amperes money matters

Every night I need to charge up my works mobile phone / laptop /printer / gas detection equipment.......Its a pain.....I was wondering if anyone knows how i could measure the cost of charging all this equipment????

keep it simple as poss please

Thanks

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gastec
Reply to
gastec
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As simple as possible ... compared to heating or air-conditioning, it can be ignored.

Reply to
Charles Schuler

only pennies .... less than a night lite.

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Reply to
sofie

Short answer: plug it all into a power strip and measure the current it consumes then multiply that by the line voltage and you have the number of watts. Multiply the watts by the time its turned on per day. Power is billed per kilowatt hour of consumption. You need to know what you pay for power per kilowatt hour and how many KWH the stuff you're concerned with uses.

It takes very little electricity to work that stuff, if you look at each piece individually, it is not worth worrying about. Collectively, it may be another matter.

I found all the stuff that never turns completely off TV with a remote, my electronic typewriter, VCR, wall wart chargers etc. were costing me about $4 a month. Soon to be $5.5 with the new rate hikes.

Spend a day with an ammeter and go around the house - then plug your findings into a spreadsheet program to calculate usage for an hour, day, month - its enlightening.

Someone is marketing this gizmo called a "Kill A Watt." You program it with the cost of energy and then plug an appliance in and tells you what it would cost to run that appliance. I think its around $30-50, Learn to read your meter. It's easy enough - and the power company will usually mail you instructions if you have trouble. Tie what you do to what you use on a daily basis. For instance I take a shower it costs me about 37 cents, bake bread 22 cents, wash dishes: about 5-15 cents, brew two cases of beer 40 cents.

You can save more by managing your consumption. Use less hot water (changing the shower head may help - putting the water heater on a timer - switching it off when you'll be away etc..)

If you're still using incandescent lamps - it really pays to switch to compact fluorescent. Particularly in the fixtures that stay on for hours at a time.

I cut my power bill from about $45 a month to about $23 a month (I live alone) by worrying about the little stuff. Hot water is was a big part of my cost.

Dishwashers eat lots of money - use sparingly or don't use at all.

Air conditioning is costly, but not nearly as costly as using high heat dissipating appliances or humidity raising appliances while using air conditioning. You pay once to make the heat and humidity, and again to remove it from the house . . . double whammy.

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Reply to
default

I'm sure it is much cheaper than buying alkalines.. : )

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

Get an old utility company watt-hour meter and wire it up to a power strip or extension cord. Record the reading on the meter, use the stuff for a night and record the reading again.

Reply to
James Sweet

Just run an extension cord over to the neighbors house if your that worried about how much it costs.

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

Assuming your domestic power consumption meter either has a rotating dial or a neon/LED that flashes to show electricity consumption and also stated on the meter what 1 rev or 1 flash means in terms of power consumption. Turn off everything electrical and count flashes or revs in one minute when you've plugged in your kit and multiply. If you don't wish to turn off stuff with clocks then time with this base load and then re-time with your offending kit plugged in , take difference and multiply. As a rough rule compare the heat given off by each with a 15 watt mains bulb, and even more general the ones giving off the most heat are likely the biggest consumers of juice.

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

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Reply to
N Cook

Negotiate with your employer for the time you spend, much more financially beneficial. Of course be ready to negotiate whether you get to keep your job ;-)

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Regards ......... Rheilly Phoull
Reply to
Rheilly Phoull

Sage advice, to be sure. But the Kill-A-Watt doesn't give you the cost of the energy you use... it only gives you the quantity of energy units, such as watts and V-A. A word of caution about calculating energy... battery chargers are notoriously reactive. IOW, the standard DC formula for power doesn't necessarily fly when you're using AC devices. That's where the Kill-A-Watt shines. It will calculate the energy in true watts, volt-amps, or KWH. It will also give the power factor of the load, as well as line voltage, current and line frequency. Most likely all your chargers together would take several days or weeks to register one KWH. Not much you can do about it anyway, unless you want to hack the chargers to add power factor correction. A ton more trouble than it's worth. See a description of the Kill-A Watt at

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You can usually find them on EBay for $20 - $30 US.

As an alternative, use a clamp-on current meter to measure the line current being drawn by the chargers and, as stated, calculate the V-A by multiplying line voltage by Amps. remember that you are calculating volt-amperes, not true watts. You need to measure power factor (or voltage vs. current phase) to be able to calculate true watts.

Cheers!!!!

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Dave M
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Reply to
DaveM

The guy is complaining about having to plug the stuff in to charge being a pain. Do you really think he will take the time shut everything off in his house to see how much electricity these devices are consuming? Don't get me wrong your method would work but he sounds like he wanted a quick answer like.. It uses about $10 a year.. Even though I have no way to actually know how much power it uses and I wouldn't be supprised if it used less.

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

Two things: Power factor correction won't really affect the reading of your electricity meter. It will keep the power consumption (Watts) about the same, but it will reduce the reactive current so that there will be less Amperes of current. The electricity meter will read watts, not current, so the reading will be pretty much unaffected. The power company will be grateful, however, because although they receive the same amount of money from you, the losses im their wires and transformers will be slightly less because the power lost in the wiring is proportional to the current squared times the wiring resistance.

The second point: a clamp-on meter probably won't make things easier when measuring the consumption of ordinary appliances, because you have to separate the line and neutral conductors and clamp the meter around only one of these if you want it to read the current. Also most clamp meters don't work so well below about an amp, so this would be no good for a charger.

Probable the best option is to either buy a power meter, or read the label on the appliance which should state the power consumption. Watt meters are really useful for looking at the standby consumption of TVs etc. however, because the label on the TV probably doesn't even mention the standby consumption.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Jones

The main thing is to not leave the charger plugged in when the phone isn't connected. They still use nearly as much power even when the phone isn't connected. So if you charge it for 6 hours and then unplug it at the wall socket, this might use about 20 times less power than leaving the charger plugged in for a week with the phone disconnected.

Also, disconnect the laptop and printer power supplies from the socket when you aren't using the lapton and printer. Just switching off at the printer or laptop doesn't cut the power consumption to zero, and sometimes doesn't reduce it much at all.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Jones

The guy is complaining about having to plug the stuff in to charge being a pain. Do you really think he will take the time shut everything off in his house to see how much electricity these devices are consuming? Don't get me wrong your method would work but he sounds like he wanted a quick answer like.. It uses about $10 a year.. Even though I have no way to actually know how much power it uses and I wouldn't be supprised if it used less.

Reply to
Michael Kennedy

Are you sure about that?

Seems to me if the current is higher for the same actual power consumed (which it is when the power factor isn't unity) the distribution costs are higher - the IR losses still take a toll and are wasted as heat in the distribution network.

Any saving with a reactive load would be in the effort required to spin the generators.

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Reply to
default

hey neebour im in Scotland ......and yes we turn the off everything at nicht...take care of the penny's and the punds look blissfully efter themselves..aye a penny saved is always a guid thing....dont you just miss the half pence piece.....aye

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gastec
Reply to
gastec

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