Wasted electricity on Remote Outlets????

I picked up a pack of Remote Outlets. Three plug in outlets and one remote controller. I bought them to control some lamps in the living room, because the outlets are not switched and turning these lamps on (On the lamps switch) in the dark is a pain.

These things work well, but I noticed the outlet pieces get fairly warm, even when the lamp is not turned on. I realize they contain some sort of radio controlled frequency which the remote connects to, and I know there is a relay inside because I can hear it click.

I'm just wondering how much electricity they waste. Obviously some, or they would not be warm when the lamps are not turned on.

I try to keep my power usage as low as possible, so I am just wondering if this is drawing any amount worth worrying about. Getting warm, does indicate power consumption when not in use.

Reply to
oldschool
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I would guess a watt or so. probably a series resistor/cap power supply setup for low current operation. In a confined box with little ventilation creates a nice temperature rise. You should get your self a Kill-A-Watt meter and verify.

cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

It likely varies among devices. No way to know without testing it. I plugged some old X-10 lamp modules and switches and some newer radio-controlled switches into my Kill-a-Watt. All measured zero watts and 1VA. Don't know how accurate the thing is near zero, and they do get a little warm, so it's not zero, but close. YMMV.

Reply to
mike

It depends on the actual circuit in use.

Apparently a popular circuit is to have a capacitive dropper and a zener diode to stabilize the voltage. So what you basically have is a series capacitor, followed by a bridge rectifier, and a zener diode (like 12V or 24V) plus capacitor over the output of the bridge rectifier.

This then powers the relay and some further regulator down to 3.3 or 5v to supply the receiver and microcontroller.

Unfortunately, when the relay is not energized the zener diode has to dissipate the power normally taken by the relay, so the power consumption is constant no matter if the relay is on or off.

You can see quite some of those devices explained (and schematic drawn) on this youtube channel:

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(bigclivedotcom)

There is another potential issue with these devices: the receiver is often superregenerative, and a characteristic of such receivers is they emit a signal at the receive frequency. As a result, when you plug two such plugin outlets next to eachother in an outlet rail, they often fail to work correctly. See:

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(eevblog)

Reply to
Rob

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