Home Surge Protection

[Pootnaigle]

Sounds like a ripoff to me, adding a capacitor aint gonna drop yer bill and neither is a surge protector. If you wanna save some real money try using the off features on your lights, air conditioner, water heater etc.

[BigClive]

Looks like quackery to me too. If it's not a power factor correction capacitor then it's some sort of active PF circuitry that will be more of a liability than of use.

As Poot says, if you want to reduce your energy bill there are other ways to do it.

[LeadHead]

It wont save you any money becase you pay for the killowatt not the amps

[Pootnaigle]

Ummmmm gee If they can dupe a lineman I spoze they can dupe bout anybody.Trust me its tomfoolerery and any knowledgeable electrical technician would tell ya the same thing.

[Edge]

First I've heard of this on the home owner level but devices like this do exist and work at the transmission and sub transmission level

Statcoms, static Var compensators (I think BC and I have talked aobut them in the pat), synchronous condensers...

and various arrays of thyristors and capacitors in conjunction with step downs...ect...

most are designed to correct power factor but statcom can actually provide active power if connected to an AC source (which may be the theory on which this this home owner device...dunno)


interesting stuff Swamp I'll have to get to reading up...

Edge

[Edge]

untill theres some concrete evidence though Swamp Poot and BC are right... there are better ways to control homeowner load/light bill

sometimes ya just gotta turn off the gd TV and go outside and play... hehe :)

Edge

[Boomer gone soft]

The only savings that could be realized would be through power factor corrections. Unless you are running more motors than the average joe, I can't see how this can help.

On another angle, Alliant is making investments into "smart grid" technology......Are other utilities getting into this also? What will this "smart grid" mean to linework? As far as it's been explained to me so far, it mostly has metering changes. We were told the big savings from this is the customer will get a time break down of their demand. The analogy that was given was like trying to cut down your cell phone bill with only knowing the balance due each month and not when and what kind of calls were made.

Any thoughts?

or in Swamps case.....any opinions?:D

[BigClive]

After checkin around a bit......I ain't so sure this ain't for real.
There's over 200 companys nation wide sellin these.

Watch this demonstration vid which was on the site.......
http://www.kvar.us/video.htm

What about checking out THIS video too. Apparently you guys will soon all be out of a job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnsYUYfMtXk

The company's already sold lots of these expensive units, but to the best on my knowledge hasn't actually delivered any working units yet.

All it takes is a little bit of bull**** science to make technically incompetent (Or just plain greedy) people part with their cash.

I love the way all these free energy machines stop when you disconnect their battery.

[BigClive]

His house will be a hell of a good test case too. He runs like 20+ computers, and all sorts of other electrical goodies.


Then a good place to start would be using more efficient computers, with good quality power factor corrected power supplies.

[BigClive]

Much as I'd love to believe that people have come up with an over-unity machine (free energy), most of the most convincing ones are complex scams to make technically inept "investors" part with cash. Unfortunately some of these creations are made by people who genuinely believe they are on the verge of discovering perpetual motion and get so wrapped up in their own belief that they are blind to the fact that their design has "flaws" that mean it will never work. A lot of these mythical creations are helped along by conspiracy theories that the oil industry paid-off or otherwise got rid of the inventors of free energy machines.

One of the most common on the internet seems to be people getting excited about a "motor" which has a spiral circle of magnets that make the rotor accelerate round until it gets to the point that the spiral starts again and it inevitable stops at that point. They usually push it past that point, sometimes with mechanical/electrical assistance and state that it's the last small hurdle to free power. It's not. It's the one BIG hurdle to free power. It's the equivalent of rolling a ball down a hill then carrying it back up.

I like to keep an open mind, so I'm ever hopeful that some day someone may find a way to create continuous movement by magnetic or other means. If it is discovered it will be fiendishly simple and will suddenly be followed by a spate of "inventors" who "discovered" it first but strangely enough can't prove it.

[wtdoor67]

I remember an old chap near the rural H.S. that I attended. He was facinated with inventing a "perpetual motion" machine. His last name was Clock and after his death it was found, while going through his home, that he had numerous clocks rigged up in experimental modes in order to try his different methods. He never perfected the perpetual motion machine.

[Pootnaigle]

I hear ya.

Well, it "sounds" good. What I'd really like to see is actual Power bills before, and say......2,3 and 4 months After the device is installed. I hope to see that when my friend gets it installed.

Like I said, I was hoping there might be some input from actual people who have really had this device installed or a similar device.
Swamp its gonna be kinda hard to use that for comparison, If you stop and think about it things change from month to month like temperature( causing your air conditioner to work harder, Or the length of daylight, Making you lights run longer, Or the quantity of people in your home going in and out etc etc. What dont change is the fundamental basics of electricty, and at a homeowners level this will not benefit anybody but the guy selling it, and the middleman. Admittedly I am a skeptic But scuze me anyone that made a living for long as a lineman should be able to see right thru this and be warning others . Not touting it and helping em rip off yet another poor fool.

[BigClive]

Their video demonstration has quackery written all over it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B-rOk2bW3s&feature=player_embedded

I'd like to see the actual wiring of their test rig. I'd also like to see it earthed.

Do American meters measure reactive power?

[wudwlkr]

The device in that video is simply using a capacitor to counteract the lagging vars caused by the motor with leading vars caused by the capacitor and bringing the power factor of the circuit closer to unity. What he was measuring with the amp meter was the combined real and reactive current flow current flow. Current is current and an amp meter will read reactive current as well as real current flows. When the capacitor is turned on the reactive current flow is canceled out and the real current is left. It will in fact decrease as shown when a capacitor is plugged into the circuit. However, reactive power is 90 degrees out of phase with real power and is not measurable by your standard house Kwh meter. All the Kwh meter registers is the amount of real power being used and a decrease in reactive power won't much change the readings on the meter. Yes, there might be a slight change because a decrease in reactive power will decrease the amount of heating loss in the circuit. But for your typical motor loads in a house the change will be so small that it isn't worth the cost of such a device. Should also point out that such devices will only affect motor loads or other devices with coils. If the video demonstration had been done using a large resistive load such as a heater it would have done absolutely nothing.

[Boomer gone soft]

The device in that video is simply using a capacitor to counteract the lagging vars caused by the motor with leading vars caused by the capacitor and bringing the power factor of the circuit closer to unity. What he was measuring with the amp meter was the combined real and reactive current flow current flow. Current is current and an amp meter will read reactive current as well as real current flows. When the capacitor is turned on the reactive current flow is canceled out and the real current is left. It will in fact decrease as shown when a capacitor is plugged into the circuit. However, reactive power is 90 degrees out of phase with real power and is not measurable by your standard house Kwh meter. All the Kwh meter registers is the amount of real power being used and a decrease in reactive power won't much change the readings on the meter. Yes, there might be a slight change because a decrease in reactive power will decrease the amount of heating loss in the circuit. But for your typical motor loads in a house the change will be so small that it isn't worth the cost of such a device. Should also point out that such devices will only affect motor loads or other devices with coils. If the video demonstration had been done using a large resistive load such as a heater it would have done absolutely nothing.

Exactly right.

Also exactly right a lineman would know the difference.

Don't confuse scabrat with facts. He "ain't much on theory".

As a side note he "ain't much" on anything other than running his yap.

[BigClive]

I'm guessing it may well just be a fixed value capacitor then? If it is and all the motors are off then you're going to have a leading power factor.

I still think it's quackery with a suspiciously large change in the current reading. An unloaded motor wouldn't be a normal load.

[Bull Dog]

I don't know....really.

looked pretty straight forward to me.
The meter was quite obviously wired on the "High side" for 120 to ground. and...the low side, out of the meter was too. ****, he plugged the meter "supply" power...into the wall socket.

"Do American meters measure reactive power?"

Don't know man. Maby somebody else does. The Amps sure dropped though.

Was that "Tom Foolery"/:confused:

It won't work Swamp. I am really surprised you don't know this or are you just pulling our legs? Its a whole wheel barrel of hoey. These scamers always come out of the wood work when times are tough and people have energy savings on there mind. Not by accident these guys have all kinds of things right now that will save you tons of power. Go figure. They give instructions to home owners to hook this junk up that are either dangerous or illegal or both. I wish some one could send these guys to jail but there slippery as Made off. Leave it alone swamp its a scam.

[wudwlkr]

I'm guessing it may well just be a fixed value capacitor then? If it is and all the motors are off then you're going to have a leading power factor.


Exactly right. And then your no better off then if you had done nothing in the first place. May even be worse as the typical home doesn't have many motor loads. Either way, leading or lagging, a standard Kwh meter can't read the reactive power component and you don't get billed for it. Only way any such power factor controlling device would be of benefit would be if you had a business with a lot of constant motor loads and you were being specifically metered and billed for power factor.

As far as the decrease in meter value in the video there is nothing magic about that. The meter is reading current. The meter could care less if the amps circulating in the wire are straight power amps or reactive power amps. With the motor running it is pulling alot of inductive current because of the coils. Throw in the capacitor and it throws in capacitive current. Inductive current and capacitive current are 180 degrees out of phase with each other so they cancel each other out. Your left with the straight power current. The values they show on the meter in the video are very typical of what you might expect to see depending on the value of the capacitor and the size of the motor.

[BigClive]

Sorry Swampy, such a disappointment when something like this turns out to be false, but if you're interested I can sell you a magnetic device that you cable tie onto your main incomer to the house and it magnetically corrects the power in your cable and reduces your electricity bill. It works by compensating for the inherent AC imbalance in most house wiring and appliances that leads to excess power consumption. By applying a corrective field to the imbalanced current in the wires it brings the positive and negative half of the mains sinewave into sync and thus saves money on the imbalance that the meter would have seen as higher current.

Although the magnet itself is a very specific material with a high flux density and scientific polarity, it is very easy to fit without cutting any wires at all, since it simply straps on. I do recommend that it be mounted within your premises to keep it secure from theft.

I know you'll be amazed at the money saving achieved by this unit, so I offer a full one year trial period after which you can return it for a complete refund if you don't believe that it is making a difference to your bill. Many users have reported that the unit pays for itself within as little as two months, so you've got nothing to lose and everything to save.

Here's a testimonial from Jane Samuels of Kentucky:-
At first I didn't believe that saving money on my power bill could be so easy. I decided to try the unit out and found it very easy to apply using the cable ties that were supplied. First thing I noticed was how crisp the lighting in my house became. Apparently the equalisation of the power results in appliances running at higher efficiency, and this was also reflected in my clothes washer reaching much higher spin speeds than ever before. After just two months I noticed that my electricity bill had dropped by about 5% and the next month it was 12% less which is a massive saving over what it used to be. I recommend this unit to all my friends.

[Boomer gone soft]

I hear ya man.:cool:

I talked to an "electrical engineer" a couple days ago, and he told me....after lookin at that site, and readin all the ****....
"Well, if the place had alot of motors, runnin 24 hrs a day, I could see where this would reduce his power bill."
:confused::confused:

"OOO....K". THAT was real definative....

Hey, dummy.

Try looking up power factor and leading and lagging current.

More of that impeccable rat training.:rolleyes:

[Edge]

Most everything I've read on this stuff looks like snakeoil Swamp... and I gotta agree with the above posters... unless your buddie is puttin in a **** ton of moters and what not I don't see how the hell it can justify costs...

as far as him being just to "cheap" to buy computers with good power supplies well thats just illogical as **** considering most of them come with good power supplies or they are readily available at sources like Tigerdirect, newegg (my favorite) or ncix and many others.....

why not look into offsetting cost with solar panels since he is building a house as you say... and maybe a windmill... I would imagine solar panels would rock down there in floriada and you could prolly do it for 20 grand hell it would be paid for in a ear or 2 then youd be putting back on the grid for cash in your pocket.... not only that but I believe there are many federal and state kick backs for doing it in the first place....

**** man there are better ways to save on consumer load/lightbill...
sometimes you gotta turn of the GD TV and go out side and play!!!

Edge

[BigClive]

It's not so much power factor of inductive loads that we have to worry about these days. It's the really poor current to voltage characteristic of all the electronic switch-mode power supplies being used, and that includes the so-called "low energy" lamps. They start off with a leading power factor and then follow that up with a high frequency pulsed load.

Many of the electronic supplies self adjust to the mains voltage and will draw progressively more current as the supply voltage is lowered. This can result in a cascading effect if the supply voltage falls and the increase in current pulls it down further.