Electronic water softeners.

This is a little off topic but I thought it worked very much like the magnetic bracelets with or without the magnets. This may be a case of the magic being in the mind. Having arthritis in my knees, I have considerable pain at times. I asked an Orthopedic Surgeon about the value of Glucosamine supplements, his answer was that they had no effect. I felt I had gained some benefit from them. So, to me it didn't matter if the medicine worked on my knee or my mind, as long as it worked. Alex

Steve

This cannot work, it breaks the First Law of Thermodynamics. Essentially what he is selling is a perpetual motion machine - more energy out than you put in. Having met this con at work I could go on at great length about but won't.

On second thoughts I will try to explain. The usual argument is that the added device somehow modifies, how is never explained to any satisfaction, the fuel to improve the the fuel consumption. This means that the same engine is now producing more energy for the same amount of fuel. It can only do this if the calorific value of the fuel has increased. This means that you have added energy to the fuel. Sorry but a magnet, or many other devices offered by such salesmen, cannot add energy to the fuel. If it did where would the energy come from?

JA

Edited By JA on 11/01/2016 09:01:29

Edited By JA on 11/01/2016 09:02:14

That sounds similar to an electronic gadget sold here to get rid of pests, anything from mice to cockroaches, it's safe and doesn't effect pets, or children.

Ian S C

Martin,do yourself a favour and chuck that boiler out and get a new condensing one. I did and my gas bill halved.

(assuming you are on mains gas)

John

Fit one to your waterworks and it will make your wee smell of roses

Stub

These actually work (ultrasonic ones).

There is a version that uses a slightly lower frequency used in the UK to get rid of groups of teenagers.

Neil

I believe that classical music works better

Russell.

We have vast caves in the mountains near here full of stalactites created by hard water dripping through. I'm sure the temperature never reaches 50 C!

As far as magnetic water softeners are concerned - has it occurred to anyone that most animals fight for food or territory while the human animal is the only one that fights for unproven beliefs.

Russell.

No longer! One curious side-effect of the web is that today's teenagers have broader musical tastes than us lot. My daughter has discovered just about everything from Tom Lehrer to obscure eastern European folk. I'm running out of obscure music to surprise her with.

But I do think the k-pop is just to wind me up...

I'm impressed (not!) by the ones that wrap a coil of wire round a copper pipe and excite it with AC. Er, copper pipe = shorted turn = no field at all inside the pipe where the water is...

What Were told about Glucosamine is that You can only use it for a month or so and have to lay off it for a while. Then start using it again, rinse and repeat.

The paradox of placibo treatments is that you can't "sell" or "prescribe" them as "placebos" otherwise by definition they wouldn't work. Instead you must call them something like "homeopathic" or some other woo medicinal name. That upsets the practitioners of conventional medicine for whom it wouldn't work anyway.

So you can peddle placebos - but they only work if you believe in them. And by definition they won't be labelled "placebo". We're a funny lot!

The wires are insulated.

Another link on the subject:

**LINK**

May be worth a try?

**LINK**

Laplace, Franklin, Deslon and Mesmer

Vic, you miss my point. The insulated coil generates an alternating field outside a copper pipe, the pipe is a shorted turn and there will be little or no field inside the pipe as the current in the pipe wall will generate an opposing field.

If the frequency is low enough, the pipe thickness will be less than the skin depth and magnetic field will penetrate to a reasonable degree. As they are doubtless operating at some convenient frequency like 50Hz, the skin depth would be pretty big (almost 10mm) and the pipe (1mm wall?) would be transparent to any magnetic field. I think that's possibly where the science ends though.

I'm with windy on this one when you start to take things out of water in becomes a sponge and tries to get the elements back into itself. We supplied a volumetric filler to a renal care company, we used 316 stst. Overnight the de ionised water if left in leeched the stainless steel. Day after the water was yellow!

Bri