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

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi,

The datasheet for the Energizer Ultimate Lithium Battery can be found here:

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/l91.pdf

It looks pretty solid.

Jay_Diddy_B

[Robyn]

Whenever I get the chance to test a product's cut out voltage I do now, and I have only found one which a small chance that a Batteriser could improve the usability. But that's clearly due to a bad design decision.

I think I have one, a Logitech "Anywhere Mouse MX".

I have  an expensive Sony radio with the same problem, it only works well with full batteries. When the voltage drops, noise gets very loud. With NiMh you can use it listen to strong fm signals, but listen  ssb in SW its to much noise to understand something. I'm not sure if the batteriser could help here, perhaps it makes to much noise itself.

 At other devices, like mechanic cameras, I see a problem, that voltage shut down to fast to give the device time enough to go in a safety position.

[Fungus]

Seeing all these crap products makes me mad, but mostly sad... Sad that for every Batteriser that you expose for bring a scam, you have 10x more types of garbage products out there that continue. It is an impossible task to challenge them all, and even if you did, people would still buy them and swindlers will continue to make a living.

I think this what really caught the Batteriser Brothers by surprise - that anybody would actually question what they were doing.

I mean: They actually did some engineering compared to those other guys (sure, the math doesn't work but Batteriser is actually pretty good from a design/engineering viewpoint).

[Joule Thief]

Brainriser! Improve your brain by 800000%

Just put this specially engineered tinfoil hat with custom innovating technology. Your mind will be nearly limitless!

Buy one by just 80K US at Brainriser.com

[Fungus]

Remote for LG TV (2AA): This remote is badly designed IMO, the capacitor inside is too small and it takes high current spikes.
The µCurrent revealed it Voltage under load (a spike) 1.6-1.7V while the batteries had 2.33V when idle.

I wonder if a simple clip-on capacitor might actually be more useful than a batteriser? It would smooth out all those current spikes and keep the internal chemistry more stable.

The battery life extension from capacitors is very real in coin cells: http://www.ti.com/lit/wp/swra349/swra349.pdf

[timofonic]

Frankie Roohparvar's initial brainstorm:
Do all EE Engineers draw ellipses like an 8-year old would? 
Is this what 'Big Battery and the break-in' was about? 

Voltage regultor block VR1?

WTF???!!!!!

[Fungus]

Voltage regultor block VR1?

WTF???!!!!!

Yep. Batteriser voltage output is regulated (to 1.5V).

[bktemp]

I wonder if a simple clip-on capacitor might actually be more useful than a batteriser? It would smooth out all those current spikes and keep the internal chemistry more stable.

Unfortunately, this only works for short pulses. Otherwise the caps get too big to fit into modern devices.
There are even capacitors designed exactly for this purpose:
http://www.avx.com/docs/catalogs/bestcap.pdf

Did anybody try to simulate the the Batteriser mechanically by adding a small disk with 0.5mm thickness on top of a battery and insert this into some devices to see if it still fits?

[AmmoJammo]

Voltage regultor block VR1?

WTF???!!!!!

Yep. Batteriser voltage output is regulated (to 1.5V).

"regultor"

[wraper]

Remote for LG TV (2AA): This remote is badly designed IMO, the capacitor inside is too small and it takes high current spikes.
The µCurrent revealed it Voltage under load (a spike) 1.6-1.7V while the batteries had 2.33V when idle.

I wonder if a simple clip-on capacitor might actually be more useful than a batteriser? It would smooth out all those current spikes and keep the internal chemistry more stable.

The battery life extension from capacitors is very real in coin cells: http://www.ti.com/lit/wp/swra349/swra349.pdf

2.33 V while not loaded batteries are almost empty. Also, of course there will be high current spikes as this is how IR remotes behave in general. Short pulses of up to few hundred mA through the IR LED(s). Usually capacitor inside of the remotes is in the region of 22-100uF.

[jippie]

Voltage regultor block VR1?

WTF???!!!!!

You know that dyslexia is a pretty common thing? It doesn't say anything about how smart you are. Some of the great minds were dyslectic. So can we please stop throwing mud at simple spelling mistakes?

[EEVblog]

I think this what really caught the Batteriser Brothers by surprise - that anybody would actually question what they were doing.
I mean: They actually did some engineering compared to those other guys (sure, the math doesn't work but Batteriser is actually pretty good from a design/engineering viewpoint).

My guess is it actually started out as a good idea, and then they simply got too invested in the idea, and more importantly, the idea of turning it into a patent/startup business, solving the packaging problem etc, than bothering (or simply not knowing how to?) to do the basic engineering and look to see if the basic premise was viable.
Just look at the amount of things that they have gotten wrong and have had to backtrack on. It's a long list of embarrassing oversights from their patent onwards that would have been fleshed out at the first prototype stage should they have done the required testing.
It seems fairly clear they only cared about the (otherwise excellent) packaging part.

[edy]

Just look at the amount of things that they have gotten wrong and have had to backtrack on. It's a long list of embarrassing oversights from their patent onwards that would have been fleshed out at the first prototype stage should they have done the required testing.
It seems fairly clear they only cared about the (otherwise excellent) packaging part.

My guess is the marketing got ahead of them and the tail started wagging the dog. Then dollar signs got in the way of their eyes, and rather being surrounded by independent engineers to return them to reality, they were surrounded by "Yes" men and non-technical people who just ran with the idea and blew it up into this product for every situation that does amazingly too good (8x no less, or is it 5x, or 4x, or 1.8x which is 80% more)?

 I mean, you couldn't well market a product with the slogan "run your device at full performance for half the time, in those cases where you need your back light or toy motor run at full power, and can't tolerate anything less". Just doesn't have the same marketing ring to it.

[AndyC_772]

It seems fairly clear they only cared about the (otherwise excellent) packaging part.

Have I missed where it states the maximum current which the Batteriser can supply?

Ridiculous claims about capacity aside, I'll be genuinely impressed if they can actually squeeze a working dc-dc converter into approximately zero thickness. The only company I know that can actually do that is Enpirion, now part of Altera.

(For what it's worth, I've had over 10A out of a AA battery, albeit briefly, during fault condition testing. I wonder which dies first if a battery is installed in a device backwards; the battery itself, or the Batteriser?)

[adprom]

I think this what really caught the Batteriser Brothers by surprise - that anybody would actually question what they were doing.

I mean: They actually did some engineering compared to those other guys (sure, the math doesn't work but Batteriser is actually pretty good from a design/engineering viewpoint).

First post on eevblog for me but I have been following the batteriser issue for a while (as well as watching eevblog vids). These are marketing capaigns designed to suck in as many people before release as possible. It sounds like they didn't bank on criticism or doubts coming before release which has really thrown them.

This appears to be a project managed hype excercise designed to get as many preorders through indiegogo as possible. As long as you don't release a product for people to test and trade on hype, you can suck in more people without ever being questioned...

Until dave bought attention to it of course...

P.S. The other thing I actually doubt is whether the number of funders is legit and whether it is real money. I have a funny feeling that indiegogo and a number of other crowdfunding platforms are susceptible to the equivalent of "bought likes" in terms of funders. It just adds to the hype.

As for the hand drawing - just more of the marketing con. In a real marketing campaign you would never have handwritten concepts because you have a real product that performs against some claim. In this case, the reverse tactic is being used in an attempt to generate authenticity so people look and think - "oh there is the genius at work on the back of a beer coaster drawing - it must be legit". Otherwise it is all too obvious that there nothing more to this than a slick (or not so slick) marketing campaign.

I am genuinely surprised how shallow the marketing campaign has been The smallest crack bought out the abuse on youtube, batteriser batteroo/"fan" accounts etc. They really didn't expect to have anything questioned before release.

[adprom]

My guess is it actually started out as a good idea, and then they simply got too invested in the idea, and more importantly, the idea of turning it into a patent/startup business, solving the packaging problem etc, than bothering (or simply not knowing how to?) to do the basic engineering and look to see if the basic premise was viable.
Just look at the amount of things that they have gotten wrong and have had to backtrack on. It's a long list of embarrassing oversights from their patent onwards that would have been fleshed out at the first prototype stage should they have done the required testing.

I considered this - but the sleeve as it has photos of seems like a fair bit of effort has gone into it to miniaturise  and make it look nice (of course we don't know without a real product to feel). My first guess was that they were called out and simply got it wrong and are trying to stick with it. In fact, they may still believe the claims.

However, with the behaviour since and how the crowdfunding has been setup - I suspect they knew well before getting to the crowdfunding stage that the claims are BS. They have chosen to go with it anyway. The marketing has been too carefully designed to omit certain facts.

[timofonic]

Voltage regultor block VR1?

WTF???!!!!!

You know that dyslexia is a pretty common thing? It doesn't say anything about how smart you are. Some of the great minds were dyslectic. So can we please stop throwing mud at simple spelling mistakes?

Yes, I know it. I know many engineers that are diagnosed dyslexia or have horrible mistakes at writing, probably undiagnosed ones.

But if I were aware of my disorder, I would find someone to proofread my stuff. And specially if I need to show my work to others.

These days there are effective therapies to reduce the dyslexia symptoms, not sure if it can be totally fixed but at least improved a lot.

I have a friend that is industrial engineer that has dyslexia, so he does most of his stuff at the computer and uses a spell checking software to write. He even learned five languages and is fluent at three of them.

[Fungus]

It seems fairly clear they only cared about the (otherwise excellent) packaging part.

Have I missed where it states the maximum current which the Batteriser can supply?

Apparently so!

It's in the Batteriser FAQ, on their web page.

Ridiculous claims about capacity aside, I'll be genuinely impressed if they can actually squeeze a working dc-dc converter into approximately zero thickness.

I had doubts about that, too, but there really are off-the-shelf components that can do it:

eg. 2mm x 2mm x 0.5mm DC booster:

http://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/ADP1607.pdf

Matching 2mm x 1.6mm x 1mm inductor:

http://product.tdk.com/en/catalog/datasheets/inductor_commercial_power_mlp2016_en.pdf

[apis]

At the end of the day, Caveat Emptor is an individual's own responsibility.
But it's great that people like Dave try to give fair warning...

I don't get this defeatist attitude.

If I buy a package of milk at a store I shouldn't have to worry about whether there actually is milk in it or not. If I buy a 12 MPixel camera there should be at least 12 million pixels on the sensor. If I buy a battery labeld as 12 Ah, there should be at least 12 Ah in it when new. If I buy a gadget claiming to extend battery life and save the environment, then it better extend battery life and save the environment.

Makes me think about the Chinese company that added melamine to milk powder a couple of years ago, lots of people died. ( http://www.who.int/csr/media/faq/QAmelamine/en/ )

Batteriser might be small fry, but it's definitely not only up to the individual to ensure the claims a seller make are true.

[Fungus]

If such a 'successful' team, one of them holding 500 patents, needs a $30,000 kick starter founding for a product worth $2,50 in retail, you know exactly what’s going on.

FTFY.

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Have I missed where it states the maximum current which the Batteriser can supply?

To the best of my knowledge no claims have been made about how much current the Batteriser can supply.

The Garmin GPS that has been mentioned in the testing needs around 150-200mA based on the run time that forum member 5ky measured.

A digital camera running from 2x AA cells would need a peak current of around 1A. The 1A current has been measured in some of the Batteriser videos, but there has never been a demonstration of a digital camera running from AA with the Batteriser. Since the majority of Digital cameras use rechargeable Li-ion this is a mute point.

A survey of available ICs for this job suggests that 500mA may be possible. The switches in the IC would be handling twice about twice the output current. The space limitations also limit the inductor to about 2A. The inductor needs to be around 2uH.

Other people have suggested that the IC is the Analog Devices ADP1607.

Here is the published efficiency curve from the ADI datasheet:



It would have difficulty doing 500mA even from a 1.2V source.

There are two reasons that this is likely to be the chip that was used on the prototype:

1) This part has a minimum output voltage of 1.8V The chip needs the output voltage to operate itself after start up. The 1.8V has been mention in the Batteriser videos.

2) The part will fit a picture of a board layout shown in the Batteriser campaign.



The inductor that was used by ADI to get the datasheet graphs is too large for the space at the end of an AA cell.





Sooner or later you run into the maximum power theorem. Given the ESR of an AA battery is around 0.2 Ohms, maximum power would be delivered into a 0.2 Ohm load.

The maximum power would be:

(V_oc/2)² / 0.2 = 2.5W which is about 2W into the load given the estimated boost converter efficiency around 80%.

There will be proportional problems for different size cells.

Regards,

Jay_Diddy_B

[Psycho]

Have I missed where it states the maximum current which the Batteriser can supply?

Batteriser FAQ

No, the Batteriser sleeve is designed to deliver as much current as a battery is able to supply to the device.

 

[Howardlong]

If such a 'successful' team, one of them holding 500 patents, needs a $30,000 kick starter founding for a product worth $2,50 in retail, you know exactly what’s going on.

FTFY.

...precisely, and that figure won't fund the salaries and expenses of their board for anywhere near a month, let alone fund any development, testing, certification, tooling etc.

Well, now they have VC interest on the board, it might cover a few boozy lunches and rounds of golf I suppose. Just shows how broken the VC industry is, his sum total of due diligence before accepting the appointment must've been, er, approximately zero.

[TheAmmoniacal]

They have stated that the Batteriser can supply as much current as the battery can deliver (i.e. it won't ever be an issue). Which means it can do ~10 A, that's what my varta batteries read when I short them with my DMM.

[firewalker]

As I said before. Me senses tell they were aiming for the million target.

Alexander.