General > General Technical Chat

Watt the fμck?

(1/19) > >>

paulca:
I'm not going to preach to the choir here, but "leccy don gon expensif don it"

Maybe I am preaching to the choir, but...

Forget the momentary devices like kettles, coffee machines, etc.
Track the high power items.  Tumble drier, oven, electric hob, microwave etc. etc.

The thing is, as I found, while the bullshit you get in the media on "standby power" is cringeworthy and usually highly inaccurate, the reality of "It all adds up" is a genuine factor.

So... I invested in monitoring plugs and plugged different "device groups" into them and monitored them for (by now over a month). 

By device group I basically mean a 4 way power bar extension or a chain of same for N devices.  (UK fused 13Amp spec at each bar and plug).  In the case of something like the bedroom that's 3 plugs.  In the office, there are 2 buses with about a dozen on one, and half a dozen on the other.  The office has a total of about 8 x 4 way or 6 way extensions.  The non-essential stuff which isn't adverse to being switched off and on and stuff I will never need to run if I'm not present, is on that bus.  Lights, monitors, speakers, most of the electronics bench.  The other bus has essential stuff.  It's plug has a bit of label tape sticking the power switch down into ON that says, "NO!!!!! ANY OTHER PLUG" on it.  It runs the PCs and network gear... and a sneak plug for the electronics bench.

-----------------------------------

"OMG!  THIS GI! Had NO IDEA! grumble grumble"....   yes, these cheap smart plugs are absolutely inaccurate.  Yes, they all actually add a few deciwatts to the mix.  Yes they are point of failure and a point of potential fire.  ABSOLUTELY YES, their 13 amp rating will take me to open them and see for myself how they are wires and the ratings before I would trust them with half of that.  None of that matters.  Except maybe the fire hazard if one exists in the units I use.

USA viewers:  "Don't cascade, tree and chain extensions.  It's dangerous."  Dude.... UK plugs, fuses in all of them.  The WHOLE chain if it was 100 long of 4 way power adapters is STILL fused by a single 13amp fuse.  Obviously there is risk of miss-inserted and partially inserted plugs.  These in the past have melted extensions on me when running high power items.   NONE of the devices I connect to these plugs consume more than 500W.

-----------------------------

The thing it shows it's exactly unexpected, "things add up".  However, seeing it in hard data on your screen every morning when you log in with your coffee makes it hard to ignore.

Multiplying things run time by they output, even to 1 significant figures should show you where you NEED to look is...

Medium power items that run for long (or 100%) duty cycles.

I identified 3 problem areas of standby over use.

1.  Office.
2.  Living room.
3.  Bedroom.

(Why not the obvious kitchen?  Because if you need, you need.  They are momentary, choice items.)

These rooms are "in use" or "not in use" and while somethings need standby power to retain their state and config, most don't. 


----------------

Numbers....

My living room media centre plug was pulling something like 30W idle.  Nobody in the room.  That was standby/active power for:
* 55" TV
* Dell Optiplex SFF desktop in standby.
* network "smart" switch

I would often just walk out of the room, knowing the PC will time out and black the screen after 5 minutes, the TV will time out and go standby after 5 minutes of that.... the PC will go to sleep after a total of 20 minutes elapsed.  It turns out that returns the room power consumption slowly down from 160W to 30W. 

Still,
30W * 24h = 720wh 
Not a flies dick off a kwh.  (Fly from Boogie nights)

kwh = £0.39p UK as of 1st Oct.

It starts to matter.  That's compared to last year at £0.16 on a good tarrif.

What prompted me to open this discussion and probably accept the heat, is because....  an examplar.

I got a new, cheap ass, chinese OSC.  Tested it, it's as shit as expected, but ... also better than requirements.  So fine.  It say 100Mhz, it struggles above 10.  I don't need more than 1.  It consumes 7W.  So leaving it sitting there displaying pretty pictures for no reason is costing...

7W * 24h=168Wh / day.  It's still 8p per day.

(Mine is connected to the off grid 12V solar system so irrelevant for me)

I mean if you look at the things you leave on in the lab, you can justify they individually, they consume a dozen or two watt hours a day.

I'm saying if you pay attention to all of them and find ways to segment things into "needs to be on all the time" and "can be turned off as suits", you can half your "base load".

paulca:
The whole post and (due to red wine) I forgot the most important load which seems to be in the middle field.  It's too small to care, but it tends to run nearly permanently.

Computers, PCs.

If you have a weedly little desktop that people insult on forums, you are going to do well.

If you have a modern, baller gaming PC, you aren't.

Real stats:

5800X 32Gb  (idle) 3080, 850W PSU  --- on line 100W-120W.

Dell Optiplex 70xx i7 with 8Gb RAN and onboard gfx = 20W
Work laptop 18W.

If you run any of those 24/7, you need to start calculating the cost.  The price of leccy has more than doubled a lot of "don't care" items will now have migrated into the "should" care category.

/red wine (sorry).

Overall with little inconvenience I have lower my "base load" in the office from 260W to 140W and my house wide "skeleton base power" from close to 500W to more like 260W.  Over night power from 300+W to 120W.

jpanhalt:
If you think that's bad.  I have a second home that is now vacant and for sale.  About 8 weeks ago, a main water line was replaced in the neighborhood.  After restarting the water, a toilet in a room I hadn't been in for ages got stuck in "on."  Unlike the usual running toilet, there was no noise and no ripples in the water bowl.  The overflow tube was simply running continuously.  The penultimate month's water bill was $60+.  I investigated and fixed the problem, but not soon enough.  Last month's water bill was $97 for 1.3 MCF.  Wow.   As of today, there has been no water usage since the last reading.

I am amazed that that one could fill a small swimming pool through a straw, so to speak.

Electroplated:
I had my WTF moment a few months ago when I discovered my new Siglent scope has 'soft off' and not a real power switch, according to my tplink watt meter, it uses 3 to 4 watts when off by its power button, unlike everything else in my lab that has a real power switch, its something I over looked during my research on it, if I would have known about it then no way on earth would have bought it.

Other things that are now turned off, the new washing machine that goes into sleep mode after playing a fancy tune, using 8 watts, the 2 watt cooker clock and the fake electric fire that used half a zillion LED's and a motor to produce a crap flame effect, when on it used 40 watts just for the flame effect, it was rapidly replaced with a more wallet friendly led effect using fading and flickering LED's, and some ceramic logs, it now uses 5 watts and is actually better to look at and far brighter.

PIR outside lighting, we have four of them, 2 are being replaced soon because when off during the day both of them consume 4 watts each, the other two, a different brand use 1 watt.

My beloved CCTV set up had to be trimmed down, off went two cameras at 5 watts each and out went the recorder because it was using 60 watts, its been replaced with a SFF dell and blue iris, its consumption is now 22 watts, it also serves as a small server, the PC, router and switch run off the same power supply, shaving a few watts off individual power supplies.

Yes, every little thing does add up and I am glad I am not the only one who noticed this, in fact I think I have reduced the over all consumption so much I can afford a small bottle of red wine to celebrate !

Monkeh:
There's a reason I'm ebay hunting for equipment to replace my VM host. 155W idle at 33.86p/kWh hurts.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod