Inside a digital 80kW power saver unit. (with schematic)

I've looked at these whole house energy savers before the ones are supposed to reduce your electricity bill but are a bit dubious and this one is slightly different so thought let's see if they've change much so this one the main thing is it's got a digital readout on it and it's described as an 80 kilowatt digital energy electricity saver LED power saving box bill killer so I'm if your name's bill you're screwed and the idea is you just you know the way they're presented you just plug them in a socket and they save you a fortune your meter runs slower but in the back of the box it shows a distorted sine wave with glitches and spikes and then it shows the lovely clean sine wave and I'm guessing I haven't translated this I'm guessing it's actually just showing it's used as an interference suppressor or it may be doing that thing with the C by removing all the glitches it ends up using less electricity no in the past I always are under had a big capacitor and say that so that's it well let's get us out fresh start and try it out so here's a unit it's another one of these metal case units with just a tuple a connector which that dubious it's it's got four Spears that doesn't bode well does it and so what type of fuse is if it's a big past I would expect anti solder ones because they can take quite a pot from you turn the power on or when they're doing a business of suppressing glitches 250 volt reading F 5 amps so it's quick blow 5 amp fuses which I think slow blow would have been better for that not to worry more Chinese instructions and ok fuses out the way I wouldn't trust those fuses anyway let's plug it in and see what happens make a button that'd be quite a good result in general now the first one of these I tested I'm pretty sure I tried it know how commuter a fact let's get the half a meter in and see what happens and the hobby meter just didn't register at at all it didn't see anything because the power supply that was so really positive that it didn't see any sort of real power only seeing a part parent for some reason it didn't register that's that plug listen so this is at the top showing that the supply voltage 246 volts that says 245 volts which is fine that's good enough I'm not going to trouble a bit of all the current it only shows let's show you has named is 6 milliamps okay I was expecting higher than that I was expecting the power factor is terrible it's like point zero 3 which is what you'd expect of it is just a capacitor inside and the Peretz consuming is this a real power is about point 7 watts which will almost certainly just be oh that's quite a bright LED in the bottom there with decent flicker according to the camera and their digital readout of this display here which probably used as a capacitive dropper okay so let's say I show you about 9 to 6 milliamps tell you what let's say I plug in the other meter and we'll see what it shows and see if it reads any different thing this meter is a bit dumber than the Hoppe so it's more likely to give a more honest result set with a previous one it should quite a high current but low power as you'd expect of a big capacitor it's all showing point 4 watts which I'm pretty sure is similar to the other one err at showing 95 milliamps again so ok that's interesting it's kind of less current I was expecting normally these things that we could test that this is a capacitor this is a 10 microfarad capacitor that designed for motors and fans and things that let's strip this line and we'll stick it in the quick block and we'll stick it in that meter I'm busting in the hoppy in fact and see what that says I will be opening this it's okay don't worry I don't panic I want to explore this first I've just been distracted technically so I want to get a pure capacitive load across this first and see what it registers and then we'll try and lock it so let's bring their quick tests up cliff quick test I will stick capacitor into it I'll have to remember this may not have a discharge resistor this capacitor built in and so let's plug that in there set to current at a part that says starts off one point throughout three it goes down to zero that expect that but it shrinks six hundred milliamps is flowing through this capacitor that's quite a lot of current isn't it that's over a half a lamp let's see what the Hobby says I'm not going to regret this and I'm going to get a zap off this does up discharge okay that's fine Hey the naeun would take it down to a large degree area so let's try the hobby and we'll see what the hoppy mix of the of the capacitor this is where I'll have to use this to sit up above those terminals the Hobby says zero power zero current it's zero / f @h just ignoring it completely it does not like the capacitor adjust it's so capacitive nothing else in the Lord that it just decides that it's not going to treat it as a real load let's see if this does hold a charge by disconnecting it live oh we pop nothing really major thought may have a discharge resistor inside okay that's interesting that does make me think that I was hoping this when the unit here was going to have a fairly chunky compassionate like most of them do but I'm feeling there it's not let's say just over interest measure across that with a capacitive range and see what that actually comes up with celeste would be optimistic and see few hundred microfarad which I'm not really thinking it's going to be any of you knew that oh it's not anywhere near that Oh DRLs their last be somewhat less optimistic one night referred okay I think it's time to open this as quite products cool I think it might be quite non generous I think the main feature of this one may be the power on indicator and the LED digital reader so what screws is this ah tamper-proof screws there has annoy perhaps they don't really want you going into it and discovering that it doesn't really contain an awful lot so i'll frizz these out I'll use the cordless drill to get them out so which of these bits is gonna fit how hard any of these bits gonna fit the reason when a capacitor is connected across it doesn't draw any power there's no heat off the capacitor even though it seems this one was passing six hundred milliamps the reason for that is terrified to the fact that the the current isn't in sync with the voltage now you're all seeing why didn't why don't you use that every time your fingers Frizzle it could be raised now am I gonna read take it out from that and there is a capacitor in the back you can see it hold on what's the bet the capacitor at the back is just a really small low value one there is a circuit board and there is that capacitor there's really not much in there is there and this unfortunate this digital readout is going to stop it off terawatt as a connector as a connector on it can we pop the digital readout out I am pretty sure we can it's a tight fit how is that going to come out it's making popping noises this is where I'm going to end up brushing up that's okay I don't think it's doing an awful lot anyway land being a very nice box for a digital readout that is not coming out terribly easily I'll tell you what that will do so there's there there's a meter module in there hold on let me shine some light on that there's a meter module in there with a capacitive dropper for its own power supply that capacitor there will also be contributing to that capacitance reading so what have you got on this circuit board in a sense I suppose they could have cheated even further but let's not encourage them by actually using the capacitive dropper in this theoretically put it in series with their the circuitry here so what they're doing what is this capacitor and using it as its the capacitor off the power LED it is 1 micro farad that's odd then that that one didn't the parallel capacitor should have added up so what we got here we've basically got the capacitive dropped for the reason that was flickering so much is because they've been really crappy about it and they've used a half wave rectifier the look of it a last bit odd but they've done that's a bit cheap and tacky in its favour the thing is going through the fuse yeah I'm just going to do to this out one moment please oh dear that's even crappier than I was expecting I kind of thought that may have been part of the LED circuit but this circuit board is clear design to take large capacitor is designed to take capacitors that this size cable tied on or strapped on in some way so that can actually have some effect not not to save power in your house though but what actually is it you get your means come in and goes through this fuse and then it just goes straight to that capacitor with our discharges resistor form some turkey discharge resistor across it so you drunk Xing off the pins and the digital meter has just tacked physically just sold out across those leads it's not like this was designed to take take that in this board it's a it's a gimmick they've added so they mess there's something under the screen the mute hurts a bit yucky not why the LED is just a diode I resisted to limit the current than the LED with the capacitor across that it's really basic and simple and so that's not impressive know what I was talking about the the fact they go around of these units in display cases for this of fake salesmen that sell these things you know the charlatans and they've got this of beef cases are open and inside they've got the a digital meter showing current and then they've got the socket so you can plug one of these units enter and then they've got a really lossy electric motor that poses a huge inductive load it's basically our induction motor but it's no Lordan it so you can see the motor spinning it draws quite a high current because the whole thing about per factor is that if you get your sine wave and the voltage and an ideal per factor unity and you'd the current would match the voltage so they'd be two sine waves superimposed when you've got our inductive load it kind of lags with the sine wave it looks like that and by a capacitor you can bring it back in sync and because they're sync it actually seems to it shows up as drawing a lot more current in a way that sound doctors work they they set of in you know in the same way a capacitor can be used to limit current you can also use an inductor to limit current that's how the ballasts and old fluorescent fittings work so what they do in this display case they show the terrible light high current reading of just the basically inductive load and then they plug in the medical perceiving device which is all very obviously just going across the lines and then suddenly it miraculously improves that the current drops and they say look how much money that's going to save you in reality most digital meters most air electricity meters will not measure the apparent power they only measure the real power so all you'd be paying for with that meter and you should have say the motor running would be the actual power of the losses in the motor and then the power of the motor with new load enemies so it would have been that high so it's all a bit quacking it will act as a suppression capacitor I mean it will acts like passed across the moons but to be honest so with an LED lamp in this case and also if you this did have a huge capacitor in it you plugged across supply and your house did not have an inductive load then the para fighter had terrible anyway because they would have a big passed across it and it would be a leading power factor of which in the case of a you're I'm suspicious because that modern smart meters can measure apparent power as well as real power and all it takes the electricity company is that little box that they pick let me check and they just go out there mouse click it and they could basically set all the meters to start charging for EM the apparent power and suddenly up these bills gonna go up they're gonna try that one day it's guaranteed yeah that's I'm disappointed I was kind of secretly hoping it's kind of a big fat pastor on it it's really just the basics it's just you know trying to do the minimum possible to make it look a desirable gadget it's not even great as an interference suppressor that's disappointing but having said that it does what it kind of does lights up in assures of voltage yeah but yeah what's taking about a part anyway just to see if they've changed much and they have for the worst

Channel: bigclivedotcom

Views: 104,108

Rating: 4.9344711 out of 5

Keywords: 80kw, saver, bill, meter, capacitor, induction, inductive, bill killer, power, units, energy, cost, digital, display

Id: 69P70Z1GCfs

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2017