EEVblog #751 - How To Debunk A Product (The Batteriser)

[Smokey]

Nice.  Good catch.  They didn't color the reflection.  GG.

[LabSpokane]

The military?

They've been using the "military" angle for about six months now.

Maybe it's just a sales angle aimed at patriotic crowdfunders. I can't imagine the military wouldn't test their "800%" claims - it's not like it's a difficult test to do.

Apparently the military doesn't test anything. Anyone who remembers the dowsing rod with no electronics at all in it for bomb detection? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22380368 . At least the Batteriser might have a positive effect for some rare applications, if they don't ship just the sleeves without electronics.

Yes, and IIRC that individual was sent to prison.

And it was the *Iraqi* military that did no testing because of a cultural aversion to dogs for bomb sniffing. . Western forces were outraged at the use of a divining rod for bomb detection.

[rich]

It is a colorized picture of an old sleeve design to make it look like the latest model:

Good find. Even that hi-res original has a breathtaking reflection which needs a 'Warning: Proximity to Batteriser may change the laws of physics' caption.

[Brumby]

I'll go for May 5th.

Seems there is a sympathetic 'vibe' with one of the well known amendments to a particular constitution.

I don't think they will anounce a specific date.
They haven't said a specivic date once and I don't think they will start doing it now.

The dates are not ones we expect them to announce (that's just not in their DNA) - they are dates on which we are postulating something might happen.  **

BTW - nobody is holding their breath.....




** Yes, it's getting that boring.

[Nerull]

It's not that the US military might buy things without testing them, it's that they might test them and then buy them anyway.

An article in The Dallas Morning News in April 2007 explained that Sniffex is a divining rod and states that "In a test by the U.S. Navy, Sniffex didn't register when two trucks passed within 20 feet, hauling a half ton of explosives." The Navy's counterterrorism technology task force tested Sniffex and concluded "The Sniffex handheld explosives detector does not work." Despite this, the US military bought eight for $50,000

There was a whole cottage industry of these fake bomb detectors. The one sold to the Iraqi military is the most well known, but the good ol' US Army got bit by another, *after* determining they didn't work.

[ccs46]

I'll go for May 5th.

Seems there is a sympathetic 'vibe' with one of the well known amendments to a particular constitution.

May the 4th. That way we could settle our differences with toy light sabers that will allow us to fight for 800% longer! 

[Brumby]

I'll go for May 5th.

Seems there is a sympathetic 'vibe' with one of the well known amendments to a particular constitution.

May the 4th. That way we could settle our differences with toy light sabers that will allow us to fight for 800% longer! 

You're on!

[rrinker]

 With the whole Energizer thing hanging over Batteriser - is that wise? Given that Energizer did this 5 years ago:

[FrankBuss]

An article in The Dallas Morning News in April 2007 explained that Sniffex is a divining rod and states that "In a test by the U.S. Navy, Sniffex didn't register when two trucks passed within 20 feet, hauling a half ton of explosives." The Navy's counterterrorism technology task force tested Sniffex and concluded "The Sniffex handheld explosives detector does not work." Despite this, the US military bought eight for $50,000

There was a whole cottage industry of these fake bomb detectors. The one sold to the Iraqi military is the most well known, but the good ol' US Army got bit by another, *after* determining they didn't work.

This is the original article. How it works: "The Sniffex detector, invented in Bulgaria, is supposed to work by detecting the interference between the magnetic field of the earth, the explosive, the device itself and the human body. When it does, an antenna should rotate in the direction of the explosives.". So a divining rod. They sold more than 800 devices "outside the U.S., including to government agencies in Estonia, Turkey, Russia and the Middle East, Mr. Johnson said.". Scary that there are so many dumb or corrupt or both people out there, responsible for protecting the life of their people. So Battteriser has a good chance that the military buys it 

[Johannsen]

Soon they will announce a date and then it will take another one or two month to deliver....

[Brumby]

... to deliver what, exactly?

In order of decreasing probability:

1. Nothing
2. Another uninformative message
3. Another promise
4. Photos
...
...
73. A Batteriser

[Halcyon]

Scary that there are so many dumb or corrupt or both people out there, responsible for protecting the life of their people. So Battteriser has a good chance that the military buys it 

North Korean military perhaps? They could increase their strength 800% !

[SL4P]

Scary that there are so many dumb or corrupt or both people out there, responsible for protecting the life of their people. So Battteriser has a good chance that the military buys it 

North Korean military perhaps? They could increase their strength 800% !

They don't need it.
The Great Leader can beat Chuck Norris 800 times in his sleep.

[AmmoJammo]

Umm, they don't have an IC yet... 

[WN1X]

Umm, they don't have an IC yet... 

They must think their customers are stupid...oh, wait...

[Godzil]

I've saw this article the other day: http://www.popsci.com/researchers-accidentally-make-batteries-last-400-times-longer

And now think about adding a betteriszer with this invention!!!

800 * 400 == 320000%^* more battery life! Isn't that incredible?



^*Math are done accordingly to BTR scientific standards

[grumpydoc]

I've saw this article the other day: http://www.popsci.com/researchers-accidentally-make-batteries-last-400-times-longer

And now think about adding a betteriszer with this invention!!!

800 * 400 == 320000%^* more battery life! Isn't that incredible?

^*Math are done accordingly to BTR scientific standards

Hang on the article says "The Irvine team's system cycled through 200,000 recharges without significant corrosion or decline"

They don't say how long the charge/discharge cycle is taking but let's assume 1 hour - that's 8333 days or 22 years if you do it continuously. Something doesn't add up.

Does anyone know what is going on?

[chris_leyson]

It's tiny so it would cycle quite fast, http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-battery-you-never-have-to-replace.
I also read somewhere that it is not even a true battery yet as it has two cathodes and no anode yet

[lpickup]

They don't say how long the charge/discharge cycle is taking but let's assume 1 hour - that's 8333 days or 22 years if you do it continuously. Something doesn't add up.

Does anyone know what is going on?

Yes, battery engineers know what is going on.  Others--including myself--probably don't understand the prototype test systems used to test charge/discharge cycles in an accelerated fashion.  The article itself mentions that the system is not an actual battery but some kind of jig specifically used to test the corrosion effects specifically.   They said one of the next steps would be to build a more complete battery system to test their components in a more complete implementation.

One thing I can comment on is simulating accelerated lifetimes of semiconductors by using techniques such as elevated temperatures and voltages.  Basically you create a model of how lifetime is accelerated by elevating voltage/temperature and then you can use that model to simulate the effects of long lifetimes without ACTUALLY spending that amount of time.  It's not perfect of course, but is reasonably accurate.  While I don't think the team in this case did exactly that, there are probably other lifetime acceleration techniques they performed.  I would definitely not assume they ACTUALLY spent an hour on each charge/discharge cycle.

[amspire]

They don't say how long the charge/discharge cycle is taking but let's assume 1 hour - that's 8333 days or 22 years if you do it continuously. Something doesn't add up.

Does anyone know what is going on?

I do not know, but a lot of experimental battery testing is done with button-sized batteries. They might be talking about a discharge-charge cycle as short as 1 minute but a capacity of only 10 uW.hours. It may be enough to test the concept, but a very long way from a useful battery.

[ArdRhi]

Biologists have a similar process. They test things that might affect DNA on fruit flies instead of other organisms with long life cycles. Fruit flies have life cycles on the scale of hours, so you can cram a LOT of generations in a few weeks/months. That lets you test something that might take decades or even centuries with other, longer-lived organisms, or millennia/eons with humans. The application might be different, but the concept still gets effectively and scientifically tested.

[grumpydoc]

Fruit flies have life cycles on the order of a couple of weeks but the idea is right - you can cram quite a lot of life cycles into a relatively short time. Nematodes can have shorter life cycles - maybe a few days.

I actually thought that they had been doing some modelling with lower numbers of cycles. E.g cycle 1000 times, note 0.25% loss of capacity - extrapolate to 50% loss after 200,000 cycles, that sort of thing.
 

[FrankBuss]

In case someone didn't read the Facebook entry from yesterday and their recent answer of a question, that the UL test proves that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management needs only 170,000 batteries instead of 850,000 with the Batteriser. Hilarious as always:



Isn't this against the UL lab rules that they are not allowed to use the UL name, except when citing the full report?

PS: this is fun, how can I follow the Facebook page without clicking "like"?

PPS: the original article about the 850,000 batteries: http://nwnewsnetwork.org/post/amazoncom-wildland-firefighting-keeping-crews-fed-and-supplied

[Godzil]

One thing that does not fit, all the radio system I know, even old one (early 2000) use Li-Ion/Li-Po battery and not D/C/A/AA/AAA/AAAAAAAAA batteries so...

[lpickup]

Hey, I didn't know the Forest Service used Golf GPS units to fight fires!  You learn something new every day!