Stanley Meiyer, scam artist

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beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
Stanley Meyer's patent #4,936,961

So - who is this Stanley Meyer? If you don't know, you are among the fortunate majority. If you do, you may not yet realize how much of a scam artist he was. This would be quite unfortunate, as you may have paid money and/or invested time trying to make his invention work. If you wish, download a copy of the patent and follow along. I''l make it easy for you, here's a link - http://patimg2.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid...&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page.

Old Stan has several patents and quite a bit of writing, much of it in the form of so-called 'memos'. These are the things to pay attention to, as claims are made that can be verified, or at least dismissed as pure hokum. His video of the infamous 'water powered dune buggy' is suspect. All one has to do is watch a movie of, say, Spiderman, to come to the understanding that literally anything can be made to happen in a video.

I am going to confine commentary to the text in the patent document. There are accompanying illustrations and even a block diagram of the 'control circuitry', but the substance there is utterly absent. A block diagram has no content without a schematic. In the one case I am aware of, Stan did publish a series of 'schematics' in a document labelled "WO 92/07861". In that case, no components were identified in any way, so it is also void of meaning.

As an abstract, Meyer's patent #4,936,961 purports to describe a method of promoting water electrolysis with close to zero expended power. The process is to place a high voltage across a confined quantity of water such that the molecules will become pulled apart by the action of the voltage. Said voltage is supposed to increase in steps, so we are supposed to imagine the molecules will virtually be shaken apart.

Why the elaboration about the voltage being applied in steps? Imagine how difficult it might be to simply place a large voltage across a container of water and observe water molecules coming apart. The increasing pulsing voltage is the necessary flim-flam to make the reader imagine there is really something going on.

He speaks of inducing a resonance in the water molecule. This is at line 43-44 of column 2 of the text. This is the first of several impossibilities in the text. Water does, indeed, exhibit resonance, but up in the near infra red. That is a frequency inconviently high for modern electronics to produce. Imagining that any circuit can excite a body of water at a resonant frequency is simply ludicrous.

Can we establish anything about the mysterious circuit? Surprisingly, yes. In column 4 starting at line 45, Meyer states that his step up transformer has a primary coil consisting of "200 turns of 24 guage copper wire", and a secondary coil of "600 turns of 36 guage wire". In column 6 at line 19, we see that he operated the circuit with a "26 volt applied pulse to the primary coil".

Transformers are fairly well-behaved devices. The turns ratio is a very accurate means of determining the step up or down of voltage. As the primary has 200 turns and the secondary has 600, we find the ratio to be 1:3, so the secondary voltage he claims to have success with must have been 26 * 3, or 78 volts.

So much for reason. Having just told us that the transformer did a 3X step up, Meyer then says, starting in column 4, line 56, that the transformer "provides a voltage step-up from the pulse generator in excess of five times". Just to cloak things with some flim-flam, he goes on to say "although the relative ampount of step-up is determined by pre-selected criteria for a particular application". This is the equivalent of saying not to blame him if it doesn't work - those "criteria" never get explained in any fashion.

Immediately following this bogus explanation is another one about the "coil", or "resonant charging choke" - his words, not mine - in the secondary circuit of the step up transformer. This device is located between a diode off the secondary and the outer cylinder of the "water capacitor".

Part of the explanatioon is okay. Column 4, line 61 says that with current through the diode, "an electromagnetic field is formed around the inductor". That is what will happen, assuming the "water capacitor" has enough capacity for enough cahrge to flow and build the field. It doesn't, but more about that later.

It gets all flim-flammy again when he goes on to say in line 63 that, when current ceases, "the field collapses and produces another pulse of the same polarity". That is simply not the way fields behave around an inductor. If a polarity of voltage impressed across the inductor drove current to build a field, the collapse of that same filed will drive current in the opposite direction, reversing the polarity of voltage across the inductor.

It is sort of amusing to observe in the Figure 1 diagram the presence of another coil in the line from the transformer bottom to the "water capacitor" inner cylinder. It is shown with an adjustable tap, but is clearly labelled "isolated circuit from secondary coil". It is impossible to say if Stan actually had a sense of humor when he did this, or if he was just that ignorant.

It is adjustable so it "tunes the circuit and accomodates contaminants in water" - column 6, line 40.

We run into to contradictory explanations now, although it is clear that Stan had no idea he was contradicting himself. First, the action of the coil between the diode cathode and the outer capacitor cylinder is said to be a sort of voltage pump. The field collapse is supposed to place ever-increasing amounts of voltage on the "water capacitor".

The trouble with this scenario is that no mechanism exists to make it happen - even ignoring the reverse of voltage taking place upon the field collapsing. The transformer can only produce so much voltage - about 78 as we have seen. What happens in the inductor when the capacitor has charged to a point where the voltage on the outer cylinder is also 78? Not much. No field can build without current, and no current flows where there is no voltage difference. His entire explanation is bogus.

There is another fun aspect to all this. Meyer makes a big production about minimum current in his cell. The water is pure, so it is non-conductive. The circuit is supposed to run at resonance (but suddenly not that of water). In his words, column 6 line 27, "In achieving resonance in any circuit, as the pulse frequency is adjusted, the flow of amps is minimized and voltage is maximized to a peak".

If it only worked that way. The circuit topology he has arranged is a series LC circuit (actually LCR, as some resistance is always going to be present). The interesting thing about series LCR circuits is that they exhibit a minimum reactance at resonance. From "University Physics, Seventh Edition", Sears, Zemansky & Young, 1987, "It is possible, with appropriate electronic circuitry, to feed energy into an L-R-C circuit at the same rate as the rate of dissipation by I2R losses. It is as though we had inserted a negative resistance into the circuit to make the total circuit resistance exactly zero." Zero resistance equals zero volts. Sorry, Stan.

Left unanswered is the question of why he chose a 1N1198 diode for the circuit. The diode is pretty heavy duty for a minimum current circuit - it's rated for 40 amps. How about those voltage peaks? Well, Stan says they should be into the "thousands", but a 1N1198 is only rated for 600 volts. Kinda got that one backwards, or so it might appear.

One of these days, I'll work out the area of the "water capacitor" and so its capacity. English to metric just isn't going smoothly right now...
 
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Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Somehow I just knew you were from the "Show Me" State... not I'm believen the BS either. It's going to be interesting to see what this stirs up, again.
 

circuitashes

Joined May 13, 2008
37
....There are accompanying illustrations and even a block diagram of the 'control circuitry', but the substance there is utterly absent. A block diagram has no content without a schematic. In the one case I am aware of, Stan did publish a series of 'schematics' in a document labelled "WO 92/07861". In that case, no components were identified in any way, so it is also void of meaning...
If that is so, how did Stan manage to secure the patent?
In other words are you saying that this is an indictment on the patent office?
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
When you have a bunch of overworked bureaucrats stuff is going to slip through the cracks. During the 19th century you have to present a working model of the item, but with the begining of the 20th century that went out the door, as there were too many inventions, and too few patent clerks.

Like all things man made, the Patent Office isn't perfect. They are also not really designed to prevent deliberate fraud.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
Interesting that you might read that into my article. No, the Patent Office only concerns itself with the aspect of "unique". If you claim to be able to do something in a unique manner, that is all they require. No working model or demonstration is necessary.
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
If that is so, how did Stan manage to secure the patent?
In other words are you saying that this is an indictment on the patent office?
"Indictment" is is an action toward the perpetrator, not toward the victim. O'l Stan did indeed scam the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He passed of an ordinary hydrolizer as a molecule separator. PT Barnum would have been proud.
 

Farlander

Joined Oct 14, 2008
158
I think a factor that is being overlooked here is the potential for tampering. The plethora of mistakes and discrepancies found in Stan's patents are possibly because they are not the original documents.

In addition, it is possible that Stan himself left out/altered details to throw off the would be counterfeiter.

As far as the patent office, I imagine they would be highly suspect of supposed 'free energy' devices. Stan's main patent was "allegedly" filed under section 101c of the U.S. patent code, meaning a working demonstration model provided.

In addition, I must question beenthere's motives. Your name suggests some kind of insurmountable wealth of experience, which is frankly arrogant. Of course, we're all entitled to our opinions, but no one can prove or disprove this theory who hasn't built the device with their own hands and measured results with their own eyes. Why do you care if people want to tinker with building the device? You seem to be devoting an extraoridnary amount of energy in discouraging people from any research at all... do you work for an oil company or the government?

I would direct people to www.waterfuelcell.org for the base of information regarding cell capacitance, resonance formulas, patents, and private researchers is impressive. I'm conversing with an individual right now who is building the automatic resonant detector circuit which is so sought after.

On a personal note, do you really think we'll still be using fossil fuel 50 years from now? We'll probably all be dead soon therafter if we are.

Lastly, let us not forget history. In almost every case of revolutionary technology, the established scientific/industrial/governmental/religious communities have shunned the invention with the utmost antipathy. Must we never learn?

Salutations





 

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beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
I believe the salient point is that a working device on Meyer's principles hasn't appeared yet - including Meyer's own dune buggy. Please don't be upset with me for pointing this out.

Water has been subjected to every condition in Meyer's invention. The conditions under which it dissociates into H2 and O2 gas are very well understood. Anyone who could improve on the current process of electrolysis and produce gas with less energy that can be had from the combustion back into water would be very wealthy, and the world would owe him great thanks.

But the claimants to the secrets are content to keep the device under the hood and out of sight. This is not rational behavior in the context of a truly great invention.

Would you be content to save a few bucks on gas, or would you wish to make some serious and benefit the world? Ask yourself why all the water power sites confine themselves to selling gadgetry when they could make serious money.

With such a device, I could run a generator and power my house off the grid. I'd really like to see something like that come along. The problem with Meyer and Boyce is that it's obvious that no credible invention exists, or can be extrapolated from their work.
 

Farlander

Joined Oct 14, 2008
158
Valid points and well taken.

Let's consider how many people are actively experimenting on this idea. 100? 1000? 1,000,000? When I first saw the Stan Meyers dune buggy, 100k or so had seen it. On the other forums I frequent, www.overunity.com and the waterfuelcell.org, there are only a few thousand members, and how many of them are physically experimenting? I happened to be in the right place at the right time when I heard about Meyers -- I was just back from a trip to South America and hiding from reality, searching a new purpose. Then I got a job as an electrician at a high tech power company. I got my hands on a big salary, and a lot of access to UPS parts. Capacitors, transformers, old CRTs and power supplies, and I found a nice 4'x4' sheet of 304SS frmo a junkyard for $40. Then I bought a starter kit of circuit board stuff, couple breadboards, capacitor set, resistor set, etc. etc. I feel like I'm in probably one of the best positions of anyone out there to work on this. I'm highly motivated and decetly talented.
So, back to the original point, if maybe 10 people in the whole world figured it out, how hard would it be to can them before it could get out?? If I were a company making $44 billion a quarter (exxon, 2007) would I be keeping tabs on anyone who stood to completely overturn my business? Absolutely.
So, how about this idea of using a parallel LC to make high volts?
 

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beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
Truly, it seems a hopeless task. If the laws of physics are, indeed, incorrect and the process of electrolyzing water can be done with almost no energy, then the "big oil" people will have you bought off or killed.

All I can say is that no heavy from Exxon-Mobil has had a gun in my ear at any time while making my posts. but, then, one might be actually in my ear, and I am typing this message under duress.

But, if it will be necessary for the "oil interests" to suppress developments in this area, don't you find it just a bit amazing that so many sites are actively online? The first order of business in the job of suppressing information would be to close these sites down.

Of course, they may have been threatened, so that would make following any information they put out an utter waste of time, as that information would be deliberately falsified.

The real stinker is that you can verify every bit of advice, information, and circuitry we have provided you. Does that mean we are running a conspiracy? Have we been able to somehow reach out and alter the content of every electronics text to reflect the facts as we wish then to be?
 

HarveyH42

Joined Jul 22, 2007
426
How do we know that the establish energy providers aren't the ones putting out these hoaxes, and cheap to build, but basically useless miracle alternative energy devices? It does a great job of reducing interest in all alternative energy ideas. Did Stanely Meyers really die, or just retire from Exxon or Mobile, to enjoy the huge profits from his video sales... His job completed, what better way to keep people involved, and leave all the questions unanswered?

Of the thousands who have actually build the devices, how come there aren't thousands of success stories, hours of internet video showcasing the fruits of their labors (bragging rights). Maybe they are all afraid the oil companies will track them down as well :).

Even if water were to replace fuel, petroleum will still be a highly profitable business for a very long time. No way millions of internal combustion engine will be scrapped or converted. There are a lot of other uses of petroleum that have nothing to do with fuel.
 

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beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
For the last idea - high voltage is high voltage. The use of elaborate (and non-functional) circuitry to do what is otherwise quite simple is part of the scam.

If there is truth to the pulsed voltage verbiage, then the water molecules will absolutely not have a clue where all that electric field is coming from. Grab a variac and a neon sign transformer for the variable high voltage. Rectify to suit and use a hexfet to do the pulsing.Put the HV to the anode and make the hexfet the path to ground for the cathode. Quite simple.

The water capacitor idea is not terribly well thought-out, though. If the cell is set up as a capacitor and is made a part of some resonant circuit, what happens if there is gas production? The dielectric figure goes right out the window. The time for gas bubbles to clear the plates is pretty long. It would be realistic to provide for flow through the cell and a pump if results are actually obtained. There is no realistic frequency that comes anywhere near something that resembles resonance with water, so the whole idea is a waste of time.

That leaves experimenting with high voltage as an enhancer of electrolysis.

The bubbles will also mess with the high voltage across the cell if the Meyer design is retained - ionization will occur and breakdown arcing will be very problematic. Pumping a high flow rate through the cell aay be the only way to prevent this problem. You really don't want arcs lighting off any quantity of mixed oxygen and hydrogen.

One way around that is to use a larger cylinder for the cathode, and a fine wire for the anode. Plus a bit of electrolyte. The effect is one I have worked with for many years doing electrofishing controllers for the state. A large area cathode lets you put many electrons into the water. A small area at the anode means there will be a large potential well around it, slowing current as well as sharply increasing voltage per unit of distance around the anode. That is, a small cathode resistance and a large anode resistance.

A rapid pulse frequency might get results much less affected by arcing and bubbles in a cell with larger dimensions. A triangle section would be okay - say 24 inches at the cathode and tapering to the anode wire over a distance of 18 - 24 inches.

You won't need much to get current - a Jon boat hull can push over 15 amps @ 380 VDC to an anode dropper about 6 feet away. The dropper being about 6 lengths of stainless wire (for corrosion resistance only). In principle, the larger the emission surface of the cathode to the anode surface, the greater the voltage increase per unit of distance around the anode. All those electrons really hate being squished together, so the only way they can make it to the anode is by a high voltage gradient.

The more you learn, the more you can do.
 

Farlander

Joined Oct 14, 2008
158
The real stinker is that you can verify every bit of advice, information, and circuitry we have provided you. Does that mean we are running a conspiracy? Have we been able to somehow reach out and alter the content of every electronics text to reflect the facts as we wish then to be?
No, of course not. I'm very appreciative of the physics and electronics know-how the people here have provided and in no way do I doubt it's validity. Still we must remember though, rules were meant to be broken, that has always been the premise of scientific inquiry.

I agree with the laws of thermodynamics. In this case, I think something is being overlooked. Is it the oxidation of the ambient air? Are we tapping into zero-point energy? One interesting quote I heard said, imagine the wine glass that shatters at a particular frequency. Is the force that shattered the glass created by the sound or does it come from somewhere else?
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
The wine glass shatters from a mechanical resonance - sound waves coupling energy into the bell of the wine glass until the deflection of the vibrations break the glass.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
Not charge - mechanical energy. See the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_resonance.

The so-called "step charging" can be done, but the circuit Meyer has published will not work. See our Ebook on how it's done - http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_3/8.html. The methodology was discovered in the 1930's.

Significant question: If a pulsed voltage is the mechanism, why not simply apply the voltage and pulse it? Trying to build charge on a flaky capacitor set-up where the whole effect is completely messed up by gas formation seems silly. Place a voltage across a cell with water and pulse it until some enhanced effect is noted.

Either a pulsing voltage enhances electrolysis, or it does not. Semi-magical methods to produce a voltage get in the way of investigating the effect. Make your experiment up with as few uncontrolled variables as possible. If there is such an effect, the shape of the chamber is not likely to make a difference, nor are the electrode materials.
 

Farlander

Joined Oct 14, 2008
158
Not charge - mechanical energy. See the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_resonance.
That's what I meant, I was being analogous. Both are functions of time.

The so-called "step charging" can be done, but the circuit Meyer has published will not work. See our Ebook on how it's done - http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_3/8.html. The methodology was discovered in the 1930's.
I'm still catching up on reading....

Significant question: If a pulsed voltage is the mechanism, why not simply apply the voltage and pulse it? Trying to build charge on a flaky capacitor set-up where the whole effect is completely messed up by gas formation seems silly. Place a voltage across a cell with water and pulse it until some enhanced effect is noted.
I think the ramping may be almost inadvertent -- it's merely a function of how much charge is applied in respect to time. The Meyer setups I've seen mainly use a dual square wave -- pulses inside of pulses. I think that one frequency might be of the electrical resonance and the other of the molecular resonance. But back the point, the ramping effect is conducive to building up a high potential on the capacitor plates -- we want the circuit to build up a high charge so that it electrifies the water as intensely as possible -- when the threshold is reached is right at the end of a primary pulse, so the power is cut to allow recovery. What happens to the dielectric strength/insulating properties of matter under pressure/in a vacuum?

Either a pulsing voltage enhances electrolysis, or it does not. Semi-magical methods to produce a voltage get in the way of investigating the effect. Make your experiment up with as few uncontrolled variables as possible. If there is such an effect, the shape of the chamber is not likely to make a difference, nor are the electrode materials.
I disagree. The composition of the electrodes is of primary importance as different materials will affect the capacitance by their permitivity. Additionally, the space between the plates has a major impact on C, thus different setups may yield higher/lower ease of assembly to a particular gap.
 

Farlander

Joined Oct 14, 2008
158
In regards to resonance, in case I forget this later --

The ebook says that resonance in an LC circuit is characterized by a "charge" that bounces back and forth between the cap/induc. At the inductor, said "charge" manifests itself as amps. At the cap plates, it exists as voltage, preceding the amp phase by 90 degrees.
I've been reading on standing waves. Very interesting phenomenon in nature that oscillating phases will cross at a predictable point.
 

Thread Starter

beenthere

Joined Apr 20, 2004
15,819
In the area of electrolysis, it is hard to see that a water molecule would care about the nature of the effect that might produce a high voltage field. If water molecules come apart more easily in a voltage field that is pulsed at some frequency, the adding the voltage with no bells and whistles and simply experimenting to find a helpful pulsation frequency appears to be the best approach.

Good luck with your experimentation.
 

HarveyH42

Joined Jul 22, 2007
426
Wonder if you could build a Tesla Coil, that resonates at the same frequency as water. Although I got a hunch that it's nearly impossible to get water to resonate, as its properties and density would constantly be changing. The chamber wouldn't be water all the time, and the volume would change as the gases are released... Have to adjust for that, but could be calculated I suppose...
 
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