Debunked: V3Solar's spinning solar panel cone spin cell "CoolSpin"

Reminds me of the great SunCube Scam!
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=102146

Green Widget Scams..... perfectly legal way for any sleazy psychopath to make a fortune.
How many G W Scams are going on right now?
Thousands of them.
New improved battery widget...coming real soon, send munny.
Wave power widget (OMG!) coming real soon, send MORE munny.
Compressed air energy storage....coming real soon....need MUNNY
Wind power widget.......nearly ready.......more MUNNY please.
(Sigh)
 
Wow thats rather similar... too bad you dont have all those prenda IP lawyers behind you too Mick....

shoulda controlled the fuck our of your Imaginary Property rights when you made that paint image. but thats all any of this shit is. Imaginary property. thats why they have defended it so well. because no device will come to fruition, but lawsuits will eventually and money will be made. when some kid from caltec with an actual idea tries to make something that vaguely touches near this oversized buttplug he will be faced with $40k in fees just to fight down whatever LLc shell corp holds the IP these guys created.

but thats a separate fight all together...

And to say Mick is in some shadow plot to trash v3 and promote entech is just childish. The spookster side of me would rather like to see the IP log on those unreg posts -_-

no plot is needed. v3 is spouting non-science trying to drum up investor money for a unworkable, unneeded product, while entech has already produced the same/similar product, in a much more simple, industrially reliable, and scientifically sound manner.

This reminds me of hucksters investor scamming to build atomic cars well after it had been decided a moot idea from a mechanical POV. Noone wanted or needed them, and the scammers had no intent to actually make them. but boy it sure sounds fancy and i want one cuz my buddies at the country club and ranch would be like daaaaayyyum so sure heres 4million to get things rollin.

Or perhaps there is a group of people really trying to do real science but their pr guy is an assclown and they handed it off to him and he made all these fuckwit images and webposts? i dont know.

one last thing, Streisand Effect..


Edit: on a side note, given the unbelievable cheapness of micro-controllers and the such today, why not just make it flat and sun tracking with an LDR???? the fuck is the autistic connection to the cone shape? it looks like something from thinkgeek. something to stick in a garden or sunny office desk, yadayada, not a serious attempt at generating a usable amount of energy from the roof of a building or other suitable location. im just seriously vexed at how this product would have come out of the engineering world.
 
Don't forget the water powered cars. They are on You Tube and they work. For $1500 or so, you can convert you gasoline engine to run on water
 
It should read:
"The original graphic rendering of the spin cell needed an update with a nicer candy bowl and a brake rotor to keep it from forming a singularity.Thanks to the engineering prowess of untrained amateurs on an internet forum, the demo model now includes heating vents and a heatsink. But i must remind you again it has nothing to do with what we actually are working with in the lab, nor have I or anyone at V3 ever stated that the spin cell, the only thing we advertise, is what we work on in real life. If you happen to mention Entech or any of the other technology firms that actually managed to cover this area of science some years ago i will provide you with poorly veiled threats of legal action. step this way to start back at the beginning of this circle, Thank you."

hurhur


what irks me is on the fb page all the pics of the old ones, then the wordless transition to the new ones, again, pics of them everywhere, without a single mention of all the pics being rendered.... i mean fuck logic... by their fb page they built 20 or so of the type1 cones, took pics of them in trendy places. then around the same time this thread happens they roll out a wave of pics of them with the shiny new candy bowl model in another trendy town. but before the roll out of the candy bowl pics, they show their much honored test of an infantile prototype nothing like the rest of the images. i get the marketing aspect, but FUCK ME, watermark your shit, "V3solar-* Concept*-2013". you have thousands of morons on facebook asking when they can give you money for one and you respond in sidesteppy ways, but you never mention that what they are looking at is an imaginary product born to energize investor meetings and shit.
 
V3Solar has provided a lot of good laughs for people with tech backgrounds. But many think there's a real danger in allowing these scams to go un-challenged, and one of the more obvious is Politicians actually believe in this crap, and effectively force us to invest in crazy stuff. My Senator doesn't know and IOU from a BTU, but she's confident she understands what makes the universe hum :) No wonder we're 17 trillion in debt.
 
V3Solar has provided a lot of good laughs for people with tech backgrounds. But many think there's a real danger in allowing these scams to go un-challenged, and one of the more obvious is Politicians actually believe in this crap, and effectively force us to invest in crazy stuff. My Senator doesn't know and IOU from a BTU, but she's confident she understands what makes the universe hum :) No wonder we're 17 trillion in debt.

V3Solar claims that economic development reps from OR, among others, attended their little demonstration of the "spin cell" toy, which has motivated me to soon establish contact with our relevant state agency, Business Oregon.

Seeing V3Solar's graphic for their "cool spin" reminded me that they have not addressed the issue of losses, such as mechanical friction of a spinning shaft and the resistance across a commutator, not to mention the typically short life of commutator brushes.

Losses, Efficiency and Testing of DC Machines

They claim to have developed the only method of keeping PV cells cool under 20x solar magnification but that's a blatant lie considering heat sinks have been used in CPV for years. There are actual viable options for cooling CPV. If the waste heat could be used it would provide for even greater efficiency in overall energy production. Something like a liquid cooled CPV system perhaps?

Thermal Modeling and Life Prediction of Water-Cooled Hybrid Concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal Collectors

Water Cooled Concentrated Photovoltaic System


And lotek... U R 2Funny
 
I was made aware of this site by a man who cares deeply about these scams and the damage it does to all of humanity. I have the advantage of growing old, and many things I have seen touted as new, are really quite old. I've watched Popular Science Magazine 'Bait' people with Cover Stories so crazy, that only my Senator would believe! I think most of us are able to recognize that a magazine's first priority is to survive, and a bait story attracts a wide audience. The Engineer buys it to see what kind of nonsense they hype, and the uninformed dream of the free lunch offered. But there's damage done, these unchallenged stories breed a type of voter who votes for the gift of the free energy machine! They believe that printing a dollar creates wealth, they make no effort to hold politicians accountable for doing exactly what V3Solar does. I say this only to point out that a site like this has value beyond measure!
 
Lotek... Your mention of water marking? Is that legal, could we actually hold them down and watermark them so others would know them?
 
Assuming only good-intentions on the part of the inventor, what concept is he misinterpreting to think this is a breakthrough?
What's the ground-breaking part? The shape, the spinning? Is he getting a false result?

Or does it have to be a deliberate overstatement of potential on his part?
 
Assuming only good-intentions on the part of the inventor, what concept is he misinterpreting to think this is a breakthrough?
What's the ground-breaking part? The shape, the spinning? Is he getting a false result?

Or does it have to be a deliberate overstatement of potential on his part?

They think that flashing the concentrated sunlight on the cell creates more power than a constant source.
 
They think that flashing the concentrated sunlight on the cell creates more power than a constant source.

No doubt, folks seem a little sheepish about libel, can't we all just say it's what we think? After studying Solar with some intensity for 15 years, and having 40 years of experience in the electrical/electronic field, can I say this looks nuts without fear of Libel? Do I need walk on tippy toes... really? and I think you need to re-think the use of the word 'think' in your reply.. But do know I love your site and what you do..
 
Keef, one I love is the people who claim to get rather significant energy out of open irrigation canals. An Engineer worth his salt knows the reasons to make sure the water moves from end to end with as little velocity as possible and therefore they keep the energy potential in any point in the circuit to an absolute minimum! But that doesn't stop the scammers from making a lot of money off the idea of dropping a paddle wheel or turbine in the canal. Nor does it stop them from getting noticed by the DOE.. or so they say :) Here's an idea as old as Homer.. BUT do note, my Senator would spend my last dime on the idea!
 
Lotek... Your mention of water marking? Is that legal, could we actually hold them down and watermark them so others would know them?
im not sure, their website makes it clear their main concern in imaginary property rights, so they could use it as a point of contention. however i didnt mean us watermarking the photos, i mean it is dishonest for them not to do it, as it is standard practice in industry. we could, and i would not be afraid to really, but jackasses like Prenda getting away with IP murder makes me shady these days. but more important, i think its a moot tactic and would not get enough eyeball time for the effort. and all the people have to do to stop you is say "well yea that is a rendering" then they seem to have publicly discredited you, even tho everyone missed the rest of the points.
 
No doubt, folks seem a little sheepish about libel, can't we all just say it's what we think? After studying Solar with some intensity for 15 years, and having 40 years of experience in the electrical/electronic field, can I say this looks nuts without fear of Libel? Do I need walk on tippy toes... really? and I think you need to re-think the use of the word 'think' in your reply.. But do know I love your site and what you do..

Like I said in my first post, sometimes people think their science works, and they try to sell it, and sometimes they don't think that it works, and they try to sell it anyway.

It's a reasonable question ask to if Robert thinks it will work or if he's just pretending. But either way he's going to give the same response - unless you can convince him otherwise.

Libel would be if you make a knowingly or negligently false claim about someone. Now I think that Robert's claims do not stand up to scrutiny, and that he's presented no convincing evidence to back them up, and that the whole idea seems preposterous to me, and I would not invest in such a scheme. That's all true, not libel.

Look at Robert Styler's past. He spent many years in the multi-level marketing company Equinox, even wrote a book about it:
http://www.amazon.com/Spellbound-Journey-Through-Tangled-Success/dp/0966237307

He then spent time at a solar power leasing company, also multi-level-marketing:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com...itizenr-is-back-will-the-company-prove-itself

He now runs an organic farm in Oregon.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Angels-Organic/216995788323965
 
Greetings! Could there be more than one Billzilla :) There are a lot of installs where installers have paid attention to assure adequate air flow under the panels and some have even designed plenums to assure heat is carried off. One interesting install was to build the array over pond water, where they would be evap cooled. But.. I can't find anyone else who effectively takes their PV out of the suns rays to cool it. Seems a little bit like driving south to travel further north faster.
 
Sounds like some jackassery going on here. You guys have too much time on your hands. Bottom line, at this point you can't prove that it doesn't work any more than they have proved that it does work. There is a lot of conjecture here so why the hell are you even wasting your time with this argument? Wait and see if it gets produced, then do some damn testing. Of course they aren't going to reveal all the intricacies of their design, it's still in development and they want to keep the inner working secret. Seems like a lot of hot air and claiming that it can't possibly work. Why not just wait and see what happens. Just because the device is not fully comprehended by YOU, doesn't mean that other don't know MORE than YOU. I'm curious as to what kind of innovations you guys have come up with or whether you just prefer to regurgitate your programming.
 
Because it might not work, and people might waste money investing in it.

And the evidence so far very strongly seems to indicate (to me at least) that it will not work.

And you can prove various aspects of its not-working. For example, the cone's focussing system is physically impossible. You can verify that with a few diagrams. The suns rays are parallel, and they have to focus on a much smaller cone. You can't do that with a rotationally symmetrical cone.
 
I feel you far overestimate the amount of time it takes to come up with information and to type a message... and attempting social castration by pointing this out does you no good.

Who does it hurt? the good kids and people working in garages and r&d shops everywhere with weak funding thru their dismantled college engineering programs trying to building technologies. when venture capital disappears into crap like this, it bumps off other real science from being done.

"regurgitate your programming." How [...]
 
You guys have too much time on your hands.
It's what happened when I retired.

Bottom line, at this point you can't prove that it doesn't work any more than they have proved that it does work.
Yes, I can, with a diagram on a cigarette carton. Straight away. And they proved nothing except if you focus a greater area of sunlight onto a cell you'll get more power out of it, which any predatory ape can easily see.

There is a lot of conjecture here
There is NO conjecture here.

so why the hell are you even wasting your time with this argument?
We aren't wasting our time. This is BUNKUM, and debunking bunkum is our self-appointed task.

Wait and see if it gets produced
Wait until the punters get taken...

then do some damn testing.
No need. It's as useful as a square-wheeled bicycle.

Of course they aren't going to reveal all the intricacies of their design, it's still in development and they want to keep the inner working secret.
I know, the magic part.

The biggest disincentive for other producers is TOOLING COST. Patents are more of a liability than a service in that light. Both of these things are intricate. The only intricacy in this invention is that of figures of speech. Sort of Irish. Free energy.

Just because the device is not fully comprehended by YOU, doesn't mean that others don't know MORE than YOU.
Is the earth flat? Does the sun go round it? Are you sure? How do you know? Others*?

I'm curious as to what kind of innovations you guys have come up with or whether you just prefer to regurgitate your programming.
A turbulent counterflow air-to-air heat exchanger capable of recovering billions of dollars of low grade heat energy annually.

Nobody programmed me (unless you call science programming), but I do believe someone programmed YOU.

* I wonder what we would find if we looked up the relevant guys? Where they grew up and graduated, and in what, and who they then worked for in the optical and semiconductor fields, and for how long, using what facilities, and have they published peer-reviewed material, and so forth? I bet there's nothing at all. I only wonder.
 
Because it might not work, and people might waste money investing in it.


Do you really think someone is going to decise to invest or not invest because of what they read here?!? Smart people with access to better information than we are looking at this. And it will be a long time before small money gets a chance to win or lose.


Anyhoo, back to spinning cones of power: Seems like there are 3 main outcomes:

1. failure: The solution doesn't offer any net gain in any important measure of fully-loaded lifetime cost-per-watt (including installation at end-user location).
2. failure, per above, but providing a stepping-stone to one or more advancements that are important.
3. success: ranging from mild to wild, any net improvement in lifetime cost-per-watt output.

#1 and #3 are on the same spectrum...only depends on how far from the current standard they make it, and in which direction.

#2 is hard to measure and quantify.
 
Do you really think someone is going to decise to invest or not invest because of what they read here?!? Smart people with access to better information than we are looking at this. And it will be a long time before small money gets a chance to win or lose.

One might argue that smart people are not the target audience.
 
The market for crap devices like this are folks that do not understand science, they see a lot of big words and it looks impressive to them, so they fall for it.
 
Here are a few simple rules when looking at scams.
To be successful, a scam needs :
- a gullible or at least trusting person, relying on faith
- a person who is greedy, who expects something for nothing

As far as energy scams, don't invest any money until "proof of concept" is demonstrated by the the inventor's home operating off the grid using the novel energy supply. Then start looking for how he is cheating.

This patent is hilarious. It take big bollocks to send that to the patent inspectors.
http://www.google.com/patents/EP1782552A2?cl=en
 
solrey wrote:
They claim to have developed the only method of keeping PV cells cool under 20x solar magnification but that's a blatant lie considering heat sinks have been used in CPV for years. There are actual viable options for cooling CPV. If the waste heat could be used it would provide for even greater efficiency in overall energy production. Something like a liquid cooled CPV system perhaps?

Collaboration aims to harness the energy of 2,000 suns

"We plan to use triple-junction photovoltaic cells on a microchannel cooled module which can directly convert more than 30 percent of collected solar radiation into electrical energy and allow for the efficient recovery of waste heat above 50 percent,"
[..]
With such a high concentration and a radically low cost design scientists believe they can achieve a cost per aperture area below $250 per square meter, which is three times lower than comparable systems. The levelized cost of energy will be less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour (KWh). For comparison feed in tariffs for electrical energy in Germany are currently still larger than 25 cents per KWh and production cost at coal power stations are around 5-10 cents per KWh.
[..]
Current concentration photovoltaic systems only collect electrical energy and then dissipate the thermal energy to the atmosphere. With the HCPVT packaging approach scientists can both eliminate the overheating problems of solar chips while also repurposing the energy for thermal water desalination and cool air.
Content from External Source
Like we've been saying, V3Solar is a joke compared to real viable cutting edge technology.
 
This patent is hilarious. It take big bollocks to send that to the patent inspectors. http://www.google.com/patents/EP1782552A2?cl=en
The Holophasec 3D method of Wave Matrix Mechanics also includes completely novel recursive conjugate direct feedback methods, protocols, processes and procedures that occur automatically between a plurality of Holophasec 3D emitter and an exciter arrays and the base band that create the analogue and discrete state Holophasec 3D Channel (H3DCH) that is articulated both in the 3D analogue base band and in terms of the Wave Matrix-Holophasec 3D Logic.

The base band Holophasec 3D Channel is truly non-orientable because it is continually recursive in all spatial three-dimensional space and time increments that are mallueble fields of radian spherical reference.

The invention utilises radian geometric constellation variants to capture spherical increments of time-space-fields of 360° degrees of radian vector spherical space.

The Wave Matrix that is transmitted by the emitter is also received by the emitter as a asymmetrically yet continually fused spectral harmonic continuous discrete state (CDS) stream of three dimensional wave information as applied to selected radio, fibre optic and metallic channel space.

The Holophasec 3D Emitter/Exciter can be shaped and configured in many geometric topologies.

The invention uses the half-radian topology of parabolic geometric constellations to create spatial 3D variants of that are configured to perform different application specific functions.

Just like there are many types of conventional holograms such as the cylindrical type, which allows one to see all the way around and object. The holographic stereogram allows the 3D imaging of moving live subjects or outdoor scenes.

The pulsed laser hologram is another is another configuration that is designed to produce true holographic portraiture, and true color holograms made with red, green and blue laser light.

There are many forms of holograms and many ways of producing these images that are well known in the art.
Content from External Source
Oi veh. Must be an Irishman. (mallueble?) Or perhaps a Spaniard who has kissed the Blarney Stone.
 
Collaboration aims to harness the energy of 2,000 suns
Like we've been saying, V3Solar is a joke compared to real viable cutting edge technology.
And even this big stuff (25kW) is a joke as a low-tech high volume solution. This stuff is really down the list compared with siting awareness, permacultural design, passive solar design, insulation, and low-grade heat recovery.

Say we were successful, and kept a technical front on managing and eliminating population rise, (huh!) until all our city suburbs met each other, populated by glittering solar panels and windmills. Is that what you want?

How would you know where you were? :)
 
Sad News.. Entech is in process of shutting down Lost their funding source.
Here is an email I just sent to the marketing guy at V3Solar.
====


Hi Robert..

Read your latest promotion presentation on your web site. Noting that you have updated the cartoon image of the Spin Cell (not to be confused with the Cool Cell) CONE n' RIB "design" but without any explanation why it was changed. Oh...right...yes.. it is all in the "angles". This line from your web site (copyright noted, fair use exception here) .... "The classic is that there are only 1000 watts of light in a square meter. Yes...if you are looking at a flat surface. But when you calculate in the 3D aspect of PV, you can have four or five times more surface area to capture light -- if the light is coming from myriad angles." Yeah, right. Physics as you go. This is almost laughable, if you weren't so serious in putting this out in public.

Was reviewing the YouTube video comments from viewers. Now lots of people have indicated that their science and your science just don't tally.

Noticed you have a nice chart for comparison on your new web site....BUT...it is so fuzzy no one can read it. Strangely, the photos are sharp, but the chart is as fuzzy as your science. Also, I cannot figure our what those flat/curvey covered panels on stands are there to illustrate. Looks strangely similar to EnTech's concentration design.

My suggestion.... get your CV out on the street now before you ruin your career riding this pseudoscience.

RMM
 
Not a lot to say really



It's all just hand waving until they produce a working example and some actual numbers.
 
Last edited:
And even this big stuff (25kW) is a joke as a low-tech high volume solution. This stuff is really down the list compared with siting awareness, permacultural design, passive solar design, insulation, and low-grade heat recovery.

I've studied permaculture and natural building, designed constructed wetlands, worked with a variety of passive and PV systems, lived in a couple of eco-villages etc. etc. Our house is cooled in the summer with a solar attic fan and some clever alterations to the existing duct work. I think HCPVT would integrate perfectly into the permaculture concept with its relatively small footprint and utilization of "waste" heat.

http://permaculturenews.org/2011/03/02/a-solar-powered-life-part-ii/

Say we were successful, and kept a technical front on managing and eliminating population rise, (huh!) until all our city suburbs met each other, populated by glittering solar panels and windmills. Is that what you want?

Um, no. One benefit of HCPVT would be to produce the same amount of energy with a much smaller footprint.

How would you know where you were?

There's no mistaking the loony bin we call the human race. ;)
 
I think HCPVT would integrate perfectly into the permaculture concept with its relatively small footprint and utilization of "waste" heat.
It's the "knock down the hospital" approach. How many trees would you have to clear for the production factory? How much oil for the production energy?

One benefit of HCPVT would be to produce the same amount of energy with a much smaller footprint.
Um, no. The solar footprint is a standard. With 25% efficiency, you'd still need 100 sq m of intercept area to give you 25 kW. But that's five times what a house needs.

There's no mistaking the loony bin we call the human race. ;)
On that we can agree.
 
The whole point of concentrated PV is to produce a given amount of energy with fewer resources and a smaller footprint. Although the semi-conductor cells themselves might only be 30% efficient, the sunlight is concentrated by a factor of 2,000. Plus there's the added benefit of harnessing heat energy from the cooling system. There is ample existing open space for factories, in fact the guts of the HCPVT parabolic system would be made in an existing factory. Why bother with CPV if there's no benefit in regards to resources used or the space required?
 
The whole point of concentrated PV is to produce a given amount of energy with fewer resources and a smaller footprint. Although the semi-conductor cells themselves might only be 30% efficient, the sunlight is concentrated by a factor of 2,000. Plus there's the added benefit of harnessing heat energy from the cooling system. There is ample existing open space for factories, in fact the guts of the HCPVT parabolic system would be made in an existing factory. Why bother with CPV if there's no benefit in regards to resources used or the space required?

The footprint is no smaller. You still have 1000 watts per square meter of incoming sunlight. Even if you concentrate that 1000x it does not actually change. The footprint of the solar cell itself is smaller, but the concentrator (the lens) can't get smaller. It just used less silicon.
 
I study Mechanical engineering and our professor gave us a task to find innovations about renewable energy. I start writing about the V3solar idea when i found some non-well explained things, cause me start looking for more details. I read all posts here and i have some questions. So mr. Mick

Is this an idea (about spin cell and V3solar) that has no future?
Does not worth spending time to correct/change the mistakes/disadvantages?
Is it totally a scam that hides non-science purposes?

Thanks in advance.
 
Back
Top