Yes, technically it is a capacitor, but my 50lb lead acid battery is 100000% more of a capacitor than this tiny homemade hunk of junk.

Yes, the fuse is obviously so if something grounds out, it doesn't destroy the electrical wiring in the car.

Paris is probably someone from the company trying to make things seem not so bad.


Did I mention the fact that the DPS unit's soldering looks like a 3 year old did the work. I guess "the bigger the blob the better the job" is their motto.

The fact that the DPS might have a miniscule amount of capacitance in no way changes the fact that this is a huge ripoff that K&G tried to pull over the eyes of the american ricer public.

 

The PDS FAQ version 1.0

Q: What does the maker claim?
A: Smoother idle, more power, better mileage, and a larger *****.

Q: Does it work?
A: Nope. (Unless you count using it as a paperweight or a money pit.)

Q: What's inside of it?
A: Just a few wire loops, a fuse, some foil, and a bunch of epoxy to prevent you from learning how little is in it. It appears that more money was spent hiding the circuit than actually building the circuit. The workmanship is also very poor.

Q: Wouldn't the wires add some capacitance?
A: The amount of capacitance added is far to small to have any noticble effect. All car batteries have a very large capacitanc already. Besides, if the goal was to add capacitance, why not just put a REAL capacitor in a waterproof box?

Q: Why would they patent it? Patents are expensive!
A: Because most non-technical people assume that when something is patented that it actually works. This has been going on since "Ole Doc Snakeoil's Patented Rhumatism Medicine" was being sold in the 1800s. The patent office does NOT evaluate products for effectiveness. They only document that you are the first to invent and patent an item.

Q: Why the fuse?
A: To prevent lawsuits. They probably wanted to be sure that their piece of crap didn't burn anyone's car or kill anyone. That would suck all the profit out of the scam in a hurry. (note that the fuse is NOT replaceable!) As long as the unit does no damage, the most they can be sued for is the price of the item plus shipping. They know nobody can afford to sue for that small amount.

Q: Why would the maker risk this scam?
A: Greed. If you can sell $5 worth of parts for $250 that is VERY tempting. (if you have no morals). The same reason some rich people cheat on their taxes I suppose.

Q: Why hasn't the maker responded to the negative reviews or defeneded the product?
A: Because they can't. They are busted and they know it. Time to cut their losses and move on. Any good scam artist KNOWS when it is time to cut and run.

Q: But haven't some people said that they felt the difference?
A: Sure. And some people swear by gasline magnets, split fire plugs, and newspaper astrology columns. (See alsoPlacebo Effect )

Q: Aren't you just some internet crank with nothing better to do?
A: Maybe, but the PDS device still doesn't work.

(Please note, the above FAQ is just the author's opinion.)

 

I stand (sit) corrected. I re-read the post and he is in fact attempting to defend the piece of crap and the pieces of crap that manufacture it.

I was trying to be nice and not fan a flame war, but I didn't realize he was on other boards talking this scam product up.

Since people are still posting pro-DPS posts here and elsewhere I was inspired to write the DPS faq.

 

Dave, This is a product that he doesn't care about, he never tried it, and he thought certain people shouldn't even get involved with it. He's just making a point that it actually does something, rather than those pictures that say it does absolutely nothing.

 

funny, you spelled DPS wrong. it's DPS, not PDS??

 

The funny (yet so sad) part about the fuse is that if it actually blew, the person who has it installed on their car would never know because the gains (if any) provided by that tiny capacitor is so minuscule. And since there's no way to tell that the fuse is blown, the completely useless box would sit in that person's car for years--while the person is convinced that the DPS is still doing something for the car. Kuwano...what a great company!

 

Actually...if you spend the $500, you get a fuse on the outside!

 

I think the effects observed were due to the extra ground the DPS provided. The accelerative Gs graph showed a clear gain with the DPS. I am willing to bet that a grounding kit would have the same effect.

 

Ohh, that's right, the top of the line model has the fuse on the outside! Oooh, how posh! That fuse costs $250, you know. Too bad no one has that version handy so we can tear it open to see if the components are any different from the other version (I bet it's the same).

 

LOL, I'm sure there's still only one fuse on the top of the line model. So you're really paying the extra $250 for the new location.

 

Right, and if he could actually prove it did something, i'd back down.

 

Those of us with prior dealings with paris know better than to try and reason with him, but I wish i had your patients.

 

I don't know if you are kidding or if you really think catching a typo proves something.

 

To think it has any sort of capactive effect is silly. In fact, the only effect it has is as either a stub tuning element, or a loop attenna. In this sense it does have a real effect. Much like a tube with one open end resonates at a specifc frequency, a stub resonates and amplifies at the frequency/4, and cancels at frequency/2. In this case, a loop is similar to an AM loop that is used in a home stereo system, but just not in an ideal shape.

Now with that in place, its probably no more than 10cm or so, meaning if tuned to cancel at lamba/2, the wavelength is about 20cm max, with effects out to probably 10x that. This corresponds to a frequency of nearly 150Mhz.

Now, at 150Mhz there is a good amount of noise in a typical car I would imagine, much of it gaussian, but quite a bit injected from every electrical component, and some radiated in from the outside world.

Looking at this device, any effect it COULD have in the 100Mhz-2Ghz+ range is small compared to the noise in the system; and its not going to clean up the system at all, because any noise it could filter (not likely) would get reinjected after the device. Further, even if it did 'save' power, there is VERY little in this spectrum, we are talking a few watts at most (1 watt = .0013HP), so power recovery is ludicrious. Finally, any sensor in the car is not anywhere NEAR this frequency. I would imagine most sensors are at most in the <1Mhz range. This means any DAC (digital to analog converter) used by would have to have a filter to prevent aliasing at a realtively low frequency. Say the filter was set at 1Mhz with a crappy -20db rolloff, that would be -40db at 100Mhz (where presumably this device starts to work). -40db means that 50mV signal at 100Mhz (quite large) would be reduced to 500uV before being sampled. This would require a 10 bit DAC to even be seen by the ECU with a 5V scale!

So nerd summary,

Crap. Like you needed me =P

X

 

you got all that from a picture?

 

Xeinth

Good point about the stub resonator. But as you observe, it is still crap.

If there was a certain noise problem at a certain frequency and you tuned a stub resonator to kill it and you installed the resonator near the problem you MIGHT help some circuit somewhere.

But putting a "one size fits all low capacity resonator" out by the battery is just plain silly. Particularly since they are claiming that it works on all cars.

I could almost see the antenna idea, except that they encased the loops in grounded foil.

This device has gone from "just crap" to "excessively analyzed high grade crap".

< obscure musical reference>
No matter HOW I look at it, now matter how I break it down, it remains consistent. I wish you were her to see it!
</ref>

 

Agreed I never imagined there would be so many people attempting to make this item seem like it might have some usefulness.

<obsure SNL reference>
If it's not Scottish, it's CRAP!!
</ref>

 

Andy,

Good point on the foil. Forgot about that.

Obviously this was an over-analysis, but really, some of these same things apply to so called ground kits. However, I am afraid to bring up that topic under fear of my350.com fatwa.

=)

X

 

Xeinth - your post is that of a well versed electrical engineer with much schooling, but you signature has me laughing my *** off!

X = is what is used as a signature for those that are illiterate!!!

Just thought it was funny after reading that post then seeing that

(no pun intended)

 

this is the most relevant response to your post.. j/k