I wrote, in 2010, about the miraculous Keseco Current Improvement System. It's a power-saving device that's claimed to work because of, in brief, technologies unknown to science.
I like this kind of power-saving box. Most power-savers are claimed to be some sort of power-factor corrector. Ones like the Keseco devices that're supposed to work by "rotating electromagnetic waves" or "non-Hertzian frequencies" are more fun. They still don't work, but at least they're more original.
When I saw a new comment on the Keseco post today, I presumed it'd be one of the spammers who occasionally get through the net and spray ads for handbags or wristwatches all over my old posts.
I was wrong, though. It was this:
We are representing Ultra device, made by Keseco in EU market.
We do agree that claims to achieve superconductivity in wires seem to be unrealistic. And we partly agree with that. However we confirm that we have tested Ultra in various cases: domestic and industrial. We have used Chauvin Arnoux ca 8335 power analyzer to measure w,kva,kvar,Amps, U, harmonics, cos fi, etc. We confirm that Ultra device really works in reducing active power, reactive power, slightly improving cos fi.It reduces total consumption by 5-12%. The saving % depends on a number of factors.It does not turn wires into superconductors, but reduces energy loses in them.Detailed reports can be send upon request. Currently Keseco obtained SGS, TGM reports on saving. The patent they have for energy saving device is real.It is not for design, it is for energy saving.See: http://www.wipo.int/patentscope/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2003061097&recNum=1&docAn=KR2003000104&queryString=AN:PCT/KR03/00104&maxRec=1 . Ultra device really saves energy For more information on research works we have done with ultra,please, send request to :info@energita.lt.
If it's all the same to you, unnamed Energita representative, I'll just wait for this miraculous device to make you the billions of dollars you so richly deserve. Then I'll be able to learn about it from, say, the paperwork for the Nobel Prize the Keseco designers have won, or the sticker on the side of the Keseco box that I, like everyone else in the world, will have purchased.
Just look at that patent. It's for a box...
...with some busbars in it, the busbars only being connected to power at one end, and the inside of the box provided with some mysterious ceramic coating and "conductive plates" that aren't electrically connected to anything.
And that's it.
Conventional electrophysics says that this box, plugged in parallel with household mains power, will do nothing. It's not even part of a circuit.
You allege that you have real evidence that it's a power saver.
So now all you have to do is send these patented boxes to universities, technical colleges and appropriate governmental bodies until someone takes notice, and then here comes all that money and that definite Nobel Prize, for the staggering discovery of how "rotating electromagnetic waves" make the magic happen.
(Or the people who invented it could, after patenting their discovery, have written it up as a scientific paper. Get it published and the results replicated, then sell licenses, and you could become billionaires without having to actually manufacture anything at all.)
You'd think that in the several years the Keseco device has been around, they'd have managed to do this. But instead, just like every other magic power saver or magic gasoline pill, the devices are sold piecemeal to whatever end-users can be persuaded to buy one.
Electrical components that aren't connected to anything are strangely popular in scientifically... novel... devices and talismans.
Inside the "EMPower Modulator", for instance...
...are three aluminium plates that aren't connected to anything.
...is similarly electrically innovative. And now we've got this Keseco box-of-nothing, too.
Energita sell a few other odd devices (machine-translated English version).
This power-monitoring system (translated) seems kosher, as do these light bulbs (translated), and I think this gadget (translated) may be OK too; it seems to be some sort of improved thermostat for freezers.
But then there's something called a "Fuel Activator" (translated), magnetic fuel improvers (translated) and, of course, the Keseco doodad (translated).
I'm never sure what to think when someone who sells these sorts of products remonstrates with me. I presume they quite often, especially when they're a reseller instead of the originator of the product, actually believe what they're saying. They're seldom abusive or clearly mentally peculiar.
There but for the grace of critical thinking, I suppose.
23 November 2011 at 10:31 pm
It's Box-O-Nothing!
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0uW9AFyS4I )
23 November 2011 at 11:19 pm
The new model of Q-Link does away with the fiction of a transistor entirely. It's all quantum psychoceramics.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Q-Link-Triangle-Acrylic-SRT-3-Pendant/dp/B003UTU0PS/ref=pd_cp_d_0
That review is perhaps the greatest thing I have ever written in my life.
24 November 2011 at 11:03 am
There's been some pretty heavy advertising on local radio here in Adelaide for some 'power factor correcting doo flicky' (my words) that is claiming to save you money on your electricity bills.
I'm pretty sure it's the old chestnut that doesn't apply to home electricity users, but with the ads being spoken by the radio personalities and seemingly legit I'm sure they're selling a few units.
Why isn't the ACCC cracking down on these in the same way it did powerbands (the rubber bracelets) and other quack devices?
Just wish I could remember the URL or product name so they could be publicly named and shamed.
24 November 2011 at 6:07 pm
Now now, rotating electromagnetic waves do exist, whether you prefer simple circular polarization or the more exotic orbital angular momentum. The devices for manipulating them can even look preposterous. They do not, of course, magically make empty boxes into power-saving devices.
(Though I quibble with the claim that three parallel busbars connected at one end are exactly nothing; there's some interbar capacitance that could possibly make a difference to radio-frequency waves. Again, not that this would produce meaningful power savings. Likewise with the aluminum plates vaguely near the conductors.)
25 November 2011 at 4:28 am
@Alex - I am compelled to ask, since you present yourself as an educated man in the review, stating you use "quantum mechanics for eight hours a day five days a week", and even better, you read Dans Data; what on earth possessed you to buy such a thing? There are genuine medications for migraine that work. I myself am a migraineur, and I use tryptans to excellent effect. I would never buy a piece of pseudoscientific crap like this for anything but entertainment value, and the value of this one is not enough to justify the rather high price. It may be worth $2USD for a piece of kids jewelry.
25 November 2011 at 2:55 pm
Yeah, I thought of that, too, but decided to round "less effect than plugging in an extension cord with nothing on the end of it" down to "no effect at all" :-).
28 November 2011 at 2:44 pm
I don't see a connection to earth in that box picture. Even a mains cable has an earth wire in it. Even house wiring tends to have an earth wire...
Without that, the plate isn't an effective shield. If it isn't shielded, it radiates EM waves.
Which means it could give you cancerous brain tumours- just like a toaster or an electric stove element. Mobile phones? Tip of the iceberg.
Provided they don't detect our sarcasm, I think this would stir up the money-grabbing rascals nicely.
1 December 2011 at 8:25 pm
mlipphardt: Amazon does a scheme called the "Amazon Vine" that provides a few thousand (perhaps tens of thousands) of highly-ranked reviewers products for free, first-come-first-served, in exchange for reviews. Normally, they only provide me with books and DVDs. One day the Q-Link appeared as one of my options, I had a vivid flashback to Bad Science, and I stabbed the "order" button like my life depended on it.
1 December 2011 at 8:28 pm
(For completeness, I use triptans.)
5 December 2011 at 9:18 am
OK, I heard the ad on the radio again Yesterday... V-Phase is the name of this new miracle box. Supposedly it's more than just an empty box however because it claims to regulate your electricity to 220V which is meant to somehow save you money and make appliances last longer.
I find this all rather dubious, but I'd be interested to hear the views of someone who actually knows a thing or two about electricity (well a thing or two more than I do)
5 December 2011 at 11:24 am
Incandescent heaters do last longer if they are given a lower voltage (they also don't produce as much light) so lowering a 230 V (or even 240 V) supply to 220 V could save you a very small amount of money if you're still using those things (but considering how cheap those things are you aren't even likely to make back what you spend on the voltage regulator).
29 December 2015 at 6:55 pm
-Keseco products are very safe products which obtained various certifications from many official reference institutions
http://www.keseco.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=menu3_2_e"
-you can find various installation practices from below link sites
http://www.mediafire.com/view/oto30mk5fc7i8tr/Performance_Pack_20150717.pdf