Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #03989



To: "'beam@sgiblab.sgi.com'" beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Wilf Rigter Wilf.Rigter@powertech.bc.ca
Date: Sun, 30 May 1999 09:52:03 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Efficiency and Good Old Stryder


Hello Richard,

I agree with all your comments regarding performing efficiency tests to rank
performance of both components, subsystems and complete systems and would
add a few more:

Two rules apply to quantitative analysis :

1. compare apples and apples
2. only change and test the effect of one parameter at a time.

Speaking of genomes, role models and survival! While most don't know this
Lancaster's ideas are all around us and will survive for a long time, deeply
embedded in our electronic technology. Today he writes an awesome column in
Electronics Now and has a monster web site.

http://www.tinaja.com/

Don Lancaster has been one of my favourite authors/gurus for more than a
quarter century.
His "TV typewriter" and other circuit cookbooks were as exciting and
influential on a much younger wilf rigter as any of Tilden's ideas are on me
now. (I won't bother comparing access and communication skills).


Wilf Rigter mailto:wilf.rigter@powertech.bc.ca
tel: (604)590-7493
fax: (604)590-3411

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Weait [SMTP:crs0274@inforamp.net]
> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 1999 7:53 AM
> To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
> Subject: Re: [alt-beam] Re: Efficiency and Good Old Stryder
>
> At 04:00 PM 5/29/99 -0600, Zoz wrote:
> >At 05:32 PM 5/28/99 , Dave Hrynkiw wrote:
> >
> >>Actually, I'm pretty sure it is dragging only one leg to a significant
> >>degree.
>
> [snip]
>
> >Gotcha, although I reserve judgement until I see the video.
> >Still, I think measurements are the best idea... Argumentation is fine,
> >but it is hard to argue with numbers if one has obtained them properly.
>
> Don Lancaster has written, in his columns, on how easy it is to
> make bad measurements of efficiency. He has said that poor lab
> work and assumptions can give answers that are " . . . not even wrong."
> That is to say worse than wrong. Mr. Lancaster discusses this
> subject in regard to "free energy whackos" (there, I said it again)
> and it comes up fairly regularly. The truth is that measuring
> average current and average voltage, even on an accurate meter
> will not give you the correct answer. When loads are complex,
> that is when the load varies in time, and / or the load has
> inductive / capacitive / resistive components, voltage and current
> are out of phase. . .
>
> Is the 'how far in how long on a standard battery' test any good?
> Hmmm, I'd think that you would have to use it statistically, that
> is run many trials. Side by side comparison is probably better
> and a control for temperature and other atmospheric conditions
> would be nice.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard.

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