Discontinuous Audio Event Recording

RTS-200C RADIOTVSYNCTM 0-86 SECOND STEREO AUDIO DELAY [RTS-200C]

This is the first thing I found under a search of audio delay equipment. Not dirt cheap, but might be worth the price....?

Why not a shotgun from a distance, is it in a soundproof enclosure? What are the decibel levels expected?

The enclosure is not going to be sound proof, but perhaps dampened a lot from outside by baffling air inlet, and about 1" thickness of styrofoam insulation.

I agree that outside noises can be a real detriment here, but at least it is a start, and the location is remote, in a barn, out in the country, and seemingly quiet for the most part.

We have other detectors in the enclosure, such as geiger counter, infrared temperature (looking for any temperature spike, etc.), along with calorimetry air flow temperature sensors, current and voltage, etc. The thing is starting to be complex enough, it is almost a miracle when all the data-logging is up and running at the same time.

Maybe a pressure sensor....

https://meritsensor.com/?gclid=CjwKEAjwwevLBRCGy-Sp-fDKjF8SJACpwCb3bYqiOT3kvanMIwZmmiz8Udc8FgxQiChBO6xfoOVojxoCWrnw_wcB

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2651?gclid=Cj0KCQjwwevLBRCGARIsAKnAJveyK0RKAcx9RipDCbXzDrGa1ew29uw8XyLxeKY17_ip5SJDbCcOVm8aAjNTEALw_wcB

Funny you should mention that. It is the one sensor I forgot to mention earlier that is already installed, and being logged routinely. I would expect an "event" such as a "bump boiling event" to register a pressure spike, but only if the event sustained an slight increase in pressure (and also a sharp decrease in reactor system mass on load cell) for long enough to span one cycle of logging interval. Supposedly, this would also show up on the gas flow meter on the output tube (that is also up and running when we start the next test).

It would still be cool to have something like an actual recording of "cold fusion" taking place....if it ever does within the confines of our experiment.

35-40C doesn't seem to be that hot. Couldn't you couple the surface to the microphone through a heat insulating rod (say a glass rod) so that the microphone would not be subjected to the 100 C.

How long is this experiment? Why not record the whole sequence and find your events after the fact?

You might be able to connect the microphone to a smart phone with an app to record, or to a PC.

The experiment is planned to run for up to weeks at a time, thus the data vectors would be long indeed.

I do like the glass rod idea, that is how we coupled sound into a droplet maker at one of my former employments. The temperatures on that system were far more extreme than near water boiling point. Pyrex rod worked like gangbusters.

What frequency range are you interested in? (and sampling rate?)

I think "normal" audio range of acoustic frequencies, say from 20-15,000 Hz, but obviously that requires a continuous sampling, or digital of about 30+KHz due to Nyquist.

That is kind of why I was thinking something more along the lines of a decibel meter on the output of the pre-amp/amp, and have a long time constant on that signal to tell me that something interesting happened at time X. That would be plotted alongside the other data in the vectors. It could be another tool for telling where to snip out a segment of data for very detailed analysis.

The analog recording would just be cool to have in order to "hear cold fusion taking place."

Maybe a used seismograph....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EG-G-Geometrics-DMT-2420-Seismograph-9-Track-Recorder-/382148460502

Now there is a truly "earth-shaking" development. LOL It might just work though.

I will look into this, as I am sure even some cell phones have those now, and it was mentioned within my group of investigators.

How about a COTS Costco Home Security recorder? The standard issue 4Tb hard drive will handle the two week window of events with room to spare. Try one of those 'flat podium microphones and cool it with a 'Josephson junction' -- er um -- I mean Peltier junction device.

Yes, that is an idea, but I think the glass rod idea can bring the thing out away from reactor just enough to prevent burn-up.

Do you have an opening in the chamber wall? Could you use either a computer water cooling kit or other aquarium supplies to pump water thru aquarium tubing into the chamber and through a metal plate/enclosure for a USB web cam?

Ellsworth Corp EP1200 is very nice electrically insulating but thermally conductive epoxy. Break open a $20 web cam, epoxy it to (but just above to prevent short circuits) a metal plate and use fluid circulated in from the outside to cool the plate. A 5 gallon bucket that you dump ice into at the start and end of each day and you should be good for a week or more.

I don't know about 24/7 recording of web cams but if nothing else is available security software could be used.

Thanks for brainstorming with me, I know I have one of those around somewhere, but needs microphone primarily.

The webcams made for video chat and video conferencing should have a pretty good microphone built into them.

I've used a few different vox recorders that have regular or 'sensitive' options.

Unless the sounds are more quiet than a q-tip collision with a cotton ball you should have a good leading edge with time/date stamp.

Continuous, compact, high quality and affordable. Under a hunder.

...cold fusion eh?.. Pop fizz

Don't write this off just yet. That is why we do testing. On straight DC, we already have heard unusual pinging sounds related to local boiling when the batch was under the boiling point! We will try various means in controlling NAE triggering, so that we get a greater frequency and intensity of events, up to the limits of the heat we can measure with our simple apparatus. It means we will have to turn down input watts later, and perhaps still be near the limits of what our small reactor can sustain.

I'd never write of an experiment that I know so little about and one that is WAY over my head.

Heck. I'm jealous that I'm not working on my pet project/s.

Noble pursuit! I'll be rooting for you.

This microphone claims to be good up to 125 ºC

http://www.pcb.com/microphones_preamplifiers_acoustic_accessories/specialty/high-temperature

News reporters' recorders used to (30 years back) be able to record from a number of seconds 'before' the record button was pressed by having a continuous digital loop of, say, 5 seconds which was added to the beginning of the take.

The Olympus vn-541pc recorder seems to do this up to 10 seconds

I have no connection with either of the above. Good luck!

Thanks, will look into those!

Yes, I saw that supplier, and also noted the prices. I will hold off on that in lieu of coupling the sounds through something like a glass rod, or Lexan rod, and will look into a good small diameter surface microphone, and a good VOX recording machine. If we have to change out tapes too frequently, then we will look for an upgrade.

Thanks to everyone for suggestions.

One other thing: We may wind up injecting a resonant pure wave tone, or at least a tone of known FFT components, then we will still be recording, but on a continuous basis, and "listening" for a return sound with many component frequencies through the magic of FFT analysis.

For the microphone have you considered bouncing the beam from a laser diode off of the reaction vessel and recording the variation in intensity with a high bandwidth detector diode?

For the temperature sensor you might look at a fiber optic temperature sensor.

Not sure if either one will meet your sensitivity and/or bandwidth requirements though. The looping algorithm is a no-brainer for your local 13yr. old tech-weenie.

I didn't realize cold fusion was still a hot topic...

Check out Brillouin Energy Corporation, and let me know what you think. Our experiment is related, but quite different in the medium used. It is also very different from Pons and Fleischman's work at University of Utah. I left University of Utah before they were there, I think.

It appears that those supposedly "verifying" their early (seminal) work, did not carry the loading parameter for hydrogen into the Palladium to a large enough value.

One learned only recently, that one of their test runs that was in the basement of the Chemistry Department there, supposedly burned through the lab bench, and burned a circular hole in the floor of the basement, where the next day, there was a gray dust in the air in that room. That may be why the Department asked them to move out. I reserve judgment on whether that last account is true or not, as I have no further or independent evidence to support that story.

Miles at China Lake ran tests with an identical set up to Pons and Fleischman, and got success in 17/23 attempts (actual measured excess heat, and was able to carefully measure helium by exclusion of atmospheric helium to exceedingly low levels, such that helium detected had statistical significance.

Wow! I haven't thought about a Cold Fusion {issue} since F&P made fools out of themselves all those years ago by forgetting about Palladium's tendency to adsorb H2 with the liberation of heat.

That said, I doubt you'll ever get the scientific community to ever buy into another process that claims to operate in an aqueous environment unless and until you can demonstrate an apparatus chugging away for weeks at a time, spewing out so much power that every observer's first exclamation on seeing it is "Holy sh*te! Look at that darn thing boil."

Well - do you think their excess heat was because the hydrogen stopped being stable in lattice at some temperature? I don't think so, as F&P knew full well what loading parameter they were operating to, how much pressure it takes (not a lot, but some) above ambient pressure to achieve loading above 0.87 (as I recall), ²H/Pd atomic ratio.

It is known that in a high percentage of experiments carried to a loading parameter above 0.85 (all of them above ambient pressure), there was continual emission of excess heat, although the excess heat events were not what anyone would call steady-state, but more like a noisy signal with periodic spiking.

One researcher in recent times while working in Israel claimed to have reached 25 fold excess heat: heat output = 25 x heat input, and one experiment is claimed to have reached 50 fold excess.

Brilliouin Energy with their Q pulse system using hydrogen (¹H) and nickel seems to operate in the 2-3 fold excess realm. They even offer boiler modules!

Don't miss the bus.

I don't disagree that there is excess heat being emitted. But I'm pretty confident it's coming from d and f electrons being displaced by protons. Possibly creating unusual submerged H- ions in the metal atom's shell or the matrix of the bulk material.

So even if the heat is 10x 14x or even 24x what one would expect from a Pd 0.85 H reaction, it's still far from nuclear yields.

You are entitled to your opinion.

All I'm saying is that until the measured heat coming out of *ANY* process involving Hydrogen going in and claiming to have harnessed *FUSION* vastly exceeds the ionization energy times atomic number of any 'magic materials' used in the reactor, I'm completely unwilling to accept that a nuclear transformation is occurring.

So if the matrix uses Pd(atomic no. 46) anything up to 46*1312kj/mol is not going impress me. Yeah, it's a lot of energy, but if it were a true nuclear transformation the energy it will be four or five orders of magnitude greater.

If you tell me you've got a 10mg of active material boiling a cubic meter of otherwise pure water, then I'm going to FedEx you a Steak & Lobster dinner.

But otherwise I would measure the steam produced in grams and divide the mass of steam by the atomic number times the weight of all the heavy elements in the brew.

I can't tell you how much I'd love to express out that meal!!!

I personally do not see how the ionization energy of stated heavy metal has to do with it. No one is getting Pd to go into solution in any experiment like this. I think you must be referring to the electrochemical free energy of reaction on a molar basis.

I am referring to conversion essentially of 1H to 4He, in a "ladder-like" process, where energy is actually apparently absorbed until the last step. I will let you sort out the binding energy per nucleon calculation. Even one atomic event in a small control volume should release sufficient heat to create a "bump" boiling response. Our group has witnessed the after effects of such events in open vat systems where a mass of the matrix is thrown out of the vat! In one instance, the radiation count using a beta, gamma type geiger counter resulted in count about 10 X background, and this only for a short time after the event.

My experiment is not an open vat, but is domed with a Lexan lid, and has a vapor/gas outlet tube. That is why I am keenly interested in any audible "signal", in hopes that the time of said "signal" will correlate with an increase in geiger counts, and an increase in calorimeter output that lasts long enough to observe.

Hopefully we will arrive at knowledge of process conditions that lead to a greater frequency of "events", or to one continuous "event", with a concomitant heat balance. No magic.

No, sorry, perhaps I was unclear. It's not the ionisation of the metal, it's the number of electrons times the ionisation energy of Hydrogen 1312kj/mol

So, assume we've got a reactor chugging away releasing energy while it is consuming Hydrogen at a rate of 1 mol per unit of time. If the matrix was Silicon (atomic number 14) then the first thing I'm going to deduct from energy yield of the reactor's use of 1 mol (1.008g) of Hydrogen fuel is: 14 * 1312kj/mol = 18,386kj

Why? Because I'm a skeptical SOB! "But that's not important." (gratuitous Leslie Nielsen quote), my point is, that if the reactor is actually *fusing* hydrogen into Helium -- oh hell even it it's only making Deuterium according to that LENR nonsense -- the energy released by a mol of protons is going to be in the multi GJ range!

Every nuclear reaction, even the supposed conversion of:

p⁺ + e^- + 779keV --> n⁰ and
p⁺ + n⁰ --> D + 2.2MeV

After the mysterious loan of 3/4 MeV (quantum tunneling?) yields significantly more than the paltry 13.6eV/atom ionization energy of Hydrogen. It's about 104,485 times more energy! It's the difference between trying to hard boiling an egg with one of my wife's tea-light candles, or the all the #2 fuel oil my home consumes over a typical winter.

2.2 MeV is still only about 3.5248 x 10^-13 joules! That is really not much energy per atomic event. We do not think in terms of moles on this stuff!

You are getting your energetic panties in a wad over not much.

Sorry James,

Moles, grams, slugs, cu.in., it's not the absolute units of hydrogen that matter. Five orders of magnitude difference between chemical and nuclear transformations -- that's the difference between winning *both* Nobel Prizes(Physics & Peace) and an investigation by the SEC.

I've been debunking free energy scams since the USENET days. But that's only recently...

Back in the late 70's I tried to patent a fusion reactor I invented. My Uncle set me up with a patent attorney in NYC 'Lawrence Peska & Assoc.' I managed to find an engineer at GE to make some critical core parts out of powdered Tungsten. Never quite figured out how to raise the rest of the money. Investors aren't really enthusiastic to trust young teenagers with 6-figure budgets.

Let's say the company is on a path to unlocking a catalyst that releases something over 13.6ev/atom, but soon saturates and stops releasing energy. Then that material requires a regeneration period, where the active medium grows cold and sucks up ambient heat. Once it warms up to ambient the medium is then capable of re-releasing energy by being fueled with H2 or protons. I'd say you might be onto something novel & useful. But I'd be loathe to call it 'fusion'.

As I stated before, you are clearly of your own opinion here. It will be what it will be when it is what it is.

We are just investigating down that path started by others within our small group, so if we find anything, it will be interesting, if we don't, we just keep trying with new conditions, trying to mimic what conditions were present when they had "events".

Piezo based transducer enclosed with ceramic wont work at that bandwidth?