parallel wrote:MSimon, you may well be right if the whole thing is an out and out scam. Otherwise, one has to take note of Weir’s claim that he has tested the components at high voltage. In the patent he wrote:
“The following data indicates permittivity of ten components measured at 85C & 3500V”
He may not be too interested in what bloggers write and is not trying to sell them anything. Pity that the interviewer didn’t ask the straight forward question: “Did you test the components at 3,500V?” though.
So why didn't he get 5 engineers with experience in the field to check his measurements? The easiest person to fool is yourself.
Heck. For a measurement like that I'm good enough to validate the data within 10% to 20%.
Put the capacitor in a thin black box (to keep details secret). Measure the volume. Weigh it with a spring scale and/or a digital one. Charge it from a suitable power supply with a resistor in series. Look at the charging curve (voltage vs time and current vs time). Measure everything - before - after - during. It should be possible to verify the claims within 10% to 20% without much trouble.
I can't for the life of me understand why a public company making such claims wouldn't do that.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:I can't for the life of me understand why a public company making such claims wouldn't do that.
EEStor is not a public company. They are about the furthest thing from it. I think most of what is known about EEStor was only released because EEStor hooked up with Zenn Motor which is a public company. A move that EEStor may be regretting. In fact, the interview was most likely given to a prospective investor in Zenn's latest supplementary stock offering which was only required for them to buy a bigger stake in EEStor.
MSimon wrote:I can't for the life of me understand why a public company making such claims wouldn't do that.
EEStor is not a public company. They are about the furthest thing from it. I think most of what is known about EEStor was only released because EEStor hooked up with Zenn Motor which is a public company. A move that EEStor may be regretting. In fact, the interview was most likely given to a prospective investor in Zenn's latest supplementary stock offering which was only required for them to buy a bigger stake in EEStor.
Now that is clever. The buyer is public. The seller is not. So the data need not be made public.
It is like the first internet bubble - radio - where all kinds of stock manipulations went on.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I don’t know why you are so down on EEStor. One of the more telling pieces I have read was this: “when (1966) the Toronto Star requested an interview via email, Weir replied: "EEStor would also like to have you and your paper not publish any articles about our company and the Toronto Star is certainly not authorized to publish this response." But of course they did.
So they are a couple of years late in providing EESUs to Zenn Motors, but do not seem to be looking for publicity – far from it. They don’t even have a web site. You couldn’t invest in them if you wanted to.
We should know who is telling the truth by the first quarter of 2010, quite a bit earlier than we will know if the Polywell works.
parallel wrote:I don’t know why you are so down on EEStor. One of the more telling pieces I have read was this: “when (1966) the Toronto Star requested an interview via email, Weir replied: "EEStor would also like to have you and your paper not publish any articles about our company and the Toronto Star is certainly not authorized to publish this response." But of course they did.
So they are a couple of years late in providing EESUs to Zenn Motors, but do not seem to be looking for publicity – far from it. They don’t even have a web site. You couldn’t invest in them if you wanted to.
We should know who is telling the truth by the first quarter of 2010, quite a bit earlier than we will know if the Polywell works.
I'm not down on them. I just don't believe they have what they claim. There are more than a few capacitor companies in the world and they are hell bent to do what EEStor claims to be able to do. One need only look at the advances in capacitor storage densities in the last 10 years. Improvements in old technologies. Invention of new ones.
The fact that with such a simple production process they are not already cranking out volumes (or sold a license to a producing capacitor company) gives one pause.
As to "secrets". If you really want to keep them you do what Rick Nebel does: do not respond to any publicity. Do not respond to public inquiries.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Everyone agrees that it is extremely difficult to make the powders automatically to the quality that is needed for high yield. The truly secret part is how EEStor has developed a wet chemical way to do this rather than ball mill the stuff, and coat each particle with the right thickness of alumina: then build the component by a screen printing process. So, Weir claims he has solved the most difficult part and the fabrication does not require any new inventions. There is still a lot of work required in putting the production line together, but he is quoted as saying that it was more than 80% completed. I find it unlikely that they would build a production line without checking out that a prototype “component” actually works. Outsiders, such as Zenn and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers have seen it and that VC company is far from being foolish.
It was the secrecy of EEStor, together with that VC company investing in them that caught the media’s attention. Not that EEStor was seeking publicity. We would know almost nothing about the EESU but for the patents Weir had to file. His patents have been accepted but presumably you know what little protection that piece of paper provides, without very expensive court battles. Weir does not respond to public enquiries anymore than Nebel does.
In answer to your earlier post, I don’t have access to Weir’s business plan, nor know if others have approached him for a license to use his patents.
I can speculate that as the consensus opinion is that it won’t work, said license would be a lot more valuable after demonstration of a working production line.
I tried to post this url, that gives more history, in my previous message and it stopped the whole message from posting. Let’s try again… http://www.rexresearch.com/weir/weir.htm
parallel wrote:In answer to your earlier post, I don’t have access to Weir’s business plan, nor know if others have approached him for a license to use his patents.
I can speculate that as the consensus opinion is that it won’t work, said license would be a lot more valuable after demonstration of a working production line.
I tried to post this url, that gives more history, in my previous message and it stopped the whole message from posting. Let’s try again… http://www.rexresearch.com/weir/weir.htm
All a capacitor company would need to do to verify the value of the patent is to visit EEStor and do about an hour or four of tests.
Eqpt required: Variable HV power supply. A few resistors. A voltmeter (or three) that is capable of 10,000 16 bit samples a second. Not real sophisticated stuff. Run the test a few times. Do a couple of 30 minute leakage tests. Go home. Pay EEStor a few $K for their time.
Yeah. There are all kinds of possible reasons why this hasn't been done. My favorite is that it would blow the scam.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I doubt EESTOR would give anyone access to test an EESTOR ultra-capacitor without an investment in the company and a signed non-disclosure agreement. EESTOR is in a far better competitive position with people thinking that their device probably won't work than they would be if the competition thought that it probably would work, and work to known level.
If it is thought not to work, competition takes a "wait and see" attitude. If it were known to work to some level, competition would target their own research efforts to stay competitive with, or better them. As we know, it is far easier to shake loose research money if there is a known, worthwhile goal and high hopes of reaching it.
IMO, EESTOR has two main features going for it. One is the capacitor design and second is the screen printing production process. If the capacitor is only as good as the competition but the production process works then EESTOR will become a major player in the Ultra-capacitor market place due to the low cost manufacturing method. If the capacitor is as good as claimed but the production process doesn't work then they will tinker and tinker with the screen printers, or investigate other manufacturing technologies; neither one will help their reputation. Of course, if neither technology works then EESTOR will dry up and blow away. But if both technologies work then it is a game changer and good for all of us.
Cross posted with Parallel, below.
Last edited by Aero on Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If I were Weir, the very last thing I would do is have outside experts visit the company. I don’t think there is much doubt that EEStor has a few working models of their device and doesn’t need further verification that they work.
It is amazing what a person familiar with the technology might pick up in such a visit. The real value in their process is in the know-how rather than the patent and just seeing that a particular process works is very valuable to a competitor. Once you know that you can duplicate it.
parallel wrote:If I were Weir, the very last thing I would do is have outside experts visit the company. I don’t think there is much doubt that EEStor has a few working models of their device and doesn’t need further verification that they work.
It is amazing what a person familiar with the technology might pick up in such a visit. The real value in their process is in the know-how rather than the patent and just seeing that a particular process works is very valuable to a competitor. Once you know that you can duplicate it.
They have patent protection.
But OK. Let the tests be done in a motel room.
On top of that there is enough description of the process so that it could be duplicated. Screen printing is not some big mystery. Ask any surface mount assembler.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.