I'd be giving the patents away...

Thanks e14 for pulling those articles.

I was able to read it when it was first posted and I had a good chuckle. While we have yet to understand all forms of energy exchange and the efficiency of most applications can be much improved on - there is no such thing as "free energy".

I believe that sun and wind are "free energy" sources and lucky we are,..... we have not yet started a war about it.

Interestingly, the only one mentioning RF is Richard Cullin.

There is some hint around it because of the frequencies they see doing the test, but there was no mention of capturing radiated (ie in free space).

You already get radiated while using Wireless, so don't worry.

He did say (directly because element14 seemed to pass all my details)

The device in te Exodus and PowerStic packaging sits

right across the USB power and gnd. It does nothing to laptop settings since it

is not connected to the data lines. It simply harvests noise from the SERDES

data transfers and such or other I/O activity on the I/O supply, processes the noise, and feeds it

back into the system for power reduction.

Looking at the documents, the device is basically improving the performance of the voltage regulator. (ie efficency)

The comment on their page

Maximum battery life extension is seen when the user engages in a high amount of Computer and Portable Device Input/Output activity such as USB data transfers, CDROM activity, Keyboard/Mouse activity of any kind, or other Human/Computer interaction (see the non-exclusive list below).  Minimum extension of battery life is seen with the Computer or Portable Device simply powered on, with no I/O or Human Interface Activity

.and the image

would suggest that the claimed savings may not be seen in ALL devices ... a challenge test could prove it.

I do know that switch mode supplies are electrically noisy, but whether a few components can improve this and therefore save your battery is the $64k question.

Mark

we have not yet started a war about it.

Seems there are heated discussions about the energy used in the production of the panels, freight and storage (ie batteries) needed for solar .... unless its an online system which of course only works during the day.

Wind is a bit the same ... fine if you want power on the windy day, but useless if you can't store it for later use.

Mark

if mcb1's diagram is correct I think it more likely that a cheap digital milliamp meter might read 10% high when there is a large ripple current.

I would suspect that a large capacitor across the circuit would have a similar effect for that meter. I'd  bet a  true rms meter would show no gain.

In any case if there is that much ripple current that you can collect it ,condition it and then feed it back in and recover 10% of the drawn power then the power supple designer should hang his/her head in shame.

thinking about it dc-dc converters likely to be encountered  operate anywhere from 30khz to some  MHz  their pulse width constantly varing and you would need to feed the energy back antiphase to this constantly varying  ripple (just like a capactor ?eh ) , what sort of thing could be made to store the energy ,condition it and then time its  reinsertion with sufficient efficiency to be worthwhile  magic?

Hi Richard & Mark,

Thanks for putting this down so clearly. I tried to make this point previously, but apparently failed at it because the discussion became a bit obfuscated.

@Mark: reducing 10% current usage on the 5V power line will never extend the battery life 10%, because the laptop uses more than one power supply. The 'extending battery life by [10-20%]' is one of the claims he made, and I have to see that with my own eyes to believe it...

@Richard: yes, it seems magical to be able to do this trick; especially since the energy has to be stored somewhere and has to be returned in time / converted to suitable level. I'm highly, highly suspicious, but won't call it fake until proven otherwise. Also, as mentioned before,  I can't imagine that laptop designers would just let 10% capacity of the battery 'evaporate', as it is one of the key items of a good laptop.

Hi Richard & Mark,

Thanks for putting this down so clearly. I tried to make this point previously, but apparently failed at it because the discussion became a bit obfuscated.

@Mark: reducing 10% current usage on the 5V power line will never extend the battery life 10%, because the laptop uses more than one power supply. The 'extending battery life by [10-20%]' is one of the claims he made, and I have to see that with my own eyes to believe it...

@Richard: yes, it seems magical to be able to do this trick; especially since the energy has to be stored somewhere and has to be returned in time / converted to suitable level. I'm highly, highly suspicious, but won't call it fake until proven otherwise. Also, as mentioned before,  I can't imagine that laptop designers would just let 10% capacity of the battery 'evaporate', as it is one of the key items of a good laptop.

Yesterday I had some guests. Discussion turned to this subject.

I estimated that my laptop was using about 40W. 10-20% of that is 4-8W. If you want to give that energy to the PC over the 5V USB line, you'd be pumping 0.8 to 1.6A through the USB 5V into the PC. Way more than what you're allowed to draw! What if the PC is so modern that there is almost no consumption on the 5V line?

Hey I'm not saying I believe it.

I simply copied the drawing from his Power Point presentation on the site Under The Hood - CurrentRF

http://www.vocodesign.com/RF/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Under_the_Hood.pdf

It does have a digital chip and inductors, so some things are possible, but I'm with Richard ....

the power supple designer should hang his/her head in shame

Victor

I agree that 10% battery saving is hard to imagine, but the devil is in the detail, and it seems "under certain conditions" is the detail.

PLUS we have no idea what sort of laptop it was tested on.

This is why I raised the suggestion to allow 'Test Challenge', and that way we would all know ....

(I've sent an email to .... asking for an update)

Mark