Jeff writes:

No, you're simply showing that you actually have no real training or
experience in engineering.

Let's leave it at that, as evidence of your perspicacity.

actually, if anyone is interested, i did get replies from not only tom
henderson @ the company but also a guy named alex with an installed
tropikool system currently in panama. he is actually heading around
the world and has a web site and some sort of arrangement with pbs.
rather personable and the web site is worth a look-see.

i've posted the email posts and replies on the following link.

http://www.shyding.blogspot.com

steve scheiding

steve writes:

http://www.shyding.blogspot.com

Interesting. Nice quacky responses, all the way from vague to incredible.
Read that "25 year" claim carefully, and see if you can spot the
backhandedness that makes it meaningless, the antithesis of a direct,
engineering type of answer.

You should ask Henderson how many BTUs (or the metric equivalent) you get
pumped for your amp-hours of "current".

steve writes:

http://www.shyding.blogspot.com

And you ask him for a testimonial, and he brags about having tons of
customers, but then he can only point you to someone incommunicado on a
boat out at sea.

Richard J Kinch wrote:

engineering type of answer.

well, you know, kinch, he isn't actually talking to an engineer. what
say you email him and politely ask him, one engineer to another, what
the btu per amp ratio is?

let us know what the response is.

steve

Richard J Kinch wrote:
steve writes:

http://www.shyding.blogspot.com

And you ask him for a testimonial, and he brags about having tons of
customers, but then he can only point you to someone incommunicado on a
boat out at sea.

Geez, you're a real peach! alex isn't exactly incommunicado. he has a
constantly updated web page with photo documentation of his actual
progress plus his endeavor is linked to the public broadcasting service
(probably some sort of support in return for some amount of
journalism). email's were returned promptly with the information
requested (in laymans terms. i can see where this would bother you).

i guess what it boils down to is that i am just exploring an
interesting system that i have come across unlike you who seems to be
on some sort of crusade.

best of luck to ya

steve

Richard J Kinch wrote:

Jeff writes:


But the spec sheet says "Average current consumption for 12 VDC
systems over 24-hour period." This is the number of interest to most
boaters, and the proper measure is Amp-Hours.



No it isn't. Current is measured in amps. Amp-hours are not a
measure of current. Nothing could be simpler, and nothing more can
really be debated about it. This is not an oversight, it shows the
author is a fraud or a fool.

Yes current is measured in amps. But to be useful you need another
measurement, time. That gives amp hours. Battery capacity is rated in
amp hours, usually at a 20 amp rate. If I want to know what size
batteries I need to supply my house load I measure the current used by
each device, i.e. lights, fans, reffer, etc and determine the
approximate time used by each device and compute total amp hours load
over a 12 or 24 hour period. Multiply the amp hour load by two and use
that size battery. So while you are correct that the measurement of
current is amps, if a manufacturer list a spec of 54 amp hours usage
in 24 hours it tells me a lot more than just 4 amps compressor draw.
krj

Ya know, this thread keeps gettin sillier and sillier. Amp-hours, if
anyone cares to look it up instead of just flappin, is a measurement of
current. And I defy anyone, including Mr. Kinch, to find a way for
current to flow without time. If current was without time, it could not
possibly *be* current. It would then be reduced to "...potential for
current to flow, which when flowing would be measured in amp-hours..."
Current is a verb, it defines an action. Without the action, there's no
flow. Without the flow there's no "amps", which is always measured
against a unit of time - the convention being hours (notice I said
'convention'- you could use any time measurement, days, U-seconds,
etc.). It cannot be measured without time - ever. Therefore, "amps" by
itself, does not describe anything. You could say there is a measurement
of an *instantaneous current* but that would still be just a snapshot of
the presently measured current-against-time. Amp-hours is and has been
the correct term because a "1 amp" device is defined by convention as a
device that passes a current of 1 amp during the course of an hour. The
term "1 amp" is simply a contraction for "device that passes 1 amp of
current during the period of one hour" Now, isn't that a mouthful?
Jeesh! The engineers and tech's of old used to actually *say*
"amp-hours" when describing current, and all my old electronics
textbooks use that term exclusively.

So if Mr. Kinch wants to call all my electronics professors frauds or
fools, so be it. But then I'll challenge him to come over and put his
instruments where his mouth is and show us all how he manages to measure
"amps" without time for the electrons to flow.

Or was that holes flowing... hmmm...

Sailaway wrote:
....

Ya know, this thread keeps gettin sillier and sillier. Amp-hours, if
anyone cares to look it up instead of just flappin, is a measurement of
current. And I defy anyone, including Mr. Kinch, to find a way for
current to flow without time. If current was without time, it could not
possibly *be* current. It would then be reduced to "...potential for
current to flow, which when flowing would be measured in amp-hours..."
Current is a verb, it defines an action. Without the action, there's no
flow. Without the flow there's no "amps", which is always measured
against a unit of time - the convention being hours (notice I said
'convention'- you could use any time measurement, days, U-seconds,
etc.). It cannot be measured without time - ever. Therefore, "amps" by
itself, does not describe anything. You could say there is a measurement
of an *instantaneous current* but that would still be just a snapshot of
the presently measured current-against-time. Amp-hours is and has been
the correct term because a "1 amp" device is defined by convention as a
device that passes a current of 1 amp during the course of an hour. The
term "1 amp" is simply a contraction for "device that passes 1 amp of
current during the period of one hour" Now, isn't that a mouthful?
Jeesh! The engineers and tech's of old used to actually *say*
"amp-hours" when describing current, and all my old electronics
textbooks use that term exclusively.

Sorry, I don'[t think you have it quite right. "Current" is an
instantaneous rate of charge flow. Although formally defined in terms
of forces in wires, it is better understood as a change in charge, as
in coulombs/second. Since Coulombs can be thought of as a number of
electrons (6.24E+18), Amps are "electrons per second" ignoring the
constant factor. Amps-hours thus represent a number of electrons.
However, the spec sheet said "Average current consumption for 12 VDC
systems over 24-hour period" which is "Amp-hours/day" - for some
reason Kinch keeps ignoring this even though is is clearly stated.
This is measure of charge flow, simply scaled up by 24 from amperes.


So if Mr. Kinch wants to call all my electronics professors frauds or
fools, so be it. But then I'll challenge him to come over and put his
instruments where his mouth is and show us all how he manages to measure
"amps" without time for the electrons to flow.

Measuring something is different from stating its instantaneous
property. Velocity is stated for a moment in time, but is real hard
to measure without considering a change in position over time, or by
using some other technique that considers time.



Or was that holes flowing... hmmm...

Hmmm. I actually find the following explanation a pretty good
description of the principle, if we assume the reader knows the
Stirling cycle. I cannot comment on the suitability of CO2 in the
secondary circuit, but it seems clear that the primary circuit is a
Sirling engine with helium as a working medium, and that the CO2 is
used to transport heat from the refigerated area to the Stirling
engine.

http://www.avxcel.com/free_piston_stirling_cooler.html
http://www.avxcel.com/heat_rejection.html
http://www.avxcel.com/marine_refrigeration.html


"RJK" == Richard J Kinch writes:

RJK Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen writes:

If you look closer at the technology you will find that the working
fluid is helium.

RJK That's rather obscurely and incompletely explained on the Web site, being
RJK that purveyors of perpetual motion cannot, of necessity, be too specific
RJK about how it is achieved.

RJK But if you're correct about the helium and Stirling, then so much the more
RJK is this made not credible.
RJK --

C++: The power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade.

Jeff said:
Sorry, I don'[t think you have it quite right. "Current" is an
instantaneous rate of charge flow. Although formally defined in terms
of forces in wires, it is better understood as a change in charge, as
in coulombs/second. Since Coulombs can be thought of as a number of
electrons (6.24E+18), Amps are "electrons per second" ignoring the
constant factor. Amps-hours thus represent a number of electrons.
However, the spec sheet said "Average current consumption for 12 VDC
systems over 24-hour period" which is "Amp-hours/day" - for some
reason Kinch keeps ignoring this even though is is clearly stated. This
is measure of charge flow, simply scaled up by 24 from amperes.

snip


Measuring something is different from stating its instantaneous
property. Velocity is stated for a moment in time, but is real hard
to measure without considering a change in position over time, or by
using some other technique that considers time.


You've said (pretty obliquely) some of the same thing ("electrons per
second"), and I agree with your statement about measurement being
different than describing an instantaneous property.
Current is flow. Flow is not stagnant. Flow cannot be anything else
but flow. For flow to happen in this case, electrons have to move. When
they move, it is called "current". Think of a river - can "current" flow
without movement? You can describe the amount of electrons existing in a
conductor at any one instant in time as a snapshot of an amount of
electrons existing in a conductor, but that amount is the result of the
electrons having flowed through that part of the conductor during some
amount of time however small or large. Just measuring or calculating the
number of electrons present in a conductor is not a measure of current
in and of itself, because current is a measure or calculation of the
number of electrons having flowed through a conductor during a given
specific amount of time.

What you are describing is the *rate* of flow as a snapshot of some
instant in time. But to get that snapshot of the rate of flow, you must
first have current, measured in amp-hours. What you alluding to is not a
measurement, it is a description of a rate of measurement at one
instant. Mr. Kinch talked about a piece of equipment should be rated at
(x) amps, but the term *amps* is in this case a *new terminology*
contraction for amp-hours, or it wouldn't make any sense. We all assume,
consciously or unconsciously, when reading a current rating listed on
any equipment when listed as *amps* to actually be amps-per-hour (the
*rate*) which is the current standard convention.
The time used for your measurement, however, is irrelevant, it is just a
way to determine how many electrons have flowed through the conductor
during that time. So if you used average current over one hour, or one
day, or one year, etc., you still have the same exact same type of
measurement; amps-per-whatever. But average measurement does not
describe what the flow is at any one instant in time, which is what you
were alluding to.
Electrical "pressure" is the old terminology for voltage, described as
"potential". This is not current, but influences current as described by
ohm's law.
Charge is a different entity entirely and is not current.
Velocity is not current, but can influence current. The term can also
seem confusing. If you have a large diameter pipe and have 1 gallon per
hour of water flowing through it, and you have a very small diameter
pipe and have 1 gallon per hour flowing through it you will have two
very different velocities. But if current is the measurement of
units-of-something-per-time, then the *current* is the same in both
pipes, although the *pressure* will necessarily be different (just like
ohm's law). But if the velocity of current, that is, if electrons are
limited in the actual speed each can flow through a given conductor
regardless of pressure (IE: speed of light in a perfect conductor), then
the number of electrons that can flow through a conductor in a given
time is limited at least by the size of the conductor, regardless of the
pressure (voltage). So *velocity* can be an imprecise term to describe
current if you label the amount of current flow as speed of flow (speed
of each electron moving), rather than the total number of
electrons-per-unit-of-time. Of course, exceeding a conductor's ability
to pass a certain number of electrons in a given amount of time will
result in excessive heat which may result in damage, hence the need to
describe a conductor's ability to handle a specific *rate* of current
flow. Most conductors will destruct due to heat before actually
exceeding its max rate of flow of electrons. That is why cooling a
conductor allows more current to be applied through it before self
destructing.
When measuring current with a meter, all U.S. meters that I have seen
and used measure in amps per hour averaged. Meters cannot take a
snapshot in time, because no matter how short the cutoff, it is still time.
If you'd like, you are invited over to look at any number of textbooks
I have (several lockers full) that will describe it for you more
eloquently and completely than I will here. Although my textbooks are
written in the "old" language of electronics - you know; amp-hours,
cycles per second, etc.