Gyroscopic Investing

By the way (for background, not appeal to authority) I do have a master's degree in electrical engineering.  And most of these quotes sound like nonsense technobabble to me.

Gumby wrote:
1) Does "dirty electricity" exist?

Insofar as they define "dirty electricity" as quickly changing voltages (e.g. CFLs turning on and off at high frequencies) then yes.  But I'm not sure it's fair to call this dirty.  All AC has turned on and off at 60 Hz for decades.  Is he advocating DC power?

2) If so, does the product actually do anything?

It can't change the fact that things are turning on and off, but it could reduce the very small fluctuations on the line caused by the switching.

3) If so, how does the product work?

It's just a filter making voltage changes happen slower over time

4) If the product does something, is it more than a placebo effect?

Probably, as people have said above, there are bigger concerns like holding your cell phone up to your head.  If cell phone studies are inconclusive, how do you expect to get conclusive studies for effects that are orders of magnitude smaller?  By the way, the number one effect of electromagnetic radiation is going to be thermal.  So if you're OK on a warm day, you can probably handle a little electromagnetic warming.

Gumby wrote: Apparently you plug them in and something magic happens to minimize "dirty electricity" in the room.

My questions are:

1) Does "dirty electricity" exist?
2) If so, does the product actually do anything?
3) If so, how does the product work?
4) If the product does something, is it more than a placebo effect?

It sounds an awful lot like a line conditioner to me.  The only claims that could even begin to be made would be that it somehow prevents EMF from being given off into the environment.  I don't see how a line conditioner could do that.  EMF is inherent as a result of AC, so unless you change AC to DC, there's will still be EMF.  "Dirty electricity" is a threat to electronic devices, not human health unless the definition involves EMF.

Intriguing. Still having a hard time understanding what it "feels" like. Can you elaborate a bit on what you think it does?

For me its less stress and a feeling of calm or centeredness.  I recall I was pretty tried for a week or two and so were the other house inhabitants before we adjusted to the new homeostasis.

Gumby wrote:

AgAuMoney wrote:1) single blind.  2) the teachers (and most likely the students) were aware that "something" was being done to help.

I'm confused. The paper specifically said...

"We installed Graham Stetzer filters and dummy filters and measured power quality in three Minnesota Schools. Teachers completed a daily questionnaire regarding their health and the behavior of their students for an 8-week period. Teachers were unaware of which filters were installed at any one time (single blind study)."
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18556048

Yes, which means the "researchers" knew which filters were associated with what reported effect (single blind) and the teachers (and likely students) did know what something was being done to help, just that they did not know if it was a placebo (dummy filters) or the medicine under test (real filters).

The placebo effect is huge, and if the caregiver is aware it so hugely skews the results that they simply are not usable.  That's why this "study" is no study but simply propaganda.

The classroom either received dummy filters or working filters and students and teachers supposedly weren't ever told which one they received. Seems like there wouldn't be a placebo effect in that situation.

That is EXACTLY how you get and test for the placebo effect.

Edit:  (wrong button)  The only difference being if you want to isolate the placebo effect, the researchers cannot know if real or fake is being administered either (double blind).

MachineGhost wrote:

Gumby wrote: interrupted. A CFL, for instance, saves energy by turning itself on and off repeatedly, as many as 100,000 times per second.

That's really interesting as I didn't know that.  I use a full spectrum CFL bulb in my PC room (where I plugged in the Nimbus) and have for about one and a half decades.

Gumby, that's bunk.

Yes, they "flicker".  No, they do not do it to save power.  Turning on and off is simply a side effect that would cost more to remove than to leave it alone.

The reason they "turn on and off" is because a CFL requires higher voltage than the typical 120v line.  In addition the 120v line (in the U.S.) is cycling at 60hz, or in other words, turning itself off and on 120 times per second.

To solve the first problem the voltage must be boosted.  The old way was simply to use a transformer to directly step up the voltage.  This is the heavy "ballast" found in old fluorescent fixtures.  To save weight and cost and gain some efficiency, "ballasts" are now "electronic".

An electronic ballast operates at a higher frequency because higher frequencies transform more efficiently than lower frequencies (that's why airplane power systems operate at 400hz -- smaller, lighter transformers for a given power level).

Higher frequencies also reduce or eliminate optical flicker because phosphers have some persistence.  Even though most people cannot see old school fluorescents flicker at 120hz, it is easy to detect with an optical detector and sometimes it will "beat" against other things (like the old turntable or floppy disk drive speed calibration disk) or be caught out of the corner of your eye.  At 10x (1200hz) the speed flicker is much harder to detect, and at 100x (12000hz or 12khz) the phosphers are essentially always glowing (just like the old incandescent filament at 60hz).

An electronic ballast is really just a special case of a switching power supply.  It converts the incoming A.C. at 60hz into unfiltered D.C., chops it at a high frequency (some use(d) frequencies in the low kilohertz range, but those become audible more easily, so even tho higher frequencies add their own problems, 40khz or more are becoming more common), transforms it to the higher required voltage and feeds it to the tube.

They do not bother trying to reduce the "turn on and off" any further because while pulsing costs power via inductive and capacitive losses, filtering components would never be perfect, plus they cost more money, decrease reliability, and likely leak more power than the they would save.