digital electricity

[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