My initial outrage at this half-assed "product" has calmed down a bit. Her's a more rational response:
1. The circuit diagram is clearly wrong.
2. The documentation does mention that a bridge rectifier is required between the variac and motor, but there is no information on replacing the variac with the controller board for permanent installation.
3. The wiring notes are incomprehensible.
But let's put aside all incredulity and assume for a moment that this thing actually works somehow and ask the obvious question, is it viable? The answer is a clear and resounding "No" for many reasons. Cost of materials, weight, shipping issues, complexity of mechanical assembly, installation and service issues, dangerous voltages, heavy parts in mechanical rotation, RFI, and many other problems assure us that this can not be manufactured, assembled or used by anyone unless they are well-funded, engineering savvy and/or very, very persistent.
In other words, it's doomed to fail as an open source project from the start.
The fact that the development of the first two prototypes was crowdsource funded to the tune of $24,000 indicates to me a deception, since the payees will never see any benefits. Instead the benefits will go to the promoters as consultants, and to "professional electromechanical engineers" if any can be found who would associate themselves with Hope Girl.
Years of R&D by others has been usurped for personal gain by this crew, who are now swanning around the world propelled by their newfound fame at having "Save(d) The World". And yet they have done no such thing at all. Hope Girl's interviews, rather than showing any understanding of the product, are full of pixie dust and PR. Which is, after all, her professional background. Her stepfather, James the "engineering artist", essentially stole the design from Tim Thrapp and made little improvement.
Some men are great because they stand on the shoulders of giants. Other people, by contributing nothing and usurping the glory, belittle the work of their forebears. And that, in a nutshell, is why I was pissed off at this project. By crediting almost every wacky community on the planet they have created a juggernaut of fools, and now charge forth conquering it with essentially broken technology.
And unsurprisingly, this is how many large companies started in business. But do not be fooled by the seemingly innocuous motives, they are running a business and are very determined to take a hefty market share, while using up the good will of anyone they can bilk along the way.
The good news is that solid-state free energy devices have none of the downsides of the QEG, and will soon come online in bulk. And the sophisticated buyer will purchase smaller, lighter, cheaper devices that fulfil a niche requirement, like powering a single garage or boat, rather than a monolithic monster that's targeted at gluttenous US consumer needs for a complete household.
I live off the grid, and have done for two years. My electrical needs are catered for by 160W of solar panels, although it would be nice to have something that works on cloudy days. For cooking I use 1.6 kg of butane a month, at a cost of $8.00 total. A 50W solid state generator device that ran 24/7 would complete the installation. So, who needs a QEG anyhow?
Good luck to them, they are already history.