyMalaria]

Look at the size of the two fans on that thing. They'd barely fit in the microwave. Must generate a lot of heat trying to stop your appliances generating heat. 

[JohnnyMalaria]

This device consumes a maximum of 120Watts of power all time. Those fans only turn on when the device must prevent a lightning surge from entering the panel.

Aren't lightning surges very short (<0.5ms)? How can the fans possible come on that fast and do anything to help?

Do you have a full technical specification sheet? Your website is very vague about power draw etc.

[james_s]

 

[StillTrying]

There's plenty of more 'info' out there, if anyone needs a laugh.

www.you  tube.com/watch?v=2m5nJ1gkOHI
www.you  tube.com/watch?v=8x4r8-OoFG4
www.you  tube.com/watch?v=omkc6MkS17U

[Circlotron]

As Clara Clayton said to Doc Emmet Brown, “I’ve heard some whoppers I’m my time...”

[JohnnyMalaria]

So, if I understand it, your device monitors the phase difference between the voltage and the current at any given moment and this can change either due to the grid or an appliance (esp. high power) causing it.

How can your device introduce a phase difference between what's coming in to the panel and what's going to the appliances etc at high load (30A say) with such small wires? Otherwise won't the phase difference in the building simply be the same as what's coming in?

To change the phase requires energy. Using P = VI cos(phase) and let's say the undesirable phase is -10deg then the power will change from VI cos(-10deg) to VI cos(0) which is about VI x 0.02. 30A equates to 115V x 30A = 3.45kW. 0.02 of that is 69W. So, assuming 100% efficiency, somewhere you have to find 69W of energy or dissipate it (can't think that through right now) but you spec says that the idle power consumption is 90W or so and the max is 120W. That's only 30W difference and I'm sure it isn't 100% efficient. So how are you changing the phase?


And a phase shift of 10deg (the range of your device) only creates a loss of 2% power which wouldn't be that significant in a house as far as the bill is concerned. How quickly would someone break even with the cost of the device and the utility bill saving?

I'm missing something.

[StillTrying]

I thought everyone knew that we're all moving over to the new Natively Digital Format square wave electricity now, it's much more convenient, efficient and safer than the now old fashioned analogue sine wave AC.

www.digitizelectric.com/how-it-works
www.voltserver.com

[JohnnyMalaria]

So every device is optimized independently?

[thefinisher]

That what was my thinking that it was doing some form of power fact correction at best but using a form of intelligent microcontroller to regulate and adjust the phase difference between the voltage and the current. I did not think any microcontroller would be fast enough to do this in real time to make this phase changes and harmonic adjustment in real time.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Is this the patent that covers the device?

http://3dfs.tech/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/United-States-Patent_-9178354.pdf

[james_s]

Why would it matter anyway? At least in the US, residential customers are not billed based on power factor, so while a perfect unity power factor is desirable and will result in a very slight reduction in cable losses, it's not something that is going to have a measurable effect on the bill.

[Euler]

I thought everyone knew that we're all moving over to the new Natively Digital Format square wave electricity now, it's much more convenient, efficient and safer than the now old fashioned analogue sine wave AC.

www.digitizelectric.com/how-it-works
www.voltserver.com

Seriously StillTryin, Do really you not know the difference between AC and DC   You clearly have not been burdened by an overabundance of education.

[thefinisher]

I have some  questions about the technology how does it harmonic cause energy lost what is the mathematics behind this

[Euler]

The best way I think of it...  harmonics are generated by ac/dc conversion as you "grab" power from the top and bottom of the sinus, more inverters mo harmonics.... they are bad for many reasons namely creating heat in wires this happens because current moves to the outer radius of a wire in some proportion to the amount and types of harmonic distortion (THD) thus increasing resistance of that wire mo resistance mo heat, for 120 years the status quo is removing heat with filters (ie transformers) that are wound with wire... I guess that seems to be be part of the equation?

[StillTrying]

I'm afraid my  is totally 

[Circlotron]

The result is the power network impedance is always matched to the Real-Time need of the collective power consumption of all the loads.

When the impedance is automatically matched, every load in the panel receives the precise, perfect power that it demands immediately reducing energy consumption and improving the device performance.

If the power network impedance matches the load impedance then these will each dissipate 50% of the total power.  Not a recipe for energy saving. You want the supply impedance to be as low as possible.

[Cyberdragon]

Most machines run on DC internally and self regulate. Noisy power will not cause "poor data transfer between servers" and crap, there's no way good equipment is susceptable to that unless it's like the ghettos of India where it's spaghetti power lines. The only thing it would directly effect maybe is AC motors, but there are VFDs now that eliminate those problems by creating a localized AC source.

Plus, big factories use passive PF correction with coils and condensors/capacitors (some people still call big caps condensors), without the need for some silly little computer that pisses away 120W.

EDIT: Active PF correction is also already a major thing. You've just invented a hilariously snake oily form of automatic PF corrector.

[Brumby]

Seriously?

You walk into a forum frequented by Electrical Engineers and like-minded people with some engineering ideas in the electrical spectrum and don't like the fact that everybody doesn't roll over and tell you how brilliant your ideas are.  Then you accuse us of trolling?

The simple fact of the matter is that what you are promoting has some serious snake oil aspects about it - and we aren't about to let that slide.  Most of us have a much better understanding of the subject than the general public and there are many here who have industry experience that can critically assess your claims - with more than enough expertise to do so.

[Brumby]

If your product is seriously capable of what you are claiming, then harden up, deal with the cynicism and answer your critics.

If you don't, then you are either a wuss and/or a charlatan.

[madires]

Why would it matter anyway? At least in the US, residential customers are not billed based on power factor, so while a perfect unity power factor is desirable and will result in a very slight reduction in cable losses, it's not something that is going to have a measurable effect on the bill.

We also pay just for the effective power, but some industrial customers have to pay for apparent power to motivate them to keep the reactive power low.

In case you haven't noticed, the post starting this thread is the OP's very first post. And just after the first reply there's someone seemingly from 3DFS. What a coincidence!

 

[djacobow]

A friend (a journalist) just sent me the Vox piece to comment on and honestly, I was flabbergasted. How did the Vox folks (who are serious journalists) get so taken in? The piece is practically breathless.

I mean, there might even be something there, but if there is, you definitely cannot figure out what it would be from the description.

I mean, if a data center has a power factor problem, then fine, condensers are your friend, not some box of magic computers. If you have a power quality problem, then, maybe some filter is appropriate. (And I define problem as power quality bad enough to drive reliability problems, not just some noise on the AC). I don't even see how power quality can drive efficiency? Are they talking about losses from current spikes from noise? WTF? Show me some data that implies that can be anything other than de minimis.

So weird.

[transmatrix]

I found this forum via the Vox article (Really wish that Vox had comments...)

I'm an Electrical Engineer in the field of Power Quality. This is just your standard "black box" energy savings device. It's snake oil. Really surprised that Vox got suckered into this one. Hey Vox, if a EE professor hangs up on you, it's because you're insulting his intelligence...

[StillTrying]

A friend (a journalist) just sent me the Vox piece to comment on and honestly, I was flabbergasted.

If you need anymore flabbergasting, have a quick look at any of the YT vids in reply#9.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/digital-electricity/msg1591180/#msg1591180
 

[james_s]

Well as the old saying goes, "people want to believe", and "there's a sucker born every minute."

Products like this get created by two types of people, one type is the investment scammer, who knows their product can't do what is claimed but they will ride the wave for as long as they can. The other is the ignorant person who genuinely believes their device works, usually due to improper measurement techniques like using an averaging DMM to measure something that is not a mains frequency sine wave, or making flawed assumptions.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Can someone with the right expertise take a look at the patent?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9178354B2/en?oq=9%2c178%2c354

Like any patent, it has to teach someone everything necessary to reproduce a functioning device. It is interesting that one of the inventors has others in the electronics field.

[madires]

I mean, if a data center has a power factor problem, then fine, condensers are your friend, not some box of magic computers.

Servers and network elements got active PFC and the only source of reactive power could be the AC. The real problem are factories with tons of large electric motors.

[djacobow]

I mean, if a data center has a power factor problem, then fine, condensers are your friend, not some box of magic computers.

Servers and network elements got active PFC and the only source of reactive power could be the AC. The real problem are factories with tons of large electric motors.

Agreed. But factories that consume lots of VARs are a known thing, and people have been dealing with it for a long time. How old is the synchronous condenser? More modern solutions are STATCOM or SVC. (synchronous VAR compensator)

And, as your say, PSUs in modern servers are quite well behaved regarding power factor. It /might/ be more efficient or cheaper overall to use PSUs without PFC and instead have some kind of site-level PFC, but I don't think I've heard of anyone doing that. Could make sense in very large facilities with all the same custom servers, like a Facebook or Google.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Can someone with the right expertise take a look at the patent?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9178354B2/en?oq=9%2c178%2c354

Like any patent, it has to teach someone everything necessary to reproduce a functioning device. It is interesting that one of the inventors has others in the electronics field.

Yeah, you guys are using one of them right now. 

My suggestion was in your favor. Why the shitty reply? 

[jmelson]

Can someone with the right expertise take a look at the patent?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9178354B2/en?oq=9%2c178%2c354

Like any patent, it has to teach someone everything necessary to reproduce a functioning device. It is interesting that one of the inventors has others in the electronics field.

HAH!  You couldn't build ANYTHING from that patent application.  It was incredibly vague.  Also, the claims, as far as I could see, NEVER mentioned anything about energy saving.  It is a UPS with harmonic filtering/power factor correction.

Jon

[djacobow]

HAH!  You couldn't build ANYTHING from that patent application.  It was incredibly vague.  Also, the claims, as far as I could see, NEVER mentioned anything about energy saving.  It is a UPS with harmonic filtering/power factor correction.

Jon

Agreed. Let's take a few bog-standard pieces of equipment and put them in one box and call it an invention. Not utterly useless, but, please.

[dmills]

I have actually had a few situations where I would have killed for a reasonably compact, efficient box that could inject current to cancel the current harmonics (but it would have to manage to cancel hundreds of A to be useful)....

The classic case being a rig full of old school Martin lighting with the early switching ballasts, 700W (and about 1400VA) each with massive triplen harmonics, nightmare for both overheating neutral bars and cooking delta-star transformer windings. Phase angle dimming can cause much the same issue and you can have the three phase neutral current actually EXCEED the current in any one phase by nearly a factor of two.

Unfortunately this is not that box, and selling to users who don't pay for VAR anyway?

Regards, Dan.

[StillTrying]

I suspect this forum will not age well. 

It's the strangest elinkedin I've ever see anyone write.

[StillTrying]

As we can see, these things do absolutely nothing to the supply, just waste 100W.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I suspect this forum will not age well. 

So, I'm on the fence on this and I'm trying to figure this out.

Some people are dismissing your device outright as snake oil.
Some are saying, "yeah, nothing new here."
Some are saying, "yeah, anyone could throw these components together and do this."

But...since it is patented...what exactly is the inventive, non-obvious aspect of it? There must be at least one and maybe that's what isn't clear to others about your device. I know how much it costs to file a patent via the PCT process and to maintain it so it isn't something you do lightly. Your priority date is 2011 so I know you must have paid the maintenance fees or let the patent expire. Did your application get granted in non-US terrorities?

You have entered a lions' den seemingly to initially promote and now defend your product. The onus really is on you to explain the novelty of your invention and demonstrate that it is being used successfully in the real world, e.g, by testimonials.

I think this forum will age very well together with the very poor impression your product has because you haven't offered convincing information. Anyone curious about your product would almost certainly do a Google search and this thread will definitely come up near the top of the list of hits.

[ArthurDent]

One thing mentioned at minute 6:08 in the first video that touted how great the invention was is that you will no longer need that external power supply for your laptop or other devices. When the company founder plugs his laptop directly into the line I might take notice.

I also need to know how one of these great inventions at the breaker box can optimize the power to many differing reactive loads that are connected to all the branch circuits in a house. Maybe they should make mini versions of the invention to be used at each outlet. Oh wait, the reason I have so many different supplies/chargers is that every device I own has a different voltage/power requirement.
 
A final thing: if the device saves so much energy and makes everything run so efficiently, why the two fans? Maybe they need to put another of these inventions before the first invention to increase its efficiency. Just a thought.

I believe this is a video describing their first model. 

 

[JohnnyMalaria]

Oh, that's FUNNY.

I love how it gets more and more ridiculous as it progresses. And serious props to the presenter - he certainly had a mouthful of gibberish to deliver and, boy, did he.

[extralifedisco]

Fascinated by this company and their weird PR approach. In principle, this is probably something that would benefit certain industrial applications like datacenters. If you have a bunch of rack servers on the same circuit as noisy AC loads like air conditioners, you'll have a bunch of line noise and phase issues that have to get dealt with somewhere, and the PC power supplies are dealing with most of it. I don't know all that much about server power supply design but presumably that filtering results in a heat loss in some switchmode supply somewhere, and shortens component lives, etc.

What the company is claiming is threefold:
 - one, that those losses can be recognized/analyzed in real-time via the supply side of power line
 - two, that they can compensate for them in-real time with their device's inductive loading
 - three, those savings are significant enough to warrant a $700,000 installation

Those first two claims are impressive, but I guess they're plausible. Everyone knows power noise is a thing, but the company is claiming their fancy measurements reveal it's more of a problem than previously known. Maybe they're right! But if it can optimize a wall of servers to the tune of 120W savings to justify their always-on supercomputer and it's hefty price tag, I'd be, uh, very surprised.

Then there's the stuff in their videos and marketing wank. "Server temperature dropped by twenty degrees" (fahrenheit?) "Double the lifespan of your laptop battery." "100% accurate prediction of component failure." Come on.

The charitable assumption is that some excitable marketing people and their media friends have gotten their hands on this interesting niche industrial project and are attempting to raise funding by spinning it out to ridiculous extremes "'The use cases are endless,' Heuberger marveled to me. 'They’re freaking endless. It’s amazing.'" I'm sure we've all worked somewhere where it felt like marketing was actively working against engineering, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I'm sure it does something, but if it really works as well as is claimed, why all the snake oil claims? You don't need to market this to individual consumers, you need to sell it to datacenter engineers!

[james_s]

I want to see measured results under controlled conditions. Right now I fail to see the advantage over existing systems that have active PFC incorporated into the power supplies. Large industrial customers with motors are easily remedied through the use of passive PFC capacitors and even that is less of an issue these days with VFDs becoming common. There is simply not much waste to reduce, it's not as if the wiring in buildings gets particularly warm, and if the waste is not dissipated in the wires then where is it going? For this device to result in any savings, it has to result in less total heat released inside the structure. Power consumption and heat are both things that are easily measured, we can easily account for essentially all of the energy that goes into a building.

[madires]

If you search for "reactive power compensation" you'll find interesting stuff like:
- https://www.fingrid.fi/globalassets/dokumentit/en/customers/grid-connection/supply-of-reactive-power-and-maintenance-of-reactive-power-reserves_2017.pdf
- https://new.abb.com/docs/librariesprovider78/chile-documentos/jornadas-tecnicas-2013---presentaciones/4-jos%C3%A9-matias---reactive-power-compensation.pdf?sfvrsn=2
- http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.193.6385&rep=rep1&type=pdf

How would a 3DFS product save money when the substations already use shunt capacitors to compensate reactive power?

[madires]

Doesn't the charging/discharging of the inductive or capacitive system at the microsecond level cause losses (in form of heat) too? The typical residential building connection over here is 3-phase 35 or 63A.

[Circlotron]

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that this device doesn't work, producing cleaner AC power. What is not so believable is claims that somewhat cleaner power makes electrical devices fed by this cleaner power amazingly more efficient.

[Ian.M]

 I suspect that 3DFS have designed themselves into a dying niche market.  As national and regional energy efficiency standards become more and more stringent, the cost to build in high efficiency PFC in a PSU is falling in relative terms due to the increased market for it.

They now need to re-target their product to attempt to get a return on the investment so-far.   IMHO their best option would be to ditch the bulls--t efficiency claims and market it with a significant markup to audiophools who will pay through the nose for cleaner power even if it doesn't make a perceptible difference. 

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Digital electricity is a flow of ones and zeroes instead of electrons?

[djacobow]

Digital electricity is a flow of ones and zeroes instead of electrons?

It's electricity with fingers.

[nmart]

Chris D., sounds like you've built an active harmonics filter. The tech sounds decent for power quality but too many people confuse this product with power factor correction to understand how well this may work for its intended purpose. I'm not in marketing (I'm an EE at an electrical utility) but from reading the Vox article I'm guessing it's difficult to target non-technical people and still maintain scientific accuracy.

Here's a marketing strategy that would help me and might appeal to other audiences. The start of your sales pitch could define the current state of harmonic filtering devices. Then display some charts (ideally produced by an independent lab) with the reduction in harmonic distortion performed by your device compared to competitors' harmonic filtering devices (or the absence of them) that include heat comparisons (a direct relation to efficiency that most people can understand). When I'm looking to buy a truck I want to see the horsepower/torque curves. If the device does help with power factor or phase balancing, be clear about how those additional benefits are different than power quality (more explaining that science and current technology is required) and how well they perform compared to existing devices. And just try and delete the Vox article if possible.

[StillTrying]

 

[james_s]

How many people care about harmonics? If there was a significant amount of power wasted then wires and equipment would be running hot. While I try to maintain a power factor reasonably close to unity to avoid wasting circuit capacity, I don't really care about harmonics. Neither the power factor nor the harmonics affect my utility bill in any measurable way.

[JohnnyMalaria]

This is the competitive product for harmonics, double them if you want power factor too. 

Its not even close. No products today use Real-Time computing, it is all guesses. Do you see the difference? Understand yet?

The way you disrupt this industry is the way we are doing it. If it is uncomfortable, it is because you are standing on the wrong side of a landslide fault.

The future of electricity goes through this technology. 

The comparison in your graphic isn't a fair one. The Accusine PFV+ 60A is for 380-480V.  You are comparing it to your VectorQ2 which is not. How about comparing dimensions with your VectorQ5? What would the installation time for that be on a 380-480V system? A bit more than 20 minutes, I'm sure.

[madires]

The technical specification for the VectorQ series states "Full +/- 90 deg of phase angle correction" and "Unlimited power rating in all phases". I think the unlimited power rating needs some explanation, because no VectorQ model is able to handle an unlimited VAR.

[madires]

I see, but I'd recommend to specify the maximum VAR rating for each model since an "unlimited power rating" is quite misleading.

[StillTrying]

It's all going well, although I won't be getting one.

[dmills]

Cut the strident hype marketing, publish a proper spec sheet (How much current can the thing inject or absorb to control PF and harmonics and what are the losses) and you might actually have a product that is useful in some applications, but no engineer is going to wade thru the bullshit videos and puff pieces to decide if the actual underlying box does what they need.

As I say, a box that can kill the triplen on a 400V three phase supply to reduce the pile up in the neural by 300A or so that was cheaper, lighter and easier to move then a 300kVA K rated delta-star transformer, yea, I could maybe see a use for that, but I need numbers dammit, and I need to know where the warts are.

Stuff written by the marketing/investor relations fluffer is an active turn off when there are other players with similar kit doing similar things who don't feel the need for the services of a fluffer to make their kit look impressive.

73 Dan.

[chris_leyson]

no engineer is going to wade thru the bullshit videos and puff pieces to decide if the actual underlying box does what they need.

I read the bullshit patent with all the prior art smokescreen fluff that doesn't say anything. So what's the deal, apply power factor correction at harmonics as well as the fundamental ? Fare enough that's not a trivial task but well done anyway. I didn't see any mention of providing a broadband conjugate match to the load however, harmonics included. So nothing new here really.

[chris_leyson]

It is like a load. It is a dipole in Kirchoff's Law if you are familiar.

No effort made whatsoever to explain the engineering principles behind the idea just snakeoil marketing. No peer reviewed papers published, it's just a croc of shit.

[StillTrying]

You needn't know that anymore. The amount of current injected or extracted is only microamps at any given microsecond,

That's it for me! [Redacted]

[JohnnyMalaria]

 

Still waiting...what's the non-obvious, inventive step?

 

[JohnnyMalaria]

Why are you asking me?

The non-obvious part should be in your patent, right? So, why won't you give a simple explanation of what exactly that is - it's not as if it is proprietary information. Patents are notoriously hard to read if you aren't used to them. I am but I'm not familiar with the art. I'd like to know what is novel and patentable about your technology.

Simple, to-the-point answers to the questions raised would be helpful.

[chris_leyson]

Talking of "microamps in microseconds" bullshit and getting back to real world engineering, the so called One-Watt Initiative is going to change from 500mW(2013) to 300mW standby power in 2020. I can't remember off hand which household appliances are being targeted but probably not 40" TVs, well not yet anyway. 300mW in standby, sounds easy but try doing that in practice.

[Circlotron]

The amount of current injected or extracted is only microamps at any given microsecond,

And just how is “only microamps” expected to correct a line carrying several tens of amps?
What’s more, if you are injecting or extracting “ only microamps” at any given moment, why does the box need fan cooling?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Well, one uA per uS is one A/s which means 10s for 10A. Not exactly fast...

[Brumby]

Cut the strident hype marketing, publish a proper spec sheet (How much current can the thing inject or absorb to control PF and harmonics and what are the losses) and you might actually have a product that is useful in some applications, but no engineer is going to wade thru the bullshit videos and puff pieces to decide if the actual underlying box does what they need.

As I say, a box that can kill the triplen on a 400V three phase supply to reduce the pile up in the neural by 300A or so that was cheaper, lighter and easier to move then a 300kVA K rated delta-star transformer, yea, I could maybe see a use for that, but I need numbers dammit, and I need to know where the warts are.

Stuff written by the marketing/investor relations fluffer is an active turn off when there are other players with similar kit doing similar things who don't feel the need for the services of a fluffer to make their kit look impressive.

73 Dan.

You needn't know that anymore.

So - you aren't going to provide engineering detail which will demonstrate why engineers "needn't know that anymore".  You just say (in effect): Here it is, it works.  Trust me.  Sounds like a used car salesman.

If you think such details are beyond the capabilities of some of the membership here to comprehend, then you are so far up yourselves it is not funny.  Then again, maybe you do expect some members to be all over it and that's why you won't.

If you can't put your marketing hat to one side and start putting out some solid engineering specifications, then there can be little doubt in my mind this product doesn't have the performance to match up with the hype being touted.  You can call me names about that - but that won't change the fact that you aren't prepared to answer with hard data.

Personally, I'm prepared to consider the possibility that this invention does a job - but I'm a long way away from believing it's a job worth doing.

[StillTrying]

I far as I'm concerned it's a $100,000 blue box that doesn't actually do anything useful, I'd be surprised it it even conditions its own supply.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Still waiting...what's the non-obvious, inventive step?

 

Execution? Computing? Efficiency?

"Efficiency" is non-obvious and inventive??


No, efficiency is something that your invention has to demonstrably improve (unmet industrial need).

HOW does your invention improve efficiency?

WHAT is the non-obvious feature of your "computing"?

[SeanB]

Looking at the provided installed unit, I see it being connected via some small cables to the distribution unit. As the incoming feeders are 10mm at least, so rated for 100A or so, and the blue box is only connected by what looks like 2.5mm cables at best, i would hazard to say it can only correct for a current of around 20A at most, otherwise the wires would burn out pretty fast.

Hard things needed are maximum harmonic current ( can be true RMS or even just equivalent current, does not matter so long as the measurement method is given, you can work the maths to get a better idea given the details, but a Fourier transform would be a lot better as well) the unit can inject or remove per cycle, and the maximum instantaneous ( either over a single mains cycle or even per sampling period if period is defined) current it can handle.

Now, as to overvoltage spec, the typical lightning pulse is given an IEC spec, which is where you see that 8uS pulse rise time on EMC testing, given that lightning typically hits high voltage ( 132kV or higher) power lines, and is attenuated by both line impedance and by a lot of lightning arrestors. Those are arc gaps on each HV pylon ( those little horns across each insulator  hanging the line), the massive VDR stacks at each distribution point ( looks like a very fat insulator and contains thousands of varistor capsules stacked on each other), the distribution transformers themselves ( makes a low pass filter to broaden the leading edge and attenuate the pulse and spread the energy in time for the VDR stacks to react), and then further arc gaps ( smaller gap so lower breakdown voltage), more VDR stacks ( also smaller, as they only have to withstand 66kV, 33kV or 11kV operating voltage) and also line reactors to filter harmonics and of course the smaller transformers at point of use points. Still, with all that, you will get kV pulses on your incoming mains, and just how high a voltage can this clamp, given that high voltage power devices trade off power handling for speed, reliability and rate of rise, and miller capacitance is going to give you a bad day every time you exceed bonding wire limitations.

Now, if you can give a box that handles 100A, even single phase, can handle harmonic currents up to 10kHz, and can be connected via a 100A breaker and not fail when you put on a 50A vibratory feeder ( the thing most hated for power factor correction, as it uses a half wave power SCR to drive a massive electromagnet, giving you every harmonic but the fundamental mains frequency and spikes as well with the phase angle control deciding where on each pulse to turn on said hockey puck SCR with 20A of gate current to turn it on hard and fast) on the power line, along with handling the power factor correction for the 22kW motors driving the conveyors on the line, and you will sell these like hot cakes.

[madires]

Sorry, but we're engineers who love numbers, facts, proper datasheets and lot's of wonderful math. We don't buy anything "magic".

[BravoV]

How do we do what we do. Lots of fucking math. What else do you want? I have told you what the FESS does, explained Real-Time Computing...  That is it.

I get that nobody is familiar with this and my engineering language is mediocre, but that does not change what the technology does.

You all should focus more on the results. That is the transformative part. That is the part that is going to affect you all.

Are you saying you are just the marketing dude ?

Get the real company's engineer to speak here, cause all you did is just ruining your company.

[BravoV]

How do we do what we do. Lots of fucking math. What else do you want? I have told you what the FESS does, explained Real-Time Computing...  That is it.

I get that nobody is familiar with this and my engineering language is mediocre, but that does not change what the technology does.

You all should focus more on the results. That is the transformative part. That is the part that is going to affect you all.

Are you saying you are just the marketing dude ?

Get the real company's engineer to speak here, cause all you did is just ruining your company.

No, I am saying that this is too advanced for everybody here, otherwise they would have invented it.

I am introducing you all to the concept and have no problem entertaining serious questions, so ask some.

Gotcha, bait works nicely. 

Guys, its clear now, its a scam.

[madires]

Sorry, but we're engineers who love numbers, facts, proper datasheets and lot's of wonderful math. We don't buy anything "magic".

Right, so what is the math behind all the losses that you experience in power networks? Can you explain that?

Remember the links I've posted a few pages ago? How can I take 3DFS seriously when even very basic specs like the maximum VAR are missing? This is like I would build a very simple PSU with a transformer, a bridge rectifier and a filter cap, and you would try to sell me a filter cap with a voltage rating and an "unlimited power rating". When asking about that unlimited power rating you tell me that this is technically correct because the cap is in parallel. Still I don't know the capacitance and can't determine if the cap is suitable as a filter cap for an 1A PSU.

[dmills]

This is a snip of a datasheet for a real active harmonic cancellation and power factor box that I can buy today. There are many such in the market from a wide range of vendors, but they are mostly more or less similar and are technology which is well established and well understood by everyone who needs it.



See real data, and this is just from their 4 colour glossy that has marketing drool all over it, if I was actively shopping any of those guys would hook me up with a staff engineer who I can assure you would not be telling me that I am too stupid to understand how it works, and most assuredly would not be talking about us and uA when I got 300A of triplen to fix (Because doing either one will not get you a sale). 

Sorry, guys. You are about 20 years too late with the idea, which is not to say that grabbing a load of cash from investors who did not do due diligence is not going to work of course.

Regards, Dan.

[BravoV]

Just stop asking or questioning, he already clearly mentioned that no one will ever understand it.

Just put your faith on it , oh ... dont forget to buy , pay or invest ...that its all about. 

[dmills]

Ok, so down to cases, I have three phase synced 500kVA alternators powering ~1MVA of kit in a field somewhere (Actually sometimes I really do).

Measured at the busbar cabinet I have a displacement power factor of 0.8 but say 30% THDi (Most of it third, fifth and ninth harmonic, this is not doing my neutral any favours, and is also causing a lot of heating in the machines stators and the load is unbalanced so I am also getting significant negative phase sequence currents producing nasty heating in the rotors), given I have hundreds of amps in play, what exactly does that little blue box do for me?

What it cannot be doing is cancelling the harmonics or balancing the per phase loads, current into and out of a node sums to zero, it is kind of the rules, so to cancel a meaningful amount of the harmonic distortion you need to inject a current waveform related to the harmonic current but in antiphase, this means that with a few hundred amps of harmonic currents in play you need wiring between the harmonic reduction box and the bus sized to deal with at least a sizeable proportion of the harmonic current.

Bugger the concept, what does that box do for me? The Power Electronics kit tells me exactly what I can expect, as does the simple, dumb, reliable, but fucking heavy K rated delta-star transformer, you don't say beyond "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain", and engineers do not like magic, we expect to be able to quantify what something does.

All the AHC kit on the market is a computing system, while there is no reason you could not do it with analogue computers, nobody does these days, they all have a little DSP board in there controlling the switching.

Sorry, not sold.

Regards, Dan (Trolling marketing types from startups is fun).

[BravoV]

Just stop asking or questioning, he already clearly mentioned that no one will ever understand it.

Just put your faith on it , oh ... dont forget to buy , pay or invest ...that its all about. 

This is my favorite type troll comment. That we are somehow duping investors. Except, as highlighted in the Vox article, we are not accepting any investment. This is self financed for 8 years now because we know what we have.

Every single one of you would do the same if you had the knowledge and balls to do so.   

LOL .. 2nd bait taken, again. 

Look, you're the one who keep emphasizing that no mortal souls will understand it, yet you keep challenging people to ask, how come ? Isn't that a real troll work ? 

Anyway, good luck to your quest there, I will just leave few tags below for Google's crawler, hopefully will save some potential victims buyers in the future who probably will fire Google 1st before commiting.

"Is 3DFS scam ?"
"Discussion on fishy 3DFS offering"

Guess thats enough. 

[JohnnyMalaria]

No, I am saying that this is too advanced for everybody here, otherwise they would have invented it.

I am introducing you all to the concept and have no problem entertaining serious questions, so ask some.

You've got a patent for this. Do you understand the purpose of a patent? Evidently not. I have asked multiple times for you to explain the novel aspect of your invention since it is hard to deduce from the patent. You seem to have a problem entertaining them.


Your patent is required by federal law to describe the best way you conceive of reducing to practise your invention. You can't put in half-baked versions with key information missing and then claim people are too thick to figure it out.

The more you go on replying with your stick-up-your-ass bollocks, the less credibility you have. If this is part of some weird viral marketing effort, I'd fetch a doctor.

The troll doth protest too much, methinks.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I see 3DFS has a FB page and a 5 star review - by the man himself.

"Guests are treated to a vision of our energy future while served bottled water both chilled and room temperature. Overall, this is an excellent place to bring your entrepreneur investor friends."

[dmills]

Well this has reminded me that I need to have another look at AHC kit, but I know one manufacturer I will not be asking to quote.

Regards, Dan.

[JohnnyMalaria]

You've described the method, not the apparatus. How do you actually do it? How do you do all this on the microsecond/microamp scale in a way no one else has ever thought of? Which claim in the patent is it?

[JohnnyMalaria]

I see 3DFS has a FB page and a 5 star review - by the man himself.

"Guests are treated to a vision of our energy future while served bottled water both chilled and room temperature. Overall, this is an excellent place to bring your entrepreneur investor friends."

This is true. We offer bottled water and demonstrate our technology.

Seriously though, this is a fucking facebook review for an R&D cum startup. I made this reference in jest that we would have reviews, but thank you for taking it seriously. 

And it's worked out for you how?

[madires]

I see 3DFS has a FB page and a 5 star review - by the man himself.

"Guests are treated to a vision of our energy future while served bottled water both chilled and room temperature. Overall, this is an excellent place to bring your entrepreneur investor friends."

A few posts ago he has claimed that 3DFS doesn't accept investments.

[BravoV]

I see 3DFS has a FB page and a 5 star review - by the man himself.

"Guests are treated to a vision of our energy future while served bottled water both chilled and room temperature. Overall, this is an excellent place to bring your entrepreneur investor friends."

A few posts ago he has claimed that 3DFS doesn't accept investments.

He took and swallowed my baits completely without 2nd thought, probably a panicking early investor that seeing his money flushed into the drain, hence the desperate moves here, all posts made basically have nothing essential in it.

Nothing to see here, move along.

[madires]

A few posts ago he has claimed that 3DFS doesn't accept investments.

If you are an entrepreneur or an investor in energy tech, you want to know what we are doing. It will shape your present investment strategy.

Why would 3DFS advise entrepreneurs/investors about their technology if they don't benefit in a some way? Cui bono?

[JohnnyMalaria]

If you are an entrepreneur or an investor in energy tech, you want to know what we are doing. It will shape your present investment strategy.

If you are a potential customer you also want to know what you are doing but your replies show you don't want to share that information.


I notice that one of the inventors - Vladislav Oleynik - is the registered agent and a manager for 3DFS LLC. I see he is also the CEO of Umbrella Technologies Inc that operates out of the same facility. Furthermore, the state of North Carolina suspended and then dissolved UTI for not filing annual reports for 2011/12/13/14. Interestingly, 3DFS was incorporated in 2011.


This alone would be a huge red flag if I wanted to invest in 3DFS or purchase products.

[JohnnyMalaria]

probably a panicking early investor that seeing his money flushed into the drain, hence the desperate moves here, all posts made basically have nothing essential in it.

He's a co-founder (or the founder, take your pick).

And for someone whose formal education is a bachelor's degree in psychology, he sure as hell isn't applying it very well here.

[BravoV]

probably a panicking early investor that seeing his money flushed into the drain, hence the desperate moves here, all posts made basically have nothing essential in it.

He's a co-founder (or the founder, take your pick).

And for someone whose formal education is a bachelor's degree in psychology, he sure as hell isn't applying it very well here.

Prolly not the brightest cookie ...

[madires]

We are not accepting investors, we are developing technology and selling it.

Are you talking about IP or boxes?

[JohnnyMalaria]

and we can start talking about how Real-Time Computing transforms air compressors and water pumps.

How about talking about the technical things you've been asked multiple times but haven't responded to? I don't think your claim at being an EE holds up.

After 123 posts, do you think you have any credibility? Every evasive and "witty" post just causes it to go down.

[madires]

Are you talking about IP or boxes?

Products, NOT IP.

Just like in SAM Controllers, we embed this capability into products. It is very valuable to have this computing power. People pay us to do this, which is why we do not need investors.

Then I don't understand why 3DFS don't provide proper datasheets.

[BravoV]

and we can start talking about how Real-Time Computing transforms air compressors and water pumps.

How about talking about the technical things you've been asked multiple times but haven't responded to? I don't think your claim at being an EE holds up.

After 123 posts, do you think you have any credibility? Every evasive and "witty" post just causes it to go down.

I never claimed to be an EE.

What I see here is a lack of understanding of why clean power is better than unclean power. If you guys do not understand that, I am not the guy to explain it.

If you understand that, then I have the technology that does it.

Technical details have been CLEARLY explained. Computing, Flash Energy Storage, Synchronization.

LOL .. this thread is becoming entertaining rather than tech discussion. 

Not an EE but insults the EE crowds here that they're not smart enough to understand it.

This clearly a SCAM ...

Its like selling a battery, claimed that its clean energy, using clean chemical that wont leak or contaminate the earth, ok, thats fine.

But when few EEs starting to ask innocently like what voltage the battery produces ? Watt hour ? Discharge current capability ? Charge speed ? etc ... then again, he insults all of us that are stupid not to understand the jargon words "clean" - "no leak" ... etc. While keep pretending never read those "again" innocent & sincere questions about the technical aspects that MUST be answered by numbers like volt, watt hour and etc.

Unbelievable. 

Are you have any relative with Andrea Rossi ? The one who invented the e-cat thingie ? 

[madires]

What I see here is a lack of understanding of why clean power is better than unclean power. If you guys do not understand that, I am not the guy to explain it.

If you understand that, then I have the technology that does it.

Technical details have been CLEARLY explained. Computing, Flash Energy Storage, Synchronization.

What we like to know is how 3DFS's technology is cleaning up power. The few superficial terms we've heard aren't very helpful. It's like the sales assistant of a car dealership telling us that the car has a steering wheel, four wheels and a motor. Engineers apply technology to solve problems. One has to understand a technology to do this properly.

[djacobow]

What I see here is a lack of understanding of why clean power is better than unclean power. If you guys do not understand that, I am not the guy to explain it.

Here you are saying a true thing. The thing to understand is that you are talking to a roomful of skeptical EEs (note: there is no other kind), some of whom have spent their careers in power and power conversion. If you cannot explain it in terms they understand, then you need to find someone in your organization who can.

You seem to be working under the assumption that the people questioning you here must not be very bright, or do not understand electricity, and I can assure you, that is very, very wrong. This is not a forum of journalists or CEOs. These are engineers.

Technical details have been CLEARLY explained. Computing, Flash Energy Storage, Synchronization.

No, they have been FUZZILY explained, not using normal terms of art, not providing data, graphs, measurements, block diagram, examples. Imagine you are teaching a class on your power optimization to a roomful of undergraduate engineering students. You have 90 minutes. What is in your slide deck?

[Brumby]

What I see here is a lack of understanding of why clean power is better than unclean power. If you guys do not understand that, I am not the guy to explain it.

Now THAT is the accusation of a desperate marketing spin doctor!

NOBODY here will dispute the preference for "clean power" over "unclean power" and for you to throw THIS straw man into the discussion really, REALLY, REALLY stinks to high heaven.

If you understand that, then I have the technology that does it.

So you say.

Technical details have been CLEARLY explained. Computing, Flash Energy Storage, Synchronization.

You've used words.  They are not clear.  They are not precise.  They are furry and fuzzy.  We want numbers.

We would like you to start out by QUANTIFYING the problem.  Numbers please!  Graphics!  There is nothing new under the sun here.  People working in the power industry today, 10 years ago, 25 years ago or more will understand these numbers - and so will half of the general membership.  You don't need to get all technical about computer correction algorithms - just spell it out.

The show us some numbers and graphics demonstrating what your product does.


If you can't do that, then you're the wrong person to be championing this system on the EEVblog.

[JohnnyMalaria]

What I see here is a lack of understanding of why clean power is better than unclean power. If you guys do not understand that, I am not the guy to explain it.

What a ridiculous statement. Obviously people understand why clean power is better than unclean power.

If you understand that, then I have the technology that does it.

Some people seem to agree.

Technical details have been CLEARLY explained. Computing, Flash Energy Storage, Synchronization.

Three concepts does not equal technical detail.

Explain why someone should buy your product over a competitor's. What EXACTLY is your patented invention, not the product that uses it? Do you understand the difference? I'm becoming more convinced your have no idea what your company's patent says nor what a patent is.

[JohnnyMalaria]

We are cleaning up the power at the panel level which distributes perfect power to all the loads. This is done through the Flash Energy Storage System. 

Wow. You may understand the purpose but you sure as hell have absolutely no idea at all how your product works and what is so novel that it merits patent protection.

[Brumby]

Is it that you guys do not understand the benefit of AC electricity synchronization?

Do you even know what that term means?

[Brumby]

Is it that you guys do not understand the benefit of AC electricity synchronization?

Do you even know what that term means?

This is precisely what I am asking you

You avoided my question: Do you even know what that term means?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Here are some videos...

"Sorry. This video does not exist."

Love it! 

Says it all.

[Brumby]

... but I found this absolutely priceless....

[Brumby]

Awww.... Snap.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Thanks for posting a screenshot. Why on earth would you do that? Nudge, nudge.

[Brumby]

Thanks for posting a screenshot. Why on earth would you do that? Nudge, nudge.

A picture is worth a thousand words.   



Time for me to call it a night ... but I have been entertained.

[madires]

With Real-Time computing, we perform Real-Time chemistry modeling so that we can manage batteries knowing their TRUE capacity.

Nice red herring, but chemistry modeling isn't any different from measuring several values and concluding the battery status based on them (it's just another model).

[jonovid]

I am not a fun of digital AC means electricity.  like having Enron Corporation in your AC means .     electricity costs set by stock prices

[madires]

We are cleaning up the power at the panel level which distributes perfect power to all the loads. This is done through the Flash Energy Storage System. 

You said that 3DFS are selling technology. All I see are buzz words and a very low S/N.

[madires]

We can see that a dendrite is starting to grow and stop the charging a microsecond later.

In case you have not figured this out Real-Time is critical whenever sensors are involved. Otherwise you are just guessing.

But you're still measuring several values to feed the chemistry model, aren't you?

[StillTrying]

Going is average on tw.

[JohnnyMalaria]

We can see that a dendrite is starting to grow and stop the charging a microsecond later.

In case you have not figured this out Real-Time is critical whenever sensors are involved. Otherwise you are just guessing.

But you're still measuring several values to feed the chemistry model, aren't you?

How is this marvel of analytical electrochemistry accomplished exactly? I think you could revolutionize the entire discipline if you can do this on a single sub-microsecond sample.

Yes several values of course? Not sure the question.

[djacobow]

This is an interesting thread. I see several things going on here:

1. A lot of skepticism

2. A bunch of people who want to give Chris Doerfler the benefit of the doubt, and have proposed various things the device could do that are useful (power quality improvement, PFC) but none that quite measure up to the story that Chris is making (about the large losses from microsecond-level pulses)

3. A founder of 3DFS (Chris Doerfler) who is actively participating in a thread on the EEVblog, but is unwilling or unable to describe his product in terms meaningful to electrical engineers.

#3 is interesting by itself, because I suspect Doerfler believes that this forum is important. Why else would he waste his time? It's also interesting, because he has not dispatched someone skilled in the art of engineering or in the art of marketing wankery to deal with us.

Personally, I have more than enough information at this point to call this a scam, or at the very best, a product that does some useful things, but nothing nearly as exceptional as implied by the hype. I don't know much about David Roberts (@drvox), but I think he will soon realize that his breathless article was one of the bigger missteps of his journalism career -- if he has not already.

For those not in LinkedIn, here is some info on Doerfler that might provide context. I'm not suggesting that a lack of background in EE is necessarily disqualifying for inventing a new technology that will change power transmission forever, but it might justify an eyebrow raise.

[djacobow]

You are still missing the point of what our technology does. When I say that it corrects power factor, harmonics, etc. at the panel for all loads with and injection or extraction of current at the microsecond level, that is a fact. It is how our technology accomplishes everything that I am telling you.

Yes, you keep saying that and you have shown absolutely nothing. Do you understand the difference?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Utter bollocks.

You haven't answered a single 'How?'

You sure as hell haven't answer my repeated question: what is the patentable invention behind your product? How does the invention work? It must say in the patent description but is suitably obfuscated. What is the patented apparatus and what is the patented method? Don't say your product. Your product isn't the patented article. How, in technical detail - not fluffy words that describe what it enables - does the damn thing do what your competitor products cannot? Jeez - it's a simple bloody question.


"How does this car work?" "It uses fuel and moves." "Oh, that's genius. Have a patent."

[JohnnyMalaria]

You just don't get it, do you?

HOW?

[djacobow]

The power network needs some inductance, it supplies it, capacitance, it supplies it.

Ok, this is progress!

The thing is, capacitors and inductors also provide capacitance and inductance -- and cheaply!

But they are fixed. So, if the load is changing, there is some advantage to being able to change the inductance and capacitance of some parallel circuit.

Believe it or not, people here get that.

What we (or I) am discounting is the benefit of microseconds response. Imagine for a moment different inductor/capacitor networks I could update once a year, once a week, once a day, once an hour, once a minute, once a second, once a cycle, 100x/ cycle.

With each successively more adaptable system you can arguably pick up more efficiency. Now, how MUCH additional residual efficiency does each step of flexibility pick up?

You are suggesting that subcycle adaptability is Very Important, and I and others are saying: bullshit, show us.

And you have shown NOTHING.

[djacobow]

The power network needs some inductance, it supplies it, capacitance, it supplies it.

Ok, this is progress!

The thing is, capacitors and inductors also provide capacitance and inductance -- and cheaply!

But they are fixed. So, if the load is changing, there is some advantage to being able to change the inductance and capacitance of some parallel circuit.

Believe it or not, people here get that.

What we (or I) am discounting is the benefit of microseconds response. Imagine for a moment different inductor/capacitor networks I could update once a year, once a week, once a day, once an hour, once a minute, once a second, once a cycle, 100x/ cycle.

With each successively more adaptable system you can arguably pick up more efficiency. Now, how MUCH additional residual efficiency does each step of flexibility pick up?

You are suggesting that subcycle adaptability is Very Important, and I and others are saying: bullshit, show us.

And you have shown NOTHING.

Okay, outside of the dynamic mitigation of harmonics for an entire power network, microsecond maintenance of unity power factor for an entire power network, and automatic phase balancing for an entire power network all simultaneously in an easy to read engineering user interface showing the momentary alterations and the historical tracked power quality over 600 seconds compiled into a half dozen videos on vimeo, one that even walks you through the whole thing in a painfully monotonous tone, I sincerely do not know what else I could show you.

You could show, quantitatively, what this buys you. Your could show, quantitatively, how much energy is lost in some example scenarios without your equipment, and then how much is gained back with a "dumb" network, or a pfc network that adjusts slowly, and then how much more is gained back by your system. It would also be interesting to show where in the system those losses occur and how much they are mitigated by your equipment.

I'd also like to see some data about available losses in common scenarios. Everyone here gets that a building with a 0.5pf aggregate load is a problem. But what are typical aggregate load power factors in homes, offices, data centers, etc?

[JohnnyMalaria]

You just don't get it, do you?

HOW?

  Injecting and extracting microamps every microsecond. 

The power network needs some inductance, it supplies it, capacitance, it supplies it.

That, in itself, is not patentable, is it? Isn't it obvious to do that?

If so, it seems like your patent claim is around the timescale that you do it. That, in itself, is not patentable. There must be a specific electronic means by which you do it? How?

Could someone build a similar device that operates at tens of uA/us or hundreds or mA/ms etc and not infringe your patent?

Is it the specific electronics that is the invention and it enables fast operation? i.e., fast operation isn't the invention. If it is the electronics then what is the non-obvious aspect?

A patent would typically say something like (don't take this as technically accurate):

Prior power supply conditioning devices uses a combination of capacitance and inductance to change the current. Such devices change the current on a timescale of seconds. This is results in inefficient whatever. There is an unmet industrial need to increase the efficiency of the power supply conditioning process. This invention allows the current to be changed on a timescale of microseconds. One advantage is that the amount of current required to be injected is much lower than for prior devices. The invention consists of a novel whatever circuit that performs some novel thing.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I modified my comment.

[djacobow]

Forget it, Jake. It's Scammertown.

[Circlotron]

The few superficial terms we've heard aren't very helpful. It's like the sales assistant of a car dealership telling us that the car has a steering wheel, four wheels and a motor.

More like “feel how soft the seats are”
And “just think how your friends will envy you!”

[Circlotron]

From the Popular Mechanics article:

This required 3DFS to invent software that can sample 295 million data points per second—50,000 times faster than any measuring technology currently used.

So... nobody else measures stuff sampled faster than 5900 samples per second? Let’s not mention CD a/d conversion at 44100 way back in 1980.

Right.

Edit -> sorry, that’s numbers and measurements. Doesn’t have a place in this discussion. 

[Brumby]

I notice the post of which I took this partial screenshot has been removed.  No apology; no explanation.

... but I found this absolutely priceless....

Curious how I was inspired to do that (as was another member).  My inspiration came from experience.  All too often we have people who get embarrassed by something they posted and remove it, which leaves subsequent references flapping in the breeze.  Quoting and/or screenshots preserves such material as it is outside the control of those who felt embarrassed ... and that just highlights their insecurity.

It is not a good reflection on the confidence in the technology being touted.

[Cyberdragon]

Those who leave embarrassing posts and admit it are more trustworthy. Once you get a reply it's to late (or at least put an edit note).

I've had some half asleep incomplete non-english sentences answered as legit questions and came back and was like "what worse, what I posted or that you attempted to answer it?"

That video could have also been removed by the host (although they likely don't care) or perhaps someone else with access trying to hide it as well.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I'm surprised he didn't have the nous (Brit. Eng.) to check what he had just posted. Well, may be I'm not.

I always check my post immediately especially if I have linked to pictures/videos and/or attached images. I sometimes have to rotate them on my PC and reattach. Probably something to do with the way my 2012 Windows Phone tags them

[Delta]

"Automatic phase balancing".

Now this does sound very promising, and is something that my employer would be prepared to pay for.

Can you give more information on this please? How do you achieve phase balancing purely from the supply side, without controlling the demands of each load?

[madires]

Maybe I got it wrong but what I've learned from this thread is that 3DFS is selling a buzzword box without any proper datasheet. Seems to be a more sophisticated version of the Batterizer.

[ArthurDent]

I was so impressed by the evidence presented here and in the videos by 3DFS that I went to their website (shown below) and ordered one of each of their products to install. Their products have worked so well that I'm saving so much and have increased my efficiency so much that I'm now selling the power company's power back to them and making a profit!

https://www.3dfs.com/products-tmp

[Cyberdragon]

I was so impressed by the evidence presented here and in the videos by 3DFS that I went to their website (shown below) and ordered one of each of their products to install. Their products have worked so well that I'm saving so much and have increased my efficiency so much that I'm now selling the power company's power back to them and making a profit!

https://www.3dfs.com/products-tmp

Dangit Arthur Dent, you blew the fuse in my sarcasm meter!

[kony]

The only time I met someone with this level of self-perceived grandeur and spewing comparable buzzword salad was an engineer with schizophrenia outbreak. It too was completelly genuine from his side, and he too was totally unable to support anything he says from other standpoint than self-referencing his own made up terms, or industry terms used in balantly wrong context, and appeals to his precieved authority over the subject due to hyperinflated ego. There still were some signs of logic or at least structure to the thinking patterns, but unfortunatelly for him the logic had passed trough figurative meat grinder, making arbitary, quite often contradictory connections in the process. He had choosen to believe and not question anything he says or thinks, and there was nothing that would change his mind, especially not logical reasoning of others.

There was no harm intended, nor it was involved trolling attempt - it simply was the only way he was able to see the world in given moment from his perspective.

[Delta]

"Automatic phase balancing".

Now this does sound very promising, and is something that my employer would be prepared to pay for.

Can you give more information on this please? How do you achieve phase balancing purely from the supply side, without controlling the demands of each load?

The is also an advantage of the computing. The box pulls power equally on all three phases from the upstream transformer and then redistributes it at the panel for perfect distribution among the phases.

There are quite a few benefits of this, one being the zeroing of the neutral current.

That is a massive advantage! 

If I have a 415v 3-phase star connected distribution transformer, feeding a distribution board, and to the DB I have four units connected, each unit has a 415v 3-phase motor (~6.6kW) connected Delta across L1-L2-L3, and ~1kW of 240v single-phase ancillaries connected across L1-Neutral, are you saying that one of your boxes in the DB can present a balanced 3-phase load to the transformer?

[StillTrying]

@Delta
The videos showing it working look OK to me, a lot less than in here.  vimeo.com / 3dfs

Meanwhile, I think I've figured it.

The Flash Gordon Technology simply connects to the Flux Capacitor, which then inductively inputs and outputs through the Turbo Encabulator (at the micro-second level), thereby supplying clean perfect power to all loads simultaneously, and in parallel Universes. While the Googletron Data Processor continuously uploads tomorrow's history data into yesterday's Fog Cloud in Real Time.
This obviously increases power grid transmission efficiency by more than 285%, all power generation can be turned off, which in turn further reduces transformer hum and transmission losses to 0%.

Its quite simple really.

[Klod]

"Automatic phase balancing".

Now this does sound very promising, and is something that my employer would be prepared to pay for.

Can you give more information on this please? How do you achieve phase balancing purely from the supply side, without controlling the demands of each load?

The is also an advantage of the computing. The box pulls power equally on all three phases from the upstream transformer and then redistributes it at the panel for perfect distribution among the phases.

There are quite a few benefits of this, one being the zeroing of the neutral current.

I think I'm missing something here.  Won't drawing more power to balance the phases increase my bill? 

[Mr.B]

Not an EE but insults the EE crowds here that they're not smart enough to understand it.
...

It is a well recognized illness called MPS.

Meredith Perry Syndrome...

[Brumby]

If I have a 415v 3-phase star connected distribution transformer, feeding a distribution board, and to the DB I have four units connected, each unit has a 415v 3-phase motor (~6.6kW) connected Delta across L1-L2-L3, and ~1kW of 240v single-phase ancillaries connected across L1-Neutral, are you saying that one of your boxes in the DB can present a balanced 3-phase load to the transformer?

If I read these correctly, it would seem so:     (Screen shots from https://vimeo.com/144432455)

System Off:


System On:

[niladherbert]

This is the competitive product for harmonics, double them if you want power factor too. 

Its not even close. No products today use Real-Time computing, it is all guesses. Do you see the difference? Understand yet?

The way you disrupt this industry is the way we are doing it. If it is uncomfortable, it is because you are standing on the wrong side of a landslide fault.

The future of electricity goes through this technology. 

Wow, you need a crane to install a fridge!

No, I am saying that this is too advanced for everybody here, otherwise they would have invented it.

Or maybe you are solving a problem we don't have. Power supplies have to be designed to operate in really sub-optimal conditions anyway (Think 1950s diesel generator- puts out a few extra volts)

Modern day power networks are a joke. Cascading failures, brown outs, insane voltage deviation, etc. These are all symptoms of an uncontrolled power network, plain and simple.

Power off maybe 2 hours over the whole year, maybe I'll get an UPS for the Wifi and security cameras. Also, how do we know that the failure mode of your equipment isn't 1000VAC output, frying our TVs?

3DFS Technology is embedded into power networks and measures and adjusts the electricity to precisely match the ideal demand of all loads in the network simultaneously at the microsecond level. That is our unique function.

Oooh, I'll embed a little blue box in my power network, which I will have to go to their manufacturer every time it needs fixed, leaving me without power until it is fixed, and then discover it's gone, having sold me a (now broken) blue box, with no schematic or code to attempt a repair. Someone give one of these to a guy who has some HV equipment to fry it with.

"Guests are treated to a vision of our energy future while served bottled water both chilled and room temperature. Overall, this is an excellent place to bring your entrepreneur investor friends."

I will be sure to come get me some bottled water (chilled) if I am ever in your neighbourhood and it's a warm day.

[djacobow]

For whatever reason, I did the plunge and, because there were no remotely comprehensible printed marketing materials, I watched the videos. What I saw is a little bit interesting: a box that does what appear to be three things:

• improve power quality (defined as voltage stabilization and the reduction of noise and harmonics)
• correct power factor
• balance loads on a three phase system

Why Doerfler couldn't just say those three things is beyond me, but whatever.

Now, I can definitely imagine niche situations where those capabilities are useful, but I do think they are niche.

Generally, if you have a PQ problem, you want to root cause the problem and find the offending equipment and fix it. In most cases, that will be a better plan than installing some magic box. But I can imagine a situation, perhaps, where a neighbor that perhaps you share a transformer secondary with has equipment injecting crap into your lines, and you are stuck. So, okay. However, this is not an efficiency story, it is a story about a quality problem so bad it is causing your facility harm. Uncommon.

PF can also be an issue, if you have a lot of really low PF loads. You may pay for VARs, or you may feel like you are being forced to own maintain higher VA-rated transformers than your W load would imply, so improving PF is a win. No doubt, improving a bad PF with a large load can reduce currents and save energy in wiring and transformers. OK. But I also suspect really bad PF is uncommon today, and when you have it, it is from large fixed loads that can be addressed with cheaper static solutions. The 3DFS solution adjusts dynamically, but I think there have to be diminishing returns. If a capacitor bank gets you from 0.5 to 0.85 +/- 0.05, there's not much to be gained by getting to 1.0. But something. So, if you have a very bad pf, dynamic load, fine, useful.

Finally, the load balancing to all three legs of a 3 phase system. Certainly, load balancing can be a problem, and rewiring your facility to fix it is not always possible, especially if you have some very large single-phase loads. So, balancing loads might save you a transformer upgrade if you are near the VA limit on one leg and the others have capacity to spare.

Taken together, these are useful capabilities, and there are situations where each of them can help, and I can see some additive benefits. (For example, pf and load balancing together can work together to keep all legs of your transformer within their VA rating, letting you put off an upgrade for longer.)

All that said, assuming the videos aren't faked somehow and the product actually works, their marketing is atrocious. It has several serious problems:

• so vague, full of made-up or incorrectly applied terms that it actively repels knowledgeable people and appears extra scammy
• it makes claims regarding efficiency improvements that are dubious at best. No data is provided. I think major efficiency gains can really only be made in situations that are pretty borked to start with -- uncommon
• they make a lot of vague claims about improving the efficiency of the whole power system end-to-end which do not make much sense. Your PQ, PF, and balancing problems sort of get averaged into oblivion when aggregated to transmission system levels. (Though unbalancing on the distribution system is a bit of a thorn on power companies' sides, I'm told.)
• it makes weird claims about PQ and its impact on computing hardware that just aren't right. As others have pointed out, PSUs driving IT equipment can and do manage a wide range of power variation Just Fine, and if your power is so dirty it is causing hiccups in your data center, you have bigger problems.
• all the nonsense about nanoseconds, the microsecond level. Beyond the three capabilities listed above, so what? How does this contribute value?

So, my assessment:

• product is not completely ridiculous
• marketing pitch is completely ridiculous. At best, you might say it is aimed at investors rather than customers
• actual applications and benefits are narrow
• digital electricity is not going to revolutionize anything

[djacobow]

I am pretty sure that I mentioned all of these. Our Power Quality Rating (PQR) is a metric that encompasses all three in determining the overall electrical energy efficiency of a power network.

If you want to promote a new metric, you need to describe it exactly (mathematically) so people know exactly what it is you are measuring. Furthermore, if you want people to take it seriously, you need to show (this word is appearing a lot in notes to you. I hope you are picking up on that.) that the metric captures something useful that other metrics do not.

You state "If a capacitor bank gets you from 0.5 to 0.85 +/- 0.05, there's not much to be gained by getting to 1.0."

But a capacitor does not get you to 0.85. In fact you have no way of knowing where a capacitor gets you because the tools that you are using to measure are not reporting the in the moment value for the power factor.

You found a load whose power factor varies significantly over reasonably short time periods. How common is that? I actually have more than a hunch about that answer, because I have worked on the engineering side of some very large data centers. I would say the onus is on you to show that widely varying power factor on significant loads is a common problem.

Nanoseconds contribute to the value because when electrical energy forces

"electrical energy forces" are not a thing.

are properly managed in Real-Time,

Why are we now capitalizing "real-time". Do you even know what real-time means?

many of the power quality problems experienced that are seemingly unrelated in today's power networks (like in data center packet error rate, radar system detection, RF signal propogation, etc.) are solved.

Not "seemingly." Let me state here in no uncertain terms: this is complete and utter bullshit. A data center experiencing packet loss in transmission between equipment would investigate that problem link(s) and fix them. If power quality were driving such problems, they would a) have to be massive and b) could easily be identified and fixed.

As an amateur radio operator, I'm quite sensitive to the implications of noise on power lines and would love to see technology that would make it stop. But unfortunately, your technology would do little to reduce the noise on other people's lines, the source of most hash in my receivers. In any case, people track down and diagnose RF interference all the time. Most equipment that does RF is designed to work in less than ideal conditions.

I appreciate that you have come around to recognizing that the technology is "not completely ridiculous" but I still have some work to do to get you realize the transformative effect.

Probably going to be deaf ears. Most people on this thread have already moved on, because they correctly put you in the right bin. You had a pretty good chance to make your case and frankly, you blew it, by trying to convince a roomful of electrical engineers that they do not understand electricity.

Your company seems eerily analogous to the "Batteriser" discussed in other threads on this forum: technically, it does what it says, but is actually useful in a surprisingly narrow set of circumstances.

[StillTrying]

Nanoseconds contribute to the value because when electrical energy forces are properly managed in Real-Time, many of the power quality problems experienced that are seemingly unrelated in today's power networks (like in data center packet error rate, radar system detection, RF signal propogation, etc.) are solved.

The speed of light, and the speed of electricity in a cable, gets in the way of some of your claims. They're fun to read though!

[james_s]

Not "seemingly." Let me state here in no uncertain terms: this is complete and utter bullshit. A data center experiencing packet loss in transmission between equipment would investigate that problem link(s) and fix them. If power quality were driving such problems, they would a) have to be massive and b) could easily be identified and fixed.

As an amateur radio operator, I'm quite sensitive to the implications of noise on power lines and would love to see technology that would make it stop. But unfortunately, your technology would do little to reduce the noise on other people's lines, the source of most hash in my receivers. In any case, people track down and diagnose RF interference all the time. Most equipment that does RF is designed to work in less than ideal conditions.

This can easily be demonstrated. I have run standard off the shelf computer power supplies off a nasty cheap generator that produces a hideously ugly voltage waveform and as you might expect, the output was nice clean DC. This is what any good power supply does, you can give it nasty noisy ugly looking power and it turns it into clean DC, and it shouldn't run appreciably hotter than it does from perfectly nice clean power. If the output is the same, and the power supply doesn't get hotter, then where is all this supposed waste energy going? If the output is clean DC then how the heck is noise on the line side going to affect the performance of the equipment? How does my computer know that the line voltage is noisy when all it sees is the DC out of the power supply?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Actually that is what makes our technology incredible, although the speed of light has nothing to do with it. 

Hmmm. Perhaps not the best choice of word

It reminds me of my chemistry teacher in response to saying something like, "The rate of reaction is incredibly fast." He'd say, "Really? Well I can believe it."

[james_s]

The speed at which we are computing at the efficiency it is being done is nothing short of amazing. We are processing 26 channels in 24bit resolution at MHz frequencies. It is literally processing terabytes of data every minute at the expense of a max of 120W of power.

Think about the advantage that provides.

It's not all that difficult to capture loads of channels of data at high speed using an FPGA driving a load of suitably fast ADCs. That isn't really useful information though, nobody buys a black box to "process data", they buy it to solve a problem that they have. What after a lot of marketing jargon and technobabble is still not the least bit clear is precisely what problem this device is meant to solve, because it is easily demonstrated that dirty power, while not really desirable, is generally not something that affects computers and related equipment.

[StillTrying]

"24bit resolution"   

#89 has always been a favorite of mine, perhaps it's just something in the heat of battle, it's short, but makes no sense at all to me.

"When you are correcting electricity in Real-Time, you do not need a lot of power. That is the point."

and more at:  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/digital-electricity/msg1597045/#msg1597045

[JohnnyMalaria]

Nearly 200 posts and things are clearing up.

Can I suggest something?

There was a good reason I kept prodding you about the novelty/patent etc. I knew there was something in it and I saw lots of incredulity from the many seasoned EEs here. That's one of the problems with patenting something - it's non-obvious. There needs to be a simple, technical explanation. Once that started coming through, I think it's fair to say the general feedback has swung in your favor.

In my experience, there are two types of people to win over: the technical people who understand why your product should be purchased over a competitor's and the people with the money. The latter care for the fluff words. e.g., "our car goes twice as fast!" whereas the former want to know how it goes fast". A simple 1-page flyer (or similar) that sticks to the simple, technical facts and practical benefits would help you get the buy-in of the technical folk. From what I've gleaned, "our technology samples the incoming power at MHz rates and in parallel. This allows us to detect and correct high frequency interference that competitor products cannot. Indeed, we own the patent rights to the technology and so noone else can manufacture equipment that offers the efficiency ours does." No fluff, short and clear (if I do say so myself )


EDIT: And leave out the "I'm fucking right about this".

[ArthurDent]

From what I can glean from my limited knowledge, this meal seems to be all salad and no main course.

[StillTrying]

I have been resigned to the fact that I will likely be taken out of context a great deal. Plus I have some word salads that are gems.

Can you explain in quite simple terms how if you look at 2 Amps "at the micro second level" it becomes 2 micro Amps, because I can't!

200 posts and we haven't even got to Voltage yet, that's what nearly all of us will mean by clean power, simply because a load can't even see another load's current.

[Aspin]

You know that Industrial UPS actual do this by the virtue of being a generator coupled to an electric motor.
ie all the energy is transferred on the shaft at which point phase will be balanced and most harmonics removed (as effectively very low frequency mechanical filter.
I always wondered about the efficiency of the arrangement but the bank I worked for seem to think its data center was more important that the electricity bills.

[Circlotron]

Actually that is what makes our technology incredible, although the speed of light has nothing to do with it. 

incredible
ɪnˈkrɛdɪb(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: incredible

    1.
    impossible to believe.
    "an almost incredible tale of triumph and tragedy"
    synonyms:   unbelievable, beyond belief, hard to believe, scarcely credible, unconvincing, far-fetched, strained, laboured, implausible, improbable, highly unlikely, not in the least likely, questionable, dubious, doubtful, inconceivable, unthinkable, unimaginable, impossible, astonishing, astounding, breathtaking, staggering, absurd, preposterous, phenomenal, extraordinary

[Brumby]

I have been resigned to the fact that I will likely be taken out of context a great deal. Plus I have some word salads that are gems.

Can you explain in quite simple terms how if you look at 2 Amps "at the micro second level" it becomes 2 micro Amps, because I can't!

This highlights something that has been bugging me ever since I first read this:

  Injecting and extracting microamps every microsecond. 

The WTF's just highlight the arrogance...

If you need to balance a 3 phase system and the current required is just 10A, your system needs to handle anything from -14.14A to +14.14A instantaneous current.

The quantity "current" has no time dimension, neither does the quantity "power" - so any references to current and/or power that supposedly address the large values (that we might normally expect) by extremely short time intervals is complete and utter bullshit.

It is not a reflection on the intelligence of anybody here - it is ignoring a fundamental of the PHYSICS involved.

So, if this is not a complete misdirection, someone really needs to get their terminology sorted out - because what has been happening on this thread has been destructive in the promotion of the product.  You can get away with all sorts of flim flam with the public and even dazzle investors - but when you front up to the engineering bench, you better know how to talk their language.

Remember - when engineers fail, products can fail, jobs can be lost, careers destroyed ... and people can be maimed or killed.  When they are being pedantic, there's usually a very good reason for it.

[james_s]

Saying that dirty power does not affect computers and related equipment is like saying dirty oil does not affect my engine performance. It is just a bald faced ignorant statement to make.

Bullshit. Oil breaks down over time and the filter becomes filled with physical particles of carbon and wear materials from the engine. A properly designed power supply will filter out any noise that would be typically found on a power line, electrical filters don't become clogged and electricity doesn't wear out over time. If you claim otherwise I'd like to see something to back this up. Take two identical off the shelf computer PSUs, connect one to a dirty power source and connect the other to your device. Show me a scope capture of the DC output of each power supply so I can see the substantially increased noise on the output of the power supply connected to the dirty source. Then at least I'll know not to buy that model of power supply because clearly it is poorly designed.

Surely you're not going to pull the audiophool card and claim there are are effects that will influence the equipment being powered that are not measurable with test equipment?

[Dubbie]

People who know what they are talking about are usually anxious to ensure that they are being understood by their peers.
Look at any lectures by really smart people like Richard Feynman or Sean Carroll. Those guys don't say "huhhuhuh, you peons are too dim to understand my advanced mind"

Like the well known expression goes, "If you can't explain it to your grandmother, you don't understand it yourself."

The ones who claim that nobody else is smart enough to understand their ideas, while using nonsensical words and phrases to "explain" themselves, are the delusional ones.

[madires]

Nanoseconds contribute to the value because when electrical energy forces are properly managed in Real-Time, many of the power quality problems experienced that are seemingly unrelated in today's power networks (like in data center packet error rate, radar system detection, RF signal propogation, etc.) are solved.

Total nonsense! Servers and network elements powered by AC have proper PSUs with active PFC and lot's of line filtering. To cause frame/packet errors the power quality would have to be so bad that the servers and network elements would have much worse problems than bad frames/packets. You also forget that several data centers use telco's classic -48V DC power. And the latest in data center power distribution and efficiency is HVDC.

[Dubbie]

"Anxious to ensure that they are being understood?" Why would I have anxiety in conveying a concept?

You don't seem to care that no-one has any idea what you are talking about. To everyone here, your "tech talk" sounds like meaningless word salad, in the style of Depak Chopra or your friendly neighborhood crystal healer. Clearly your gadget does SOMETHING, just what that is, is unclear to everyone.

The fact that nobody understands you is not even slightly concerning to you?

R

[madires]

From designing, rolling out and operating carrier grade data centers. In case you haven't noticed yet, a lot of the members of this forum are EEs.

[Dubbie]

   We are working in real time here. Stay with me.

Once electricity is synchronized, maintaining synchronization requires very little energy, (Remember Newton?) So the amount of current needed to be injected is tiny.

Earlier you used an example of a rope swing needing just a tiny push at the right time to keep it going. This concept when related to electricity is like a crystal oscillator. It only needs a tiny trickle of power to keep it going. Problem is, AC in the infrastructure sense is more like the rope swing swinging through a tarpit. It needs significant power to keep it moving. Delicate little “microamp currents” will do absolutely nothing. It’s like claiming that you can stop a runaway train car if you tickle it with a feather at *just* the right time.

The only way I could see your claim working was if the microamp current corrections were applied to the input of your fancy ADC’s [emoji23]

[Dubbie]

   Are you familiar with Kirchoff's Law? Equitable distribution of currents and voltages?

Where on earth do you think you are? This is not Facebook. Your arrogance is breathtaking.

[madires]

I will even point our that harmonic distortion, neutral and ground currents on top of voltage deviation and all levels of transients (PARTICULARLY those induced by power supplies) are the reason for the packet error rate and retransmission rate to begin with. 

For -48V DC powered routers, switches and optical transport? There are also huge battery banks for buffering, i.e. actually an online UPS. I think you're doing a disservice to 3DFS the way you are selling the technology. Very basic things like a proper datasheet are missing. This way nobody can take 3DFS seriously.  By keeping on this disastrous marketing there isn't any credibility left. And by insulting people you make it even worse. You might win a discussion, but you'll loose possible customers. Great job!

[niladherbert]

Another great benefit to this technology is going to be a consumer reports for circuit board design. We will be able to identify cheap bullshit electronics through the electrical signature and pattern of electricity consumption.

What's the advantage in this? Identifying them doesn't mean that anyone wants to get rid of them.

Your suggestion that brute force energy supply is the way it works is a very early 1900's approach to electricity distribution and the reason for all the waste.

Don't you dare try to interfere with a very robust and easily repaired system. Electromechanicals are the way to go.

Proper data sheets are not missing, you don't understand them. There is a difference.

I am only finishing high school, and most data sheets are easily understandable if written by someone who is being honest about their product and understands the product

[Brumby]

I have been resigned to the fact that I will likely be taken out of context a great deal. Plus I have some word salads that are gems.

Can you explain in quite simple terms how if you look at 2 Amps "at the micro second level" it becomes 2 micro Amps, because I can't!

This highlights something that has been bugging me ever since I first read this:

  Injecting and extracting microamps every microsecond. 

The WTF's just highlight the arrogance...

If you need to balance a 3 phase system and the current required is just 10A, your system needs to handle anything from -14.14A to +14.14A instantaneous current.

The quantity "current" has no time dimension, neither does the quantity "power" - so any references to current and/or power that supposedly address the large values (that we might normally expect) by extremely short time intervals is complete and utter bullshit.

It is not a reflection on the intelligence of anybody here - it is ignoring a fundamental of the PHYSICS involved.

So, if this is not a complete misdirection, someone really needs to get their terminology sorted out - because what has been happening on this thread has been destructive in the promotion of the product.  You can get away with all sorts of flim flam with the public and even dazzle investors - but when you front up to the engineering bench, you better know how to talk their language.

Remember - when engineers fail, products can fail, jobs can be lost, careers destroyed ... and people can be maimed or killed.  When they are being pedantic, there's usually a very good reason for it.

   We are working in real time here. Stay with me.

Once electricity is synchronized, maintaining synchronization requires very little energy, (Remember Newton?) So the amount of current needed to be injected is tiny. The tech has the ability to inject/extract microamps in microseconds, but can inject more as needed. It is in parallel, so there is an endless supply of energy to use.

Also, you are not considering that the power is pulled from the upstream transformer already balanced, so there is not excess energy floating around anywhere, it is zero sum distribution.

Sigh.

I wish you could understand the point being made and address it - and from what I've seen, I'm not the only one.  Unfortunately, it seems patently obvious to me that we are trying to get engineering answers from a marketing person.

It's getting hard to see any value pursuing answers here.

[Circlotron]

Back in the late 90s myself and a number of others used to get on Usenet on /science/physics/electromagnetics and battle wits with this fellow named Archimedes Plutonium. He would espouse his theory of plutonium atom totality, ie the whole universe was one giant plutonium atom. I can see a strange kind of parallel in the style of arguments presented here.

[madires]

Sadly, I have to agree. We even tried to help him, but he doesn't get it. Smart grid solutions are quite interesting but this thread is just a waste of time.

[StillTrying]

I really want to highlight this point because it is an important one.

It is impossible for Kirchoff's Law be leveraged in a power network without a computing element. This is where the microamps in microseconds becomes important.

This is a radically different approach to controlling electricity that does not fit what you are familiar with, although firmly fits into the laws of math and physics.

Kirchoff's Law worked 100% before computers, before it had a name, even before the the Earth was discovered.
You're posting total bullshit.

[Delta]

You can't supply a microamp in a microsecond, nor can you supply 10amps in a minute.

That's not a thing.

[Delta]

You can't supply a microamp in a microsecond, nor can you supply 10amps in a minute.

That's not a thing.

Correction, YOU cannot supply a microamp in a microsecond.

Oh dear.  For a superstar inventor you don't seem to understand the concept of current.

Can you a water pump supply 5 gallons per minute in 34 seconds? (Or 2GPM in a hour etc)



PS. I am developing a genetation system that can provide enough voltage for 50000 houses!

[Dubbie]

Is it that you do not understand how this can bring power factor to unity, mitigate harmonics and balance phases for the entire panel?

You are correct. Nobody understands this part. All this nonsense about microseconds is not explaining this aspect.

[Dubbie]

Stop changing the subject. You haven’t explained how it does it. It computes the changes required, that much you have told us ad-nauseum.

Then what? How does it effect the changes required to alter the power flowing through the distr board?

I can compute the forces required to stop the earth spinning and start it going the other way. Because I have these numbers doesn’t mean I can actually do it.

[BravoV]

Is it that you do not understand how this can bring power factor to unity, mitigate harmonics and balance phases for the entire panel?

You are correct. Nobody understands this part. All this nonsense about microseconds is not explaining this aspect.

I see, so is the contention if the FESS can correct power factor, harmonics, phase balancing at the panel level? or The benefits from doing it this way are not as substantial as I am suggesting?

Sure dude, whatever FESS able to do even makes us immortal or makes the owner filthy rich by owning it, its not our priviledge to understand, according to you.

Yes, all of us here are so retarded that no one in this electonics specific forum, especially in the "Dodgy Tech" section, will able to understand it.

But we got 3DFS message loud and clear, just stop questioning or stop asking whats it all about, just bring the money, then we will live happily ever after.

We got it. 

[JohnnyMalaria]

Seems that "microcoulombs per microsecond" would be physically meaningful since that is current and, presumably, is achievable via capacitor discharge(?)

Anyway, I'm done. Does anyone know how to stop a post showing up in "Show new replies to your posts."? This has become too distracting, frustrating and pointless.

[StillTrying]

I wonder who 3DFS are speaking to before posting now. 

Of course, this balancing of the 3 phases to the us and uA level, needs the 3 clip-on 300A current transformers to be accurate to the us and uA level.

[Cerebus]

I wonder who 3DFS are speaking to before posting now. 

Orthon, probably, or someone from the  Unarius Academy of Science. Well, it worked for George Adamski...

[Mr.B]

Anyway, I'm done. Does anyone know how to stop a post showing up in "Show new replies to your posts."? This has become too distracting, frustrating and pointless.

Go to 'Show unread posts since last visit'
On the far right hand side, check the checkbox next to the thread.
Click on the 'IGNORE TOPICS' button, top right.

[Dubbie]

I don't see any checkboxes?
Or Ignore Topics button...

What am I missing?

[Mr.B]

You need to go to 'Show unread posts since last visit'
Although your capture looks like it is, so I don't know..
Mine looks like this.

[Dubbie]

Well! seems I have a different forum view to you guys... not sure why..

How did you get that dark theme for a start?

[julianhigginson]

Wow.. this thread just keeps on giving.

[Brumby]

... but we're fast approaching "giving up".


Actually, I think we've arrived.

[james_s]

Well! seems I have a different forum view to you guys... not sure why..

How did you get that dark theme for a start?

Same here, that's bizarre, mine looks exactly like that other screenshot, it's lighter gray and I've looked all over for a checkbox.

[Dubbie]

I have the dark forum now (installed the stylish theme), but still no checkbox.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Sorry - I created another rabbit hole.   I can't see any checkboxes either (tried multiple browsers).

[Mr.B]

Found it.

Go into your profile.
Hover over ‘Modify Profile’
Select ‘Look and Layout’
Scroll to the bottom.
Set ‘Show quick-moderation as’ to ‘checkboxes’.

[Dubbie]

Great! that did it.

This thread had some use after all.

Thanks!

[ArthurDent]

I believe what some are saying about uA/uS is similar to this puzzle.

A car goes exactly ½ way down a 1 mile long hill at the constant speed of 30MPH. Assuming instantaneous change in speed for simplification, how fast does the car have to go down the remaining half of the hill to average 60MPH?

Well, ½ mile at 30MPH takes exactly 1 minute so all the time is used up and there is no way to average 60MPH (or 1 mile per 1 minute, or any other speed for that matter) unless you have a flux capacitor or a Vector Q2 installed. Neither the flux capacitor nor the Vector Q2 are constrained by the laws of the universe.

[Delta]

You can't supply a microamp in a microsecond, nor can you supply 10amps in a minute.

That's not a thing.

Correction, YOU cannot supply a microamp in a microsecond.

Oh dear.  For a superstar inventor you don't seem to understand the concept of current.

Can you a water pump supply 5 gallons per minute in 34 seconds? (Or 2GPM in a hour etc)



PS. I am developing a genetation system that can provide enough voltage for 50000 houses!

What are you talking about. The gpm is a rate of flow, seconds is an amount of time.

Ooooooh! Now we're getting somehere!

Now go and find out what current is, and you just might realise what a load of bollocks your nonsensical statements are.

[Cyberdragon]

That's it...

Block diagrams of the INSIDE of your device, NOW! Schematics of the internals (minus the processing stuff) would be more ideal.

Also, the make and model of the power supplies, and the setup you used in your so-called tests that show "like dudes, computers totally don't like noise!" because as has been stated repeatedly, unless you deliberately try to cause this, that's not normal behaviour. In addition to all the passive filtering these supplies can even have internal active or passive power factor correction so they clean the noise before it even hits the main rectifier.

[StillTrying]

Looks like they're not going to FESS-up, some big caps and 3 or 6 SMPS ?

[StillTrying]

I hope no one turns up and starts asking them electricky questions.

"In an effort to consolidate messaging and provide a single platform for official questions and answers regarding 3DFS Technology, @3DFS_power has launched techtalk.3dfs.com Please directly submit questions to 3DFS to be answered #3DFS #SDE #FAQ #energyefficiency #AI pic.twitter.com/FSvddP7s5H
12:00 PM - 15 Jun 2018"

[ArthurDent]

"In an effort to consolidate messaging and provide a single platform for official questions and answers regarding 3DFS Technology..."

I'm guessing that means they didn't like the questions here and only wanted to answer questions they could select and on their own platform.

[JohnnyMalaria]

I hope no one turns up and starts asking them electricky questions.

"In an effort to consolidate messaging and provide a single platform for official questions and answers regarding 3DFS Technology, @3DFS_power has launched techtalk.3dfs.com Please directly submit questions to 3DFS to be answered #3DFS #SDE #FAQ #energyefficiency #AI pic.twitter.com/FSvddP7s5H
12:00 PM - 15 Jun 2018"

Sheesh - they're making a hash of that, too. 

[Circlotron]

“This is done leveraging Task Oriented Optimal Computing processing data and analytics”

Well, I’m sold!

[Dubbie]

If it doesn’t use Quantum Electrodynamic Load sharing with Holographic Photonic feedback then I am NOT interested!

[StillTrying]

Sheesh - they're making a hash of that, too. 

There's absolutely nothing there.
This was another fun one.  https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=56802226&sid=12204964

[racemaniac]

You can't supply a microamp in a microsecond, nor can you supply 10amps in a minute.

That's not a thing.

Correction, YOU cannot supply a microamp in a microsecond.

Oh dear.  For a superstar inventor you don't seem to understand the concept of current.

Can you a water pump supply 5 gallons per minute in 34 seconds? (Or 2GPM in a hour etc)



PS. I am developing a genetation system that can provide enough voltage for 50000 houses!

What are you talking about. The gpm is a rate of flow, seconds is an amount of time.

Ooooooh! Now we're getting somehere!

Now go and find out what current is, and you just might realise what a load of bollocks your nonsensical statements are.

Dang, i was really enjoying reading this thread, and we were finally getting to the bottom of this, and he vanished >_<...

[vealmike]

What a shame! I was just going to ask for their SPICE model so that we could all see exactly how this works.


Cdoerfler clearly doesn't have a clue how his box does what it says it does. He might know what the building blocks are, but not what they are doing.

In the complete absence of any detail what so ever, I guess we have to say:

[StillTrying]

Dang, i was really enjoying reading this thread, and we were finally getting to the bottom of this, and he vanished >_<...

As this thing claims to supply perfect power to all loads simultaneously, it would've been fun to get on to voltage and volt drops! Don't forget to vote.

[StillTrying]

When I saw there were 12 guests reading this thread, I thought there must be some 3DF junk being posted on twitter.

[Cyberdragon]

Post #1 Same utter and rambling that was posted here

#2 also because of...

#3 lets make sure all our devices are designed to be power-line attackable...

[madires]

Right! If they would have invented something crucial for smartphones they would have been bought by one of the large mobile technology companies and wouldn't have to try selling their IP (if there's any at all) by very shady means. Dunning–Kruger effect at work?

[thefinisher]

what about a dark matter coupled gluon particle entangled regressive summation analysis feedback loop using close loop vibrating string theory 1-dimensional strings model. This should work 

[rrinker]

 I could swear this topic was posted here before, and I posted in it, but perhaps it was elsewhere.

We actually have a client using this technology to power cameras. I have yet to see the equipment in person, but the general layout is like that shown on the VoltServer web site. Having not examined it, I can't say if there is just some trick that makes it look like it's doing something new and innovative, or if it really does - all I know is that it does get the power out at the far end. Does it take 10x power at the input to make it work? I have no idea. It's not a client I work with frequently, but I do have an upcoming project that will likely require some on-site work, so I will try to get a look at the equipment and see what's going on.

 

[StillTrying]

"I could swear this topic was posted here before"

3DFS have been here before:
www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/3dfs-software-defined-power-marketing-wank-or-game-changer/

VoltServer are very different, they're saying we should all have square wave electricity, while 3DFS are saying we should have very smooth sine waves, you couldn't make it up!

[kony]

What a textbook example of Grandiose delusions.

[Cyberdragon]

"I could swear this topic was posted here before"

3DFS have been here before:
www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/3dfs-software-defined-power-marketing-wank-or-game-changer/

VoltServer are very different, they're saying we should all have square wave electricity, while 3DFS are saying we should have very smooth sine waves, you couldn't make it up!

There's only one thing left to do...connect the 3DFS to the VoltServer and watch the apposing bullshit burn!

EDIT: E-O-L! E-O-L! E-O-L!

[texaspyro]

Haven't we seen this "invention" before? :

[StillTrying]

Someone else from 3DFS is explaining the electricky stuff now.

[madires]

The name sounds familiar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_Tucker

Have they moved to fictive characters?

[Cerebus]

Reminds me of our late cat, Dillon, who went by the stage name Trip Hazard.

[james_s]

Someone else from 3DFS is explaining the electricky stuff now.

Tripp Tucker? Isn't that a character in Enterprise?

[StillTrying]

That might be why they explain everything in Klingonese.

forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=187471

[james_s]

Now that I think about it, it does sound very much like some of the technobabble in Star Trek.

[Cyberdragon]

If we can phase split the ion beams to regulate the plasma flow...it should work right?

[madires]

In this case there's some nice edutainment about discussions involving Star Trek and Mr. Spock: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMpofmkxKHBJfta_JzekLbWGHUSLUJoLt

[StillTrying]

3DFS still providing amusement.

3DFS is the only technology that can save the world, lucky they're on the ball...

Q: What are the 26 parameters being measured/derived within the SDE system?

A: We do not maintain a list of the 26 parameters that are being measured/derived.

... or perhaps not.

techtalk.3dfs.com/t/what-are-the-26-parameters-being-measured-derived-within-the-sde-system/60

[sibeen]

WOW...just WOW..

How did I miss this thread. 30 years I've been working in power quality and now all my prayers are answered.

This tidbit did make me giggle:

*Electricity distribution is most efficient when the laws of math and physics are properly applied. This is what this technology does.*

[Brumby]

*Electricity distribution is most efficient when the laws of math and physics are properly applied. This is what this technology does.*

You know, that sounds a LOT like "Engineering" to me.

It seems curious, though, that they want us to believe they have the ability to implement what they are saying - but seem to be utterly incapable of being able to properly explain it.

[Dubbie]

*Electricity distribution is most efficient when the laws of math and physics are properly applied. This is what this technology does.*

You know, that sounds a LOT like "Engineering" to me.

It seems curious, though, that they want us to believe they have the ability to implement what they are saying - but seem to be utterly incapable of being able to properly explain it.

They are explaining it Brumby, it's just that all of us here have such tiny and primitive brains, we can't comprehend it. It's like explaining calculus to a toddler!
You need to get on their level first, and then it will all become clear how a fast ADC and a proprietary algorithm® can magically make hundreds of amps teleport between phases.

[Brumby]

You need to get on their level first...

Sorry - I'm not after a lobotomy.

[madires]

3DFS have created a self-induced filter bubble with alternative facts and I assume they would argue that non-believers are those in the filter bubble. Anyhow, the lack of reasonable technical details and proper datasheets clearly shows that they have no clue about their own technology. Presumably it's just a more sophisticated version of the Chinese energy saver plugs with a 2.2 or 3.3µF cap between live and neutral plus an indicator LED powered by a capacitive dropper. Maybe they should help Microsoft to reduce the power consumption of the AI cloud platform required to determine if a system running Win10 could be rebooted when applying updates.

[StillTrying]

WOW...just WOW..
How did I miss this thread. 30 years I've been working in power quality and now all my prayers are answered.

It was hard work, but good fun in Real Time.

Some of my favorites have always been the high speed measurements.
24-bit resolution at MHz frequencies, done through the same thin wires that supply the 3phase current correction.
It might be just 8-bit resolution per phase and someone's confused?

And of course they're claiming to control voltage and current at the same time all over the place.

[james_s]

I don't see why people are even trying to make sense out of bullshit technobabble. The only purpose is to attract investors/customers who don't know any better, it's never going to make sense to an engineer because it's just that, babble.

[krish2487]

I am extremely sorry to dig up an old and quite interesting thread...
( well, not really.. ) :-P
I spent quite a substantial time trying to go through the entire thread and I do have a couple of genuine questions.
Not just for the 3DFS folks but actually the more experienced EEs here.


1. How you can force balance a three phase load if a phase does not require as much current as the other 2 phases??
i.e How can you "allow" less current to a phase and "push" more current through the others in order to balance it??
AFAIK, the only way you can balance current equally in all the three phases is to increase the load in the less current consuming phases in order to match the higher current consumption phase...


2. Obviously, there are exceptions like SVC which are designed to run in parallel to a inductive load to correct the PF, but how does one correct current waveforms without having an active element "in series" with the supply and not parallel?


Again, I am not trolling or trying to sound like  a troublemaker..  Its a genuine question.. Either that or my education has been a massive waste of money..

[dmills]

1 You basically have three half bridge sort of arrangements one connected to each phase, feeding inductors, and hence onto a honking great DC bus with plenty of cap.

What you do is drive the switches on the least loaded phase to run as a boost converter transferring power onto the DC link bus, in the simple case with a sinusoidal current waveform, (more on that later), then you drive the other two sets of bridge switches to drive current onto the more heavily loaded phases so as to reduce the load on those phases that the panel presents to upstream. Obviously you can adjust phase angles to improve power factor to taste.

2: Remember the algebraic sum of currents at a node is zero?
If the load is drawing a mess of harmonic current and you want to avoid it heading upstream, you just draw power as a sinusoidal load and put it back as harmonic current in anti phase to the load harmonics.

Now your controls can monitor current on the upstream supply cables (Current transformers) and bus voltage waveform from which computing what waveform must be injected to correct whatever the problem is is a simple matter of an FFT and some trig, and contrary to the fluffer it does not even have to be all that quick, I mean the IGBT pucks are only usually good for a few kHz on a good day, about the only thing faster switches buys you is smaller magnetics.

Sometimes you are going to be correcting power factor, clearly trivial, sometimes moving load from one phase to another thru your energy storage caps, sometimes cancelling current harmonics, or trying to reduce voltage harmonics (Really the same thing but sensing a different input).

The maths is messy, mostly because the parasitics are not negligible, but it is at the end of the day only maths.

Clearly such an arrangement has no actually dissipative elements apart from the parasitic ones so it can be quite efficient, but of course never 100%, and the cables need to be sized for the current, at 200kVA and up that can become significant.

This is all standard, off the shelf tech made by plenty of the usual suspects making real, well engineered gear with real datasheets.

[krish2487]

Thank you. That does clear up a lot of my questions. :-)


The second reply was something interesting for me to learn.. :-)


I was under the impression that we needed active switching elements for improving power quality.TIL moment for me .. :-)
What are such equipment called?? and can you kindly link in a sample datasheet or vendor.. It looks quite interesting.. Maybe some reading when I am bored..

[StillTrying]

Surely to do it properly you'd need a load of 24 bit 200MHz error free ADCs, over 12 FPGAa, a whole new operating system, new computing methods, new formulas, internet connection, app, encryption, clouds, AI, machine learning, water, oil, and fan cooling, and a load of bonkers efficiency claims but without any actual real results or measurements of any power or money saving.

[dmills]

You do need active elements, they just don't need to be in SERIES with the load.

In post #98 I posted a bit of a datasheet for a fairly typical box from a grown up manufacturer.

FPGAs are helpful, mostly as a way to reduce the glue logic, but really any decent modern microprocessor with a brace of counter/timer peripherals and some comparators can probably do this, the maths is a bit gnarly and deciding what to prioritise when you are running out of capacity has fun engineering tradeoffs, but there is no magic.

Regards, Dan.

[krish2487]

Got it !! 


As I mentioned earlier... A Capacitor bank for large inductive loads and even boost transistor for PFC are examples of how elements (active or passive) can be in parallel to the supply and still improve power quality..

[ogden]

This is all standard, off the shelf tech made by plenty of the usual suspects making real, well engineered gear with real datasheets.

Such as? - Could you provide few pointers to plenty of the usual suspects you are talking about?

[dmills]

The search term to use seems to be "Active harmonic filter" and here are a few examples:

https://www.schneider-electric.co.uk/en/product-range/63426-accusine-pcs%2B/
https://www.eaton.com/EN/Eaton/ProductsServices/Electrical/ProductsandServices/PowerQualityandMonitoring/PowerConditioning/HarmonicCorrectionUnit/index.htm#tabs-1
https://new.abb.com/high-voltage/capacitors/lv/modular-power-quality-solutions/pqactif
https://www.tdk-electronics.tdk.com/en/pqsine_presentation?wt_mc=gaw_pqsine_active%20harmonic%20filter&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI54vMmt-s4gIVVojVCh2BHgZsEAMYASAAEgLgiPD_BwE

There are about a dozen other players, but these guys you have probably heard of.

If I was seriously in the market, any of these companies would set me up with a real applications engineer to talk to, and nothing they claim involves magic. 

Regards, Dan.