8 replies to this topic

[E3 wise]

The question of how to measure an electrical items usage is one that has come up a lot here on the forum, the older posters will refer them to the Kill-O-Watt are well aware of the KILL-A-Watt meter and its ability to provide simple easy to read answers on how much an electrical item uses and the meters ability to calculate weekly, monthly and yearly cost by using the simple push button calculator to estimate usage.

Another great feature is its ability to see how much an item uses when turned off.  This vampire power usage as it is referred to can be very important when people are deciding how to cut electrical usage or decide which items to put on a turn off and on power strip.  The Kill-O-Watt P3 model has been a staple around our house for many years and can be bought online for anywhere from $20 and up depending on how many additional features you need but as I have said the P3 provides the ability to estimate usage easily over time.



But let’s say you want to plug in multiple items at one time to see how much a whole lot of items are using, an example being your entertainment system with the TV, cable box, DVD, CD player or more.  Well that is where the new P3 P4330 Kill-A-Watt® Ps 10 Surge Protector can come in very handy. The combined power strip and surge protector allows you to plug in up to 10 items at once.  Now you can protect your valuable electronics and find out what they are actually costing you.



Simply connect these appliances into the Kill A Watt® PS-10, and it will assess how efficient they are while the built-in surge protection keeps them safe. Advanced features such as over current, over voltage, and no load detection provide clean, safe power to your expensive equipment.  Prices range from $ 59.00 to $99.00 online and when it comes to accuracy it really is great.  WE did our own testing using the power strip against an ultra-expensive digital voltage meter in side by side comparison and found the accuracy of 1% to 4% listed to be right on with the power strip actually being more accurate than our $280.00 digital voltage meter.

So why the comparison you ask?  Well as some of you know we are developing a Solar Back Up Generator that will be going on the market soon.  As part of the development we needed to know how it reacted to multiple items being turned on and off and the surge that occurs from things like refrigerators or big screen TV’s and so on coming on.  The Kill-O-Watt power strip made this so easy and we quickly came to understand how great it was for accessing vampire power from multiple items, which can be huge for things like your computer center with its router, printers and so on or as I said the entertainment center with all its du dads and electronics.  In our testing we found it just as accurate as the readout on the inverter used on the backup generator. With its range of 0 to 1980 watts it allows you to plug in a whole lot of stuff, heck that’s just under 2kW of power folks.

So if you just want to check out usage of single items go for the older P3 but if you want to check out the usage of a whole lot of stuff, take my advice and get the Power Strip surge protector.
Honestly we have tried a couple of other companies electrical usage meters and what we found was that they cost more, where not as accurate and did not have all the options of the Kill-O- Watt meter line.

Oh and just so everybody understands we are not getting anything from anyone for this recommendation, we just feel it is the best product on the market to help you decrease your energy costs and become a smarter consumer, because end the end that helps us all.
Jeff Moore
Director Technology Integration
Environmental Power & Water Generation

[Besoeker]

I'm not a great fan of theses things.
There was a thread here not very long ago where a comparison was made between how much energy a microwave oven uses for cooking compared to the digital display on it and they were comparable amounts. In truth, neither was actually very much.

But aren't we seeing the same thing here? The measurement sensors, the electronics for the computation of the various parameters and that display all consume energy - the very stuff we want to save!

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I think it's great and they do save $$$

[E3 wise]

Well let me give you an example, recently we got rid of an LED tv, donated it to a group home.  The reason was it 'twas using 350 to 400 watts a hour, we took a Kill O Watt meter with us to compare models and found several that used even more and a few that used around 100 watts, guess which one we chose.  By using 200 watts less we save a lot of electricity every day.

[Besoeker]

E3 wise, on 26 January 2014 - 06:20 AM, said:

Well let me give you an example, recently we got rid of an LED tv, donated it to a group home.  The reason was it 'twas using 350 to 400 watts a minute,

That's not a measurement I recognise.

[E3 wise]

Sorry got a typo in there let me be precise.

One watt is the rate at which work is done when an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against constant opposing force of one newton.
\mathrm{W = \frac{J}{s} = \frac{N\cdot m}{s} = \frac{kg\cdot m^2}{s^3}}
In terms of electromagnetism, one watt is the rate at which work is done when one ampere (A) of current flows through an electrical potential difference of one volt (V).

The terms power and energy are frequently confused. Power is the rate at which energy is generated or consumed and hence is measured in units (e.g. watts) that represent 'energy per unit time'.

For example, when a light bulb with a power rating of 100W is turned on for one hour, the energy used is 100 watt hours (W·h), 0.1 kilowatt hour, or 360 kJ. This same amount of energy would light a 40-watt bulb for 2.5 hours, or a 50-watt bulb for 2 hours. A power station would be rated in multiples of watts, but its annual energy sales would be in multiples of watt hours. A kilowatt hour is the amount of energy equivalent to a steady power of 1 kilowatt running for 1 hour, or 3.6 MJ (1000 watts × 3600 seconds (i.e., 60 seconds per minute × 60 minutes per hour) = 3,600,000 joules = 3.6 MJ).

Terms such as watts per hour are often misused when watts would be correct.[16] Watts per hour properly refers to the change of power per hour. Watts per hour (W/h) might be useful to characterize the ramp-up behavior of power plants. For example, a power plant that reaches a power output of 1 MW from 0 MW in 15 minutes has a ramp-up rate of 4 MW/h. Hydroelectric power plants have a very high ramp-up rate, which makes them particularly useful in peak load and emergency situations.

Major energy production or consumption is often expressed as terawatt hours for a given period that is often a calendar year or financial year. One terawatt hour is equal to a sustained power of approximately 114 megawatts for a period of one year.
The watt second is a unit of energy, equal to the joule. One kilowatt hour is 3,600,000 watt seconds. The watt second is used, for example, to rate the energy storage of flash lamps used in photography, although the term joule is generally employed.

I should have said watts per hour.  Sorry

[Besoeker]

E3 wise, on 26 January 2014 - 11:53 AM, said:

I should have said watts per hour.  Sorry

Don't need to be sorry if it isn't your field.
You kindly posted what's on the net,
Then spoiled it  with "I should have said watts per hour."
Watts per hour isn't a unit either.
You probably know what my day job is.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Here's a question for ya-at the end of the end; I'm spent. How much energy have I used?   (just kidding)

[Besoeker]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 26 January 2014 - 03:39 PM, said:

Here's a question for ya-at the end of the end; I'm spent. How much energy have I used?   (just kidding)

Probably around 2 kWh without trying too hard......