PMC - Poor Mans Calorimeter

About $25 if you don't have a thermometer, otherwise $6-$7

Copper material available from your local Home Improvement Store

Solder on the end cap and then solder the ground connector to the cap. Be sure
not to break the seal on the end cap or you will have a water leak.

There are many different thermometers on the market, including the standard
glass type. Settle on the type you will use and drill a hole in the second end cap
to match the hose diameter you will be using. The thermometer should fit snuggly
into the small hose insulator.

The rubber hose is used to insulate the thermometer stem from direct contact with
the copper tube. Use steel wool or a fine file and insure the cap fits for easy removal
from the tube. Once you insulate the tube you want to be able to change water easily
between runs.

In about 30 minutes the unit is complete and ready for insulation.

Some other handy things to have are a graduated beaker, flask or syringe for accurate
filling of you water tube. The tube in this example holds 25mL for best results.

One of the first wraps that was later improved upon as shown in the next
picture.

How I place the carbon load resistor in the ground clamp and connect to the
input leads with a small plastic screw terminal connector. If you have heat sink
compound, cover the resistor. If you do not have heat sink compound use standard
Petroleum Jelly, this will work fine. Also if you use a 1/2W resistor you may want
to place a small copper strip between the connector screw and the resistor to obtain
better thermal contact.

An improved insulation method is to use multiple (larger) sizes of pipe wrap, which is
also available from Home Improvement Stores. Use wire ties to secure the layers and a thick
soft foam top through which the thermometer fits into the tube.

Calibration You don't really need to calibrate the device if you are only looking for a COP=>1.5. To insure a meaningful reading you only need to run the test for 2-3 hours or more, depending on the output of your SEC driver. Calculations This is probably the simplest of ways to test a SEC driver into a carbon load resistor for excess Heat. You only need to know your input voltage and current from your power supply and the start and end temperatures of the cell with the length of time in hours the test ran. Calculate your steady state input to the driver;     Pin = (Vs * Is )/thours     Vs = power supply voltage      Is = power supply current      t  = time test run in hours Calculate the power out from the SEC driver;     Pout(W/Hr) = ( c * m * deltaT * 1.1622E-3 ) / thours      c = specific Heat, for water =1.0      m = mass, the number of mL (gm) of water in the cell (should be 25)      deltaT = (Tfinal - Tstart) the temperature of cell water at start and end, temp in degrees 'C The driver COP;     COP = Pout / Pin *Do Not allow your cell temperature to exceed 50 'C ( 122'F ) as the pipe wrap begins to melt and gets very gummy.