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

[apis]

Well, at least the Duracell bunny was just as misleading, by comparing an alkaline Duracell battery against zinc-chloride batteries from other brands (in 2014!), and then giving the impression that it was outlasting 12 other batteries in sequence, when it wasn't even doing that: http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/advertising-watchdogs-silence-duracells-drumming-bunny/373910.article

There must be many versions of bunny commercials by now, haven't seen that one.

We considered the test data provided was not sufficient to demonstrate that the advertised product lasted longer than 12 leading zinc batteries consecutively used, in general usage, based on tests on a representative device. We therefore concluded that the ads were misleading.

That's how it's supposed to work. I wonder if there is something similar in the USA?

But it's not nearly as bad as the batteriser IMO. While misleading and the figure 12 might be BS it's still no secret that alkaline batteries last much longer than zinc cells (on average about 6x according to this old radioshack FAQ ). If you put two Duracell bunnies side by side, one with crap zinc battery and the other with Duracell ultra power with duralock , the duracell one will outlast the zinc one by many times (even if not twelve). So the duracell advertisement might have been exaggerated and misleading but not a butteriser level scam.

Batteriser claims they will extend batterylife up to 8x, while most likely it would drain the batteries faster in most cases, unless they have come up with some nobel prize winning new physics. We all know what would happen with two monkeys, one with a batteriser and one with normal battery: the one without the batteriser will last longer since the monkey is an unregulated resistive load. So the batteriser claim is completely nonsense. In most cases it will be detrimental: higher risk of leakage, breaks the low battery indicators, drains batteries faster, etc. etc... And I'm sure the inventors know this, either that or they are so incompetent they shouldn't even be teaching electronics at gradeschool; this is a tenured professor at a university who doesn't understand you should measure battery under load?

[Godzil]

One stupid question, but does a batterizer or equivalent on a single battery in a 2 or 4 battery product, won't it cause any problem?

I mean we always say to not mix battery of various ages/manufacturer on a single device, so if one battery always output 1.5 until it die completely, won't it be a problem?
Especially as some product may put the battery in parallel...

[Fungus]

One stupid question, but does a batterizer or equivalent on a single battery in a 2 or 4 battery product, won't it cause any problem?

Yes.

[apis]

If you put several independent boost converters in parallel or series, that would normally cause problem as well since the ripples superimpose so you'd get beat frequencies and varying amplitude and lots of other nasty problems.

[SL4P]

If you put several independent boost converters in parallel or series, that would normally cause problem as well since the ripples superimpose so you'd get beat frequencies and varying amplitude and lots of other nasty problems.

An interesting point... but irrelevant to them, as the Batteriser is a marketing smoke screen, buying time to prepare their micro-fusion AA reactor to replace conventional batteries.
"Certified Landfill-safe by a team of professors and highly skilled engineers."
What could go wrong?

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi,

Since the Batteriser only adds 0.1mm to the length of the battery, Can I use two or more batterisers?

With their math

1 x Batteriser will give a 8x improvement

Therefore two will give

8² or 64x improvement

Soon I will never need to buy a battery again !!!

Jay

[LabSpokane]

Hi,

Since the Batteriser only adds 0.1mm to the length of the battery, Can I use two or more batterisers?

They say the material is 0.1mm thick, but I haven't seen the claim that they only add 0.1mm to the cell's overall length. 

[Ampere]

Does anyone else think that the Batteriser and Solar Roadways folks should join forces?

The roadways would generate power and the Batterisers could amplify the power 800%, enough to power entire cities. It could be the most profitable crowd funding campaign in history.

[Fungus]

Does anyone else think that the Batteriser and Solar Roadways folks should join forces?

The roadways would generate power and the Batterisers could amplify the power 800%, enough to power entire cities. It could be the most profitable crowd funding campaign in history.

I'm imagining some guys using a crane to clip a huge batterizer to each road segment as they install them.

[SL4P]

I'm imagining some guys using a crane to clip a huge batterizer to each road segment as they install them.

Let's put an alternate proposal together... A roadway comprising many  small diameter rollers laid across the lanes - each driving a small generator...
Edited: Stupid tablet spell-checker!)
Each roller is constrained to turn a fraction of a degree with each new application of rotational force in order to permit the vehicle to move forward.

Tie all the small generators together to generate what effectively is a half-wave DC waveform...

[TheAmmoniacal]

I still can't quite understand the purpose of the crowdfunding campaign, with the qualifications and work experience of the Roohparvar brothers they wouldn't have any problems whatsoever getting millions out of investors and venture capitalists! Is it publicity? Is it because the money are uninsured? (I suspect they can't just run away with investor money?)

[LabSpokane]

I still can't quite understand the purpose of the crowdfunding campaign, with the qualifications and work experience of the Roohparvar brothers they wouldn't have any problems whatsoever getting millions out of investors and venture capitalists! Is it publicity? Is it because the money are uninsured? (I suspect they can't just run away with investor money?)

Several reasons:
- SK puts in money plus services *valued* up to $1M. That can leave a funding gap to get to production.
-The need to show retail partners that consumers will actually buy the product
- Advertsing buzz

[EEVblog]

- SK puts in money plus services *valued* up to $1M. That can leave a funding gap to get to production.
-The need to show retail partners that consumers will actually buy the product
- Advertsing buzz

All of this.
Plus SK will be looking to flip the company for a profit to another company up the food chain, and crowd funding campaigns like this are kinda expected these days.
They would be completely bummed at only getting $275K or so, but enough to show it's got some traction.

[nessatse]

New video

[Godzil]

He is in more than 500 patents?

Oh my IPU!

You are on 500+ patents only because you where CEO (and not an EE or whatever) in a company where the Policy was to put the name of the CEO on every patent issued. You NEVER do any of the Out of the Box thinking, you are definitely not that type of person. You are just the normal type of CEO that say "Yay I was working in this wonderful company that generated billions of $$$" and forget all of the one you killed, and the one that worked, most of the time you where just put there by some management board in a company that was already exinsting, and when the company start to goes bad, you just disappear instantly.

I know that type of guy, I meet one, that was my CEO at some point and when the company started to goes bad he leave pretty quickly "because he had better opportunity elsewhere"....

I don't even want to see the rest of the video just the first 2 minutes disgust me.

[firewalker]

WHAT? 46 minutes technical video and no batteriser? WTF? Just put in the damn thing a used battery and show us numbers...

Alexander.

[AmmoJammo]

WHAT? 46 minutes technical video and no batteriser? WTF? Just put in the damn thing a used battery and show as numbers...

Alexander.

I'm pretty sure he just said that you don't take the area under the graph in a battery discharge plot, you have to take the whole area, above and below the graph? :/

[firewalker]

And the continue to say that the GPS unit failed when the screen dimmed...

Alexander.

[AmmoJammo]

I'm confused about snails.... 

I got the answer, I just have no idea how he thinks this relates to batteries... 

[AmmoJammo]

"area under the curve"

and then he highlights the whole graph, below, and above the curve.... so confuse?!

[apis]

Their only point in this 46 minutes long video is that if there is a current spike the voltage can dip below the cut-off voltage suddenly. They claim that the Garmin GPS detects that and shut down prematurely.

(Yeah I don't get what he was trying to say about the area under the curve? Since it's constant current power is proportional to voltage and thus energy is the time integral of the voltage curve?  )

[AmmoJammo]

Their only point in this 46 minutes long video is that if there is a current spike the voltage can dip below the cut-off voltage suddenly. They claim that the Garmin GPS detects that and shut down prematurely.

so stick a capacitor in it? problem solved!

wait, I think we already discussed this... lol

[apis]

Yeah? 

Seems the whole point of the batteriser is to fool the devices battery level indicator so people don't change batteries to prematurely.

The unrealistic test situation aside, did the garmin gps really shut down or did it only display a low battery message?

(And btw, issuing patents is not hard, it just cost a lot of money.)

[AmmoJammo]

Yeah? 

Seems the whole point of the batteriser is to fool the devices battery level indicator so people don't change batteries to prematurely.

The unrealistic test situation aside, did the garmin gps really shut down or did it only display a low battery message?

(And btw, issuing patents is not hard, it just cost a lot of money.)

as far as we can all tell, it didn't shut down at all, it just displayed a message suggesting you use rechargeable batteries.

they never posted a log of the battery voltage, so I doubt it ever got down to 1.1volts, even for a fraction of a second.

edit: their new video also seems to be claiming that the gps draws 200 to ~660ma on peaks, which is when it shut down.... even though their previous video showed it using 125 to ~320ma when it shut down... 

[Orips]

OMG there are so many things wrong in that video I don't know where to start!

Re. the Garmin testing this is what I think is happening - the Garmin is doing exactly what it has been designed to do - monitor the battery voltage and dim the backlight and display the message when it reaches a particular level. I think the spike they are seeing is the current drawn when the display is updated with the message. Either by the micro or display. The 2.25V (1.1v/cell) they are measuring on the scope is purely a coincidence and is NOT the shutdown voltage of the device!

The Garmin would almost certainly have a boost converter so the voltage spikes they are seeing would have absolutely no effect on the unit. They would see the same spikes if they measured across the battery inside the Batteriser. If they could measure after the Garmins boost converter (like they are on the batteriser) there will be no spikes.

The Batteriser is also interfering with the Garmins firmware design by not allowing it to measure battery voltage and use its current minimising features like reducing backlight brightness etc. to extend operation.