Okay long story short....


You know how you read how much energy a product uses by looking at the specs or reading the manual?

Well, it's not really useful because you never know how much each electronic appliance is costing you to run each month. Either you turn it off and on all the time, or the temperature or stress uses different amount of power over time, we never know the amount of power each appliance REALLY uses over time.


My invention proposal is to create a middle-man plug and records how much power flows through it over time. Instead of plugging directly into the wall, you'll plug the device into the wall first, then plug the appliance into the device.

I wouldn't know how to begin to invent this, but I know it's possible and I know some other people could get mad money off this idea.

If it's been invented already, I apologize.

[Edited on October 27, 2011 at 8:41 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2011 8:39:44 PM

so individual meters for every appliance?

10/27/2011 8:40:51 PM

Just so you know, we recently switched from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file patent system, so if this hasn't been done someone is running to the USPTO with it as we speak.

10/27/2011 8:40:58 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Houseware-_-P3+International-_-82715001

10/27/2011 8:41:18 PM

eggcellent.



I knew it was too easy of an idea not to eggxist.

10/27/2011 8:42:26 PM

The mind of a genius...

10/27/2011 8:44:45 PM

$30 is a little too steep.


I have like 27 different plugs in my store. If someone made an even cheaper and simple one I'd buy it. Not looking to spend over $5 per 1 and I want to keep it on for the life of the unit or until I'm comfortable knowing the min/max of the power range.


perhaps a powerstrip with individual readings would be cool.



[Edited on October 27, 2011 at 9:03 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2011 8:46:33 PM

But then you have to plug in two in order to see how much electricity one of those meter deals is drawing.

\/ Yo dawg. Plug a load meter into a load meter so you can measure the load of the load measurer.

[/chitchat]

^So buy one and move it to a different appliance each month. A little over two years and you'll have your answers.


[Edited on October 27, 2011 at 8:50 PM. Reason : -]

10/27/2011 8:47:53 PM

Watt?

10/27/2011 8:48:48 PM

How have you never heard of a kill a watt meter?

10/27/2011 8:54:51 PM

http://www.powermeterstore.com/index.php

http://www.buy.com/prod/p3-p4400-kill-a-watt-appliance-tester/202443274.html

NEW INVENTIONS

[Edited on October 27, 2011 at 9:01 PM. Reason : :]

10/27/2011 8:56:22 PM

Why do you need to measure most things? You're not going to stop using your pizza oven, so there's no reason to measure. You're not going to unplug your beer cooler every night, so why measure?

10/27/2011 8:56:41 PM

http://www.p3international.com/products/consumer/p4320.html AND THAT SUPER AWESOME POWER STRIP METER IDEA

10/27/2011 8:58:05 PM

Thank you, Moox.

10/27/2011 9:00:29 PM

^^^ Because the mind of a genius is kept up at night pondering the electricity usage of his cash register.

10/28/2011 8:21:50 AM

wow fail.

and why would you have this device attached to the appliance, instead of at the wall? how the fuck would you have a universal device for ALL appliances? doesn't make any fucking sense.

I'm glad smart people came up with this product long ago, before your dumbass came up with some backwards shit

10/28/2011 8:28:03 AM

Do they have Kill A Watt on the east coast yet?

10/28/2011 9:34:25 AM

I was not informed.


Not a single thread that I've read on TWW has mentioned one of these devices.


I blame you, TWW.

10/28/2011 9:50:37 AM

Quote :

"How have you never heard of a kill a watt meter?"

Never learned to read, huh?

Quote :

"and why would you have this device attached to the appliance, instead of at the wall? how the fuck would you have a universal device for ALL appliances? doesn't make any fucking sense."

*cringe*

Quote :

"Do they have Kill A Watt on the east coast yet?"

ugh...



[Edited on October 28, 2011 at 10:30 AM. Reason : ]

10/28/2011 10:29:27 AM

Those were all quips at me supposed to know that this invention is called Kill a Watt without ever knowing the invention existed in the first place.

It's okay though. I forgive them.


I got the answer faster in here than I would have originally gotten it by googling it.

10/28/2011 10:34:42 AM

Why are you going for every single plug in your facility? I understand in a commercial building with some of the appliances you have there are some real power-chuggers, but if you really want to track the historical power usage over time (not just kill off the incremental power that is used when a device is plugged in but not in use... like a Kill-A-Watt), you’d want something that has a network capability and could read values back to your computer somewhere.

I only mention this because we DO have these concerns with some of the systems I've worked on and this is exactly what we have to do. The difference is that we have $500,000 RF amplifiers plugged into a device, not a $5000 commercial stove. That's how we are able to rationalize the cost difference.

---

A much simpler approach is if you are wanting to see the power consumption of, we'll use for example, your kitchen equipment versus dining room appliances, you could have an electrician hook a second meter up to those circuits (which I think would also need to be in a different box, but I'm not certain), and that way you could monitor the power usage of "groupings" of appliances. Obviously the draw-back is the initial cost and the that its much more permanent than a simple plug/Kill-A-Watt device.

10/28/2011 10:40:33 AM

I have 11 refrigerators/freezers/cooling appliances.

I want to see the power usage of my 60" plasma TV

I want to see the energy consumption difference between 18watt RMS speakers and 25 watt RMS subwoofer VERSUS a "500 watt" system


That is all.


With this basic understanding, I can extrapolate and figure out exactly how much energy a 5-ton, 10-ton A/C will pull also.


It's not that important guys, it is whatever. I'm sure many people on this site know this information already but all the electricians I've asked seem like they don't know shit about energy consumption enough to tell me what the MAX it will cost to run an appliance is by looking at the stats.

10/28/2011 10:54:38 AM

I won't lie, I didn't know you could buy something like this outside of industrial applications but I never thought to look either.

10/28/2011 10:55:43 AM

^There is a ton of stuff out there, mainstream and otherwise, to do most of what you mind could imagine. As far as power meters go, this is something that thousands of people deal with so there are a lot of little devices to make this possible.

Hell, there was a light-ground vehicle that had batteries we wanted to monitor and we just called up DigiKey who gave us a laundry-list of items that could get the job done.

10/28/2011 11:31:42 AM

Plug one into this and tell me what it reads:

10/28/2011 11:33:47 AM

I'm tempted to make a parody thread where I suggest installing a meter for every single plug in your facility.

Every facility.

Meters for the meters too.

And paperwork for each one.

10/28/2011 11:36:25 AM

Wouldn't you be stuck in an infinite loop?

10/28/2011 11:38:26 AM

Wouldn't it make sense to budget for the max potential rather than anticipated low usage?

10/28/2011 11:40:18 AM

Heh.

10/28/2011 11:42:47 AM

^, ^^ Great dialog.

mrfrog's response reminds me of a federal worker anecdote we have.

The base decides they need a draw-bridge over a river, so they build the bridge and realize they need to staff it. They hire one man to operate the bridge. The man needs to get paid, so they build a payroll office and staff it with a payroll clerk and two accountants to maintain his budget. The payroll staff need managers, so they hire an accounting manager and a staff manager. The next year there is a budget cut so they fire the lowest ranked person in the organization... the draw bridge operator.

Infinite loop, indeed.

10/28/2011 11:46:41 AM

or you could do like we do at the plant I work at and wire a current monitor onto the machine and export this data in real time. However I would expect it would be way more economical to get a killowatt and switch machines.

10/28/2011 11:49:12 AM

The math might be too advanced for moox to comprehend. It's abstract math.

10/28/2011 11:52:05 AM

Wait, a guy that works in a struggling strip mall pizzeria is trying to talk down to me?

Nothing I have said in this thread relates to math in the least bit. Perhaps you should learn to read before trying to understand the complexities of economics and electrical engineering...

10/28/2011 12:11:35 PM

Quote :

"Wouldn't you be stuck in an infinite loop?"

This might be a valid concern. But I don't know... it depends on your job title.

It would need an investigative committee to address. But first, we need to look into an outside consultant with experience. I know just the guy, with experience putting meters on meters.

http:///message_topic.aspx?topic=615582

[Edited on October 28, 2011 at 12:17 PM. Reason : a Twitter account for every meter]

10/28/2011 12:13:13 PM

[hijack]

So......... who is/was 'him who shall not be spoken of'? (TWW won't let me post his name)

http://www.greghyher.com

10/28/2011 12:43:11 PM

great dialog

mrfrog's response reminds me of a friend anecdote we have here.

He won a lot of money and bought a theme park for himself. But then he had to hire security to keep everyone out, so he had to admit a few patrons. Then rides were breaking down, so he had to admit a few more patrons to pay for maintenance. Then he has to take care of the utilities, so he has to admit MORE patrons. Add in refreshments and other theme park requirements, and he ends up having to let in a lot more people than he'd ever like.

Infinite loop, indeed.

10/28/2011 12:56:37 PM

^

10/28/2011 1:00:34 PM

Quote :

"Nothing I have said in this thread relates to math in the least bit. Perhaps you should learn to read before trying to understand the complexities of economics and electrical engineering..."

Your ego is too high for this conversation. Anything I say, no matter how simple, you'll argue with me about it.

Like this:

"budget(ing) for the max potential rather than anticipated low usage" is definitely a math problem and definitely misses the whole point of the thread.

10/28/2011 1:01:12 PM

10/28/2011 1:04:19 PM

I hate the shadowing in that picture

10/28/2011 1:06:54 PM