E-Cat SKLed - a decade old cold fusion scam still being mentioned to this day.

[Refrigerator]

I watch Robert Murray-Smith's videos for the capacitors but decided to check one of his other recent videos titled "1051 Brilliant Mechanical Inverter - Even If I Say So Myself!".
The idea is simple, a DC motor drives an AC generator and this contraption becomes and inverter. Just a new spin on an old idea.
But only after i scrolled down to the comments did i find a couple people mention this "E-Cat SKLed".

Finding ways to convert the output of the Leonardo E-Cat SKLed into standard household electricity will a very popular thing once commercial production begins later this year. See: E-CatWorld

Fantastic!  The E-Cat SKLed output is low voltage high current DC.  A good match.

A quick google search reveals that this scam even has it's own Wikipedia page, neat.

The Energy Catalyzer (also called E-Cat) is a claimed cold fusion reactor[1][2] devised by inventor Andrea Rossi[3] with support from the late physicist Sergio Focardi.[4][5] An Italian patent, which received a formal but not a technical examination, describes the apparatus as a "process and equipment to obtain exothermal reactions, in particular from nickel and hydrogen".[6] Rossi and Focardi said the device worked by infusing heated hydrogen into nickel powder, transmuting it into copper and producing excess heat.[7][8] An international patent application[1] received an unfavorable international preliminary report on patentability in 2011 because it was adjudged to "offend against the generally accepted laws of physics and established theories".[9]

The device has been the subject of demonstrations and tests several times, and commented on by various academics and others. No independent tests have ever been made, and no peer-reviewed tests of the device have ever been published. Steve Featherstone wrote in Popular Science that by the summer of 2012 Rossi's "outlandish claims" for the E-Cat seemed "thoroughly debunked".[10]

Transmuting nickel into copper?  So if we hook up some solar panels to this we can have some solar freakin' alchemy!! 
But why stop at copper, just make it produce gold or platinum and become a billionaire^squared.

On 28 October 2011 the unit was "customer tested" and was said to release 2,635 kWh during five and a half hours of self-sustained mode, an average power of 479 kilowatts – just under half the promised power of one megawatt. Independent observers were not allowed to watch the measurements or make their own, and the plant remained connected to a power supply during the test allegedly to supply power to the fans and the water pumps.[22][23][24]

Of course.

But more troublesome that the machine are the comments imo. It has been almost a decade since the machine was thoroughly debunked but people to this day still mention it. EDIT seems like Rossi has been pumping out scams as recent as 2019.
Where do they stumble upon this information? Surely they have to search for it, how many of you have heard of this "invention"? I doubt there will be many of us that know this since i searched the forums and didn't find any info about this.
And then there's the second quote: "The E-Cat SKLed output is low voltage high current DC.". It makes me wonder where do these people get this information? Are there some secluded free energy forums somewhere on the internet where these people congregate? Why is the output of this "E-Cat SKLed" low voltage and high current? The reactor "produces" an exothermal reaction so this device should work by spinning a turbine, just like nuclear reactors do right? I don't see why this would necessarily generate low voltage high current output.
But then again 5G nutjobs exist and they're confident in their nuttery enough to even burn cell towers. 

Sadly some people are not smart enough to see through these scams and make some bad investments.

In January 2014 a newly formed company, Industrial Heat LLC, announced that it had acquired rights to Rossi's E-Cat technology.[60][61][62] In April 2016, Rossi filed a lawsuit in the USA against Industrial Heat, alleging that he was not paid an $89 million licensing fee due after a one-year test period of an E-Cat unit. Industrial Heat's comment on the lawsuit was that after three years of effort they were unable to reproduce Rossi's E-Cat test results.[63][64][65][66] On 5 July 2017 the parties settled; the terms of the settlement were not released.[67][68]

And these bad investments apparently lead to even bigger problems.
"Bad “Cold Fusion” Investment Contributes to Woodford Fund Collapse"
https://news.newenergytimes.net/2019/06/07/bad-cold-fusion-investment-contributes-to-woodford-fund-collapse/

What do you guys think?

[gnuarm]

What is there to say?  I remember back in the early days of the internet when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I stumbled across a web page talking about a scammer who had an electric car he claimed could run on a 9V battery.  Seems he had such a good talk that he would show this car to a large audience, which means he talked for hours while the car sat, then he would drive the car one lap around a track and resume talking.  By the end the author of the web page was very interested, but could not get the guy to answer his questions.  Finally the guy got a couple of people remaining of the large audience to make "investments" in the project. 

Somewhere in this the guy figured out that the car was running on 9V batteries, thousands of them!  Seems they provided enough juice for a couple of track laps (I'm thinking it was a running track, not a driving track, so not a long distance) and then had to replace all the 9V batteries.  The guy would ask a motor shop to build a motor to his specs and worm his way into the shop only to start arguments and generally be a problem so the guy would get the boot without completing the motor or having to pay, but in the mean time it was a point of reference for investors to see the work in progress.

Rossi is very much like this guy, a total con artist.  It is so amazing he could find anyone to actually invest money in the project.  Rossi is big on promises and very short on delivery.  He manages to find scientists who will observe his demos without being able to actually tell what was happening.  I recall one experiment in particular where Rossi claimed to be producing X amount of heat by measuring the water being boiled away and assuming it was all steam.  But he would not allow anyone to examine the output to tell if the steam was "wet" meaning it has significant amounts of unevaporated water which would indicate much less energy. 

Yes, Rossi has been in jail in Italy and has been sued and has sued others.  He has never produced anything that can be verified to work after decades of this stuff.  What a piece of crap he is.

[FredZ777]

The phony "Doctor" Andrea Rossi's latest and greatest invention is not based on "LENR." His latest "Energy Catalyzer" scam is a "Magic Lamp" (the "E-Cat SKLed") that purportedly produces 2500 lumens/watt from "zero-point energy" (ZPE) and a magical LED. Details and even more laughs are available at ecat.com. I would sincerely appreciate any comments that members of the Electronics Community Forum may have on this earth-shattering invention, which is surely the greatest lighting invention in human history (with the possible exception of the controlled use of fire). The most efficient LEDs ever made produce about 200 lumens/watt; this preposterous "beauty" produces 2500 lumens/watt.
I would also appreciate any comments that any forum member may have regarding the safety certification of such a wacky device. The E-Cat SKLed plugs into a wall outlet and draws AC power, so I presume that UL or ETL/Intertek certification would be required for commercial sales in the USA. However, as far as I can tell, there is no approved safety standard for an LED driver that collects "zero-point energy." Any thoughts on how long it would take to have such a standard issued?
Anyone can order one of these truly miraculous devices, but "Doc" Rossi will only make them if he gets "one million orders." So I would encourage everyone on this forum to order as many as possible so that the world is not deprived of this marvel of human ingenuity.

[gnuarm]

I thought all this time Rossi was claiming his invention was powered by cold fusion nuclear reactions which we know is impossible.  I didn't realize it was actually powered by the zero point energy of the vacuum.  Hmmmm  (insert "thoughtful" emoji here)

Maybe we need to give ecat a second look?  Sure, Rossi is always good for a few laughs.

I think Rossi didn't check the trade name before he used it.  The people at https://www.skledtech.com/ may take issue with his choice.  I wrote them to ask if they would be making the SKLed for auto headlights.  I would encourage others to do the same.  Maybe the company will take action against Rossi.

[FredZ777]

Here is Rossi's insane confession that "cold fusion does not exist." From his rossilivecat.com blog:

Giovanni
August 22, 2019 at 9:41 AM
Dr Rossi,
Wpuld [sic] you consider your effect a form of “cold fusion”?
Giovanni

 Andrea Rossi
August 22, 2019 at 2:11 PM
Giovanni:
No. I arrived to think that cold fusion does not exist.

At this point of our theoretical and technological development, after 20 years of hard work, we think that cold fusion does not exist. I am sorry, but I feel us lightyears far from the LENR community, to which we, actually, never belonged. My effect depends on atom’s potentials that have nothing to do with cold fusion or LENR. This, by the way, is clearly put in evidence in my paper here: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/330601653 E-Cat SK anf [sic] long range particle interactions. One thing I must admit, though: my work initiated inspired by the idea of cold fusion launched by F&P and my former works started from that theory, but after tens of thousands of experiments and twenty years of study I changed idea. Like Christopher Columbus, who thought he had reached India, but eventually it has been discovered it was America. We reached important results and much more important we are close to reach with a technology that with cold fusion has nothing to do. As a matter of fact, we do not have any fusion.
Warm Regards,
A.R.                     

His new "zero-point energy" "technology" (i.e., scam) is purportedly explained in this two-year-old non-refereed preprint on ReseachGate (RG):  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330601653_E-Cat_SK_and_long-range_particle_interactions

Somehow this bizarre quantum physics preprint is supposed to explain how his Magic Lamp works, even though the preprint describes what seems to be a space heater.

This arcane preprint has over 63,000 Reads and 660 Recommendations on RG, so I'm somewhat surprised that everyone hasn't already read it. Unless of course, these stats are bogus, like everything else associated with "Doc" Rossi.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Haha, decades ago it was "eestor", this guy would go on these epic rants about capacitors in newsgroups. Very funny stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor

Seems like he got money out of it too.

[Domagoj T]

Seems like he got money out of it too.

And quite a bit of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN_Motor_Company

[Cyberdragon]

I think that these people are simply paid to mention E-Cat SKLed. It'd be crazy if some people believe in it for real.

There are people who think Earth is flat, you'd be surprised at the number of free energy nuts there are too.

[gnuarm]

I think that these people are simply paid to mention E-Cat SKLed. It'd be crazy if some people believe in it for real.

There are people who think Earth is flat, you'd be surprised at the number of free energy nuts there are too.

I know!  I remember a Kickstarter post for such a free energy device although they were careful to not make any real claims.  They just talked about free energy in general and posted a picture of a portable generator as an "illustration" of what it might look like.  They received thousands of dollars in donations in spite of not actually offering anything for sale other than t-shirts and key chains. 

Free energy, not really.  Free money, yeah, for sure!