Inside a digital 80kW power saver unit. (with schematic)
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- These units are sold as devices that can save you electricity costs by making your meter run slower.
I've opened a similar unit before and this one is not generous with the main capacitor rating. Not that it actually does much anyway.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.co...
This also helps keep the channel independent of UA-cam's advertising quirks and allows it to be more "relaxed".
Takes me back to 1977, I was an Army Recruiter who was only 6 months away from separation. My bosses didn't really want a short time Army Recruiter in the office since they figured I might just tell the truth to prospects rather then the "approved" sales pitch, so they relieved me with orders to go home and do what ever the hell I wanted to do till I got out! Nice guys those bosses, so I decided not to waste my time setting on a chair watching paint dry, and enrolled in a local trade school to become a mechanic. Thus my introduction to the world of Capacitors! Back then every car engine had a large capacitor under the distributor cap, this, of course was to hold the coil charge till the cap called for it to fire the spark plug. On our test bench, was a small device where you could insert the "Condenser" to test it as part of the troubleshooting of engine problems, since condensers going bad would make a car stop running. The game used to be to take a good condenser to the test bench, charge her up on the test gear and not hit the discharge button, then go to another part of the shop and call another students name, so they would turn and shout CATCH, throwing the charged condenser to them, of course 9 times out of 10 they would catch and instantly discharge a rather large voltage from the big steel encased capacitor. Used to be great fun, of course those days are now long gone thanks to electronic ignitions which were just something we were reading about in our text books.
The brighter the LED the more you save. The Golden colur adds another 5 kW to your energy savings.
I ordered a super cheap one of these things a while ago just because I wanted the plugpack enclosure for something else and I thought hey I can take the juicy cap out and maybe use it for something but when I opened the case all I got inside was an LED and 4 resistors and even thought the enclosure was the only thing I actually needed I felt so cheated
yeme I was thinking about using that box for other uses also.
Done that more than once - apparently, Great Minds think alike (and I get lucky once in a while too!). :D
Actually it's a nicely made little enclosure, with nothing useful inside.
it's actually a box for diy uses but people don't but it so they put some less in to make it fancy
I bought four of these and I have calculated that the electric board now owe me £37.53 a week. I’m still waiting for the cheque to arrive despite several phone calls. I will be writing to my local MP next week and if that doesn’t work I will be showing my arse in Burtons window on Tuesday
I was looking at a used 200 kVA PFR for my mate and they wanted nearly a grand for it, now I can just buy him a few of these and pocket the difference, thanks Clive.
Improve the unit by adding a big wirewound resistor to warm the casing and to blow the occasional fuse. Make sure it's floating around loose to give that unexpected mains tingle.
Yes
hahahaha the best word
Energy companies charging for apparent power over real power? Not allowed for residential customers in the USA, although if you are sending back nasty spikes they may send out a letter to warn you that they are going to charge you more if you don't clean up things.
Now, for all industrial, some commercial, and other utilities, they charge a base rate of real power, but will charge additional amounts if you are drawing more apparent power in every country. This is done because the substation or switching station has to correct the power factor to protect the station and the generators. It is also done because it can cause damage to transformers, switching gear, etc. to run bad power through them. Especially if there are large current spikes or voltage transients. Imagine the inrush current and then the transients on a whole factory starting up/shutting down, or just a single production line. Or an inductive heating system at a foundry turning one and off over the course of a day. It can easily blow fuses at the substation or melt lines. Plus those pulses come through and effect all of the other customers on that substation.
The solution, for many older factories that do not have modern motor drivers that correct the power factor one each circuit, is to place the entire facility on an uninterruptible power supply. The UPS doesn't have to be any larger than what is needed to take care of brownouts and brief power drops (sub 5 seconds). Newer or updated facilities can rely on their motor drivers to filter most of the power for them with 2 very important exceptions: the power for computer based automation and the power for sensing equipment. Both require clean, stable power to work correctly and can easily be damaged by bad power, just like your home electronics. The sensing circuits are even more susceptible to bad power and also need filtration, isolation, and shielding of their power and sensing circuits.
I was an industrial electrician in the USA. I am now retired early for medical reasons.
KnightsWithoutATable In Mexico is the same actually, only the real power is charged, but in the industry both
Great read thank you! I'm trying to get in to electrical and am enjoying learning from everyone!
I've heard this PFC described as "basically, a f**k load of capacitors in a box"
Looking at my power company's rate sheet it's: Total real power, peak power (over a 15 minute period), and power factor. There's no way they can switch to apparent power without the government utilities commission climbing all over them.
I have also heard about large capacitor banks being used to correct Industrial power factor. In the old days, this must have been cheaper than a UPS (actually a mechanical one then).
I like when bigclive says "Is that gonna come out " I don't think I've ever not seen him get it to bits.
I can't imagine the horrors of "unreasonable force" when he must pause the recording: too extreme for UA-cam.
I think it is your fourth "power saver", energy bill will be negative xD
is that including the "we used to ground out the meter to spin it backwards" vid?
Only if his fifth is a tesla power wall.
Yes and cables frozes to stone.Positive energy machine.
turn the meter upside down and it will make it go backwards only works with north american meters though
ua-cam.com/video/gFtB0C0rBaM/v-deo.html this is the one i was referencing
I just noticed that the HOPI actually *did* briefly show the power factor as 0.002 with a current of about 600mA, but it was intermittent. I guess you weren't looking at it during those brief refresh cycles where it was showing data.
You may scoff but I've ordered 10 of these, just you wait, I'll be saving so much energy the electricity board will be paying me!!
Paul Gascoigne it’s the cheaper alternative to solar panels!
I love that it is rated at 80kW, it's just beautiful. In the same way my buoyancy aid I take canoeing is rated at -2.4 m/s^2 in water of 5C.
Glad you made it through the storm.
Jeffery Rowan what storm
Raymond Mucklow www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-41649928
Terrum whoa, here in the states I drove thru the remnants of Harvey, and another. Crazy year for hurricanes.
Some guys got a storm, in Yorkshire we got a fog, followed by a blank yellow sky, no sun, and no wind whatsoever. Basically, the weather broke.
The south's getting battered now :(
It does make a nice colourful voltmeter, which appears to be quite accurate, so it is not totally useless.
A ran Google translate from the back and got this " Product principle strict product characteristics of the product is the use of safe w and the traditional reactive power to compensate for the power of the original king, so that current balance, stable for the old filter transient surge, improve power factor, big month to reduce the loss of electricity systems To achieve energy saving effect! This product does not produce high frequency □ Feng high power due to harmonics, do not pollute the grid. Is a new environmentally friendly energy-saving products. And to extend the life of electrical appliances have a certain role. "丒 high power when the funny arrogant gray with the head and node principle simple diagram / 7 automatic energy saving .AI ERA) filter ridge wave smooth for burning st1, sea -)-one."....... Take from it what you will
Lol: "to compensate for the power of the original king"
Kris M my fave bit is the "funny arrogant gray with the head" bit. Gotta love some Google translate
Hail to the king, baby.
Absolutely clear translation . . . . . . Environmentally friendly since this reduces (?) "Grid Pollution" :D
Richard Andrews well I for one, am glad this quandry has been resolved.
Nice display and glamorous box, but for 10 Pounds (UK) rather expensive. US Plug connector too - so aimed at those Countries who use this "Type A" connector type - US, Japan, Canada, Mexico.
Actually that is the Chinese connector, not a Type A. There *is* a difference
It did show 600 mA for a brief moment.
The Hopi meeter that is when connected to the capacitor (several short glimpses around 600)
I had a feeling someone already commented on this :)
After sleeping on it I'm pondering if it's so short bursts that the naked eye doesn't catch it it's only when it's just synced with the frame it is possible to catch it.
It read something in the 500 range briefly just before the 600 too.
I noticed that too a couple of times
Zero hesitation grabbing an ungrounded metal case without checking if it's live. Balls of steel.
Hey Clive, If you keep your eye on the HOPI for the capacitor test you did you'll see the current go to 0.6 a couple of times for a brief moment (a second or two).
It’s the name of the thing that creases me up. 80Kw!! Modern supplies for UK domestic dwellings are rated at 24Kw (100A cutout fuse) , but the suppliers apply diversity: for places that don’t use night storage heaters, 10A per dwelling is taken as the approximate demand that the network needs to supply.
A fairly nice enclosure for a project, very cheaply. And you can use the caps for capacitive droppers to add extra dazzling LEDs :-)
They should make one with a pushbutton to 'calibrate' it. After pressing that button the LED would go off or blink a few times, and it returning to 'bright' would mean 'operational'. Then al least Clive has a bigger circuit to draw...
That's in the premium platinum model.
Thieves encouraging customers to try to be thieves? It's contagious! Thanks Clive.
The capacitive dropper also has a diode bridge in series, and the meter probably only tests capacitors at 1 V or so. That wouldn't be enough to make two series diodes conduct, and so that capacitor is effectively out of circuit.
I really liked that close look on your nail.
Also, I'd love you to do a "more than you ever wanted to know" on VARs and reactive power.
_"Let's add a display, maybe we'll make it look more serious"_
EpicLPer
i bet the "power saver" feature is an excuse to sell you a led display mains voltage meter.
It makes it better for me, as I was thinking about getting one just for the enclosure for an adjustable psu, and I could use that voltage display!
Most likely just selling off their old stock of led displays.
That Hopi has paid for itself a hundred times over!
Conductive casing with no ground pin. Best design ever.
Apparent power only really comes in for industrial settings. The utility companies don't like it as it contributes to power line losses (high current spikes) that the meters wont charge for, but cost the utility. They DO charge for apparent power if you have a crappy PF here in the states. Its a percentage of your total power bill added on if you don't take steps to correct it from what I remember.
At least, the case looks reusable xD
i like that case
Ultrafast circuit analysis on 10:25
I really had a laugh when you said "let's be somewhat less optimistic". Cheers from Canada.
I used to connect a LED with a suitable dropper resistor directly to the mains, and despite a way too high reverse voltage for the datasheet's taste, it survived just fine. I am surprised they didn't try that with this one :)
That works with the old technology red and green LEDs, but not the new gallium nitride ones. They often expire instantly when their reverse voltage is exceeded.
@@BigClive Yap it was an old old one.
Well the display makes it more believable for non educated people I think.
the more electricity it uses, the greater your savings, laws of thermodynamics be damned!
Maybe, but the Chinese on the front should make them stop and think. Hummm! Yes, I do know some that would fall for it. Oh well, anyone know of a get rich quick?
Gotta love some of these comments !
I love your reviews of these bogus devices.
1:30 Rated F for 'Fucked' ..... talking about the nail here people.
I would not be plugging that thing in before testing its HV insulation, there is no Earth pin and no insulation between the PCB and the case.
The case could have been possibly live if it was made on an off day.
We could have had an Ex-bigclivedotcom
Being an electrician to trade I intuitively avoid providing routes to ground through other parts of my body when handling anything like this. It's one of the most important things to learn as an electrician, but doesn't really get much mention in modern training.
Yup. That's saved by hide a couple of times. Once when I wired up a attic light after turning off the wrong breaker, and the second time working on a line powered by a 6' tall UPS - we'd turned off everything on the UPS, but that only killed the inverter. So it went into bypass. NEVER count on just one thing to protect you. You've heard of "security in depth"? Practice "safety in depth". Always be as safe as possible instead of "minimum safety".
On the plus side, you now have a nice project box with a 3 digit display.
Meter teardown?
Damn, I was hoping these would be a good source of big thicc capacitors...
+Luke Den Hartog If it's any help the 10uF cap is a fan motor cap from eBay.
*thick
Anti-static bag for a mains power "conditioner" ought to be somewhat redundant!
I had a very expensive kettle that used to leave the plug “live” once I unplugged it....
the first time I touched it it gave me one hell of a jolt!
After I recovered what did I do? Yep I touched it again and yep I got another shock.. to anyone watching I bet it looked like watching Homer Simpson lol.
Oh and after that incident I now have an urge to touch the plug pins every time I unplug an appliance! Wtf will I ever learn lol
When your DEAD
xkcd.com/242/
TinySpongey Accurate
mavos1211 I’d be so surprised that I’d likely do the same thing. I mean after all, who has ever heard of being shocked up an unplugged appliance!?
It's generous to call them tamper-proof. They only delayed you five seconds
5:22 The HOPI was occasionally flashing 600ma with the capacitor connected.
There is a place on TV for Big Clive. With the knowledge and one liners
I noticed on my shart meter that it can measure power factor too, and like you, I immediately became very cynical at the thought of them suddenly charging for bad power factors, not good, maybe I should pick myself up one of these miracle power-saving devices... :P
"The main feature might be the power on indicator" :D
Is the frequency of the UK power grid a lot less strict than the US? Obviously, UK is 50Hz and US is 60Hz, but the deviation from nominal seems to be much greater in the UK. Just in this video, it was as low as 49.89Hz and as high as 50.04Hz on the HOPI. Here in the US, I've never seen it below 59.98Hz or above 60.02Hz (barring a severe storm coming through and knocking out random loads, causing imbalance in load and generation on a moment's notice).
When these are inevitably fire-sold off for $2 in a couple of years they could be worth it for the quite nice aluminium case.
Because of literal fires.
You know what I kinda really like that drill I'd say use it when you feel like it.
from my school days - CIVIL Capacitor Current Leads Voltage, Voltage Leads Current Inductor. I once dropped a brick on my electricity meter - that made it run slower.
Companies are charged for Apparent power, not real power (in Canada at least). This is why they use PF correcting device.
You should get a chordless screwdriver. Hitachi makes one that I use every day for electrical work and it's great
HighFructoseFun -- a "chordless" screwdriver? Does yours make no tones when used? Or are you saying that the shaft has no flats? ;)
YodaWhat now I wish my screwdriver played music while I'm working lol
You did not check if the casing was live before plugging it in? Brave...
And the winner by a teardown---BigClive! (dingding) Stay tuned next week when you'll see Big Clive VS:...
It's a nice housing no matter what.
I suppose it is doing the people who buy these a favour by not having a large capacitor, as most people wouldn't have large inductive loads in their homes to warrant power factor correction lol. I don't suppose you've tested your own house meter if it reads reactive power? I have a feeling it just averages the two waveforms and doesn't discern between real or reactive at all..
Washing machine/vacuum cleaner motor and microwave transformer are quite large inductive loads.
While that is true, they usually have capacitors of their own to increase the PF as appliances in the EU have regulations in regards to this.
My point was that if this device did have a capacitor matched to the 80kW claim, it would do more harm than good even if a house had all of its motorised appliances plugged in and running at once.
Skruffles actually, these can be used to filter out noise from powerline networking for noise sensitive appliances like high end audio systems, and can also be used to separate two powerline networks and prevent them from interfering with each other.
good to see your thumb is getting better
And the meter has its clips on the side -- not the wide side, the narrow side. Push the sides to pop it out.
Nice project box!
It makes kind of a nice mains voltage display, I suppose. =)
Must admit they do make usless gadgets look pretty! a little like the Iphone8.
RIP Headphone jack.
If your name is Bill you're screwed, yeah almost had coffee come out my nose on that line.
The Bill joke caught me off guard haha
Have you seen the power save stickers,and wipes for your distribution board,the more stickers you add the more you save.
Can you explain real power and apparent power in a little more detail in a video please? I've always suspected there is something behind the big smart meter roll out...what's in it for them etc.
Pretty sure the main reason is _simply_ because of grid tied solar. With an old meter, it just makes the meter roll backwards, with a smart meter it actually allows them to measure how much has gone back into the grid (I _think_. Can't quite remember)
I've heard of smart meter before solar took off (around 2008), the benefit of it is it allow power provider to read energy consumption wireless in real time, thus it allow them to predict the peak load from the whole grid, and when they can predict load; they can reduce energy waste, why? because they usually produce more energy than anyone ever consume as a "margin of safety" and the rest is "burnt away" as a waste thru resistive heating at their facility, because at that time there usually wasn't any power storage system to save all that energy.
Apparent power is when the man of a household gives the wife instructions. Real power is when she ignores him.
They do have capacitors. though that is not really for long term storage of energy afaik (Not an electrical engineer, I don't have formal knowledge of power grids or substations or anything else). And yes, that is correct, the wireless reading bit. Also, I know that were I live (in aus) we had a house solar install before they installed the smart meter, what I don't know is if it was before or around the time that they were being rolled out. I may have just made an incorrect connection between the two. And just another tid-bit. They often don't actually go and read the meter, they often give an estimated consumption and only occasionally read the meter.
Hmmmm...I'm not so sure, but it would be lovely if that was the case. They can see peak load without smart meters - even we mere mortals can see this www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
5:23 - The hopi meter does show 616mA briefly, then again at 5:30. It's very intermittent though.
Great subject for rogue trader outing. Would have helped to provide some kind of visual illustration to support how the box reduces the apparent current of an induction motor.
With the amount of 'cable tie' slots around that end, it looks more like a shielding can was supposed to go there
Sparky Projects shielding can to hide the magical power saving device or lack of maybe.
At 5:24, you will see that the HOPI is showing 616 mA and .004 pf. You had an intermittent connection on your external capacitor.
I thought capacitors in series were of a lower value than if they were individual
They are. These ones are effectively in parallel.
bigclivedotcom ahh, get some sleep! Also, I keep getting notifications about your video about a day or two after they're public, new feature?
Display pops out the front, lol... Those securing tabs must be strong.
Upcycle that alloy case and guage into something useful, there's certainly plenty of usable in it!
How appropriate I just received today the paperwork from my electricity supplier that could lead to power factor measurement (not that those fire hazard/electrocution chines boxes could help in any away)
I don't know why but I like the metal boxes these "energy savers" come in. I would like to get some custom made boxes of similar material in silver. I bet they wouldn't be cheap if custom.
They're probably a standard case extrusion.
I wonder if I cascaded several of these, would my meter start runnings backwards and the electric utility would start *PAYING ME?*
Actually I have been pondering Ohm's Law and I should be able to accomplish the same thing with a single component: a resistor with a *NEGATIVE* value of Ohms! 😀
With these power savers, you're like a naughty walrus, you're looking for a tight seal.
Old-style domestic power meters did only measure real power. I'm not sure about the newer digital ones.
In industrial settings the meter *does* measure apparent power. Because current flow causes resistive losses in power lines. If you're pulling enough current in inductive loads (motors) then that apparent power causes enough resistive loss in power lines that you get charged for it. Which encourages you to fit correction capacitors so your power bill goes down.
Even if newer domestic meters measure apparent power (I don't know if they do) it's probably still not a good idea to use one of these. If you have non-compact fluorescents they should have built-in ballasts anyway. Maybe the motors on your vacuum and washing machine don't have ballasts, but that would only be a problem when they're running.
Which means if you leave this thing plugged in all the time and your domestic meter does measure apparent power then it will probably end up costing you money rather than saving it. Unless you do a *lot* of vacuuming.
Hello Clive, First of all I want to thank you for making these very educational videos. I have not seen all your videos, but allot of them, making me wonder the following. When you ordered this object you must have known you were getting screwed, it's impossible to reduce your power bill by just plugging a single phase "appliance" in a socket. Have you ever showed the video you made to the sellers of the objects and requested a refund? And if Yes, what was the reaction of the sellers and did they agree to give you a refund? I myself ordered a powerbank the size of a cellphone (8mm thick) rated with a capacity of 100.000mAh for $9.99. Of course I knew I was gonna be screwed by I was in need of a small powerbank, to have extra power for my cellphone, so I decided to order it and see how big the capacity was gonna be. After charging and discharging the powerbank several times, since it was new, I decided to start doing 3 well documented, measured and provided with video tests. The average capacity from these 3 tests was 4400mAh. So I contacted the seller and told him I had done these tests and he had the option of giving me a complete refund or I would report him to Ebay and I would provide them my complete test results and the video of the tests plus the specs of the measurement equipment I used to arrive to this result of 4400mAh. The next day I received a message from the seller to please check my paypal to find their refund, without any form of discussion. When I went to Ebay I saw that the listing was gone, but after a few days the item was listed again but by another seller, looking at the profile I think it was very safe to say that it was a new account made by the seller. I did consider doing the same thing, using a new ebay account, LOL. If I were you, you are spending quite a bit after all on Ebay I would try to retrieve my money from these scammers that are taking advantage of faithful people, with no, or at least a very limited knowledge of electricity. Greetings from across the pond (Belgium) and thanks again for your good work ;) And now it's time for a beer, a real Belgian beer, lol
Nice box
well done mate ...good analysis
Cordless drill? That's something new :D enaugh that hard work with hands :D
You were feeling brave moving it when it was plugged in.
To what is the 80kW supposed to be related? Such a thin wire and most houses only have 9 or 15 kW supply total anyway.
Kris M numbers sell
ken m is that you?
To give the manufacturers/marketers the benefit of the doubt, and because this is being sold as a noise/transient filter, I'm going to say that the 80kW rating is the maximum instantaneous transient power absorption possible by the device. This would be mainly dependent on the capacitor's ESR, as well as the connector and cable resistance between the outlet and the capacitor. To absorb 80kW at 240V, the capacitor would need to momentarily conduct about 333A. This would imply an ESR of about 0.72Ω, which is actually generously well within the typical range for a 1uF polyester film capacitor. Add on the cable and connector resistance and I think 80kW is just about accurate for maximum transient power absorption for this device.
around here the typical house service is 150-200a @ 240, or about 40-50KW, older house's with 100a services often get upgrades.
+animefreak5757 Wow, where is 'around here'? Who needs that much power?
The only instance I can think of is when you do all your heating electric while not using a heat pump.
Would be way too expensive here, if you need that kind of heating power, people choose gas or oil. (Oil is on its way out due to environment unfriendly)
+Benjamin, no Ken here.
That would make a rather nice project box.
My understanding is that bad PF + near max loading = tripped breakers. IE you spam what should be 1500W of .5 PF LED lamps and you trip the breaker long before you reach 1500W because the PF is so bad.
Can you please do a video about a Meanwell LDD-700HW? With schematic and maybe how to build one yourself with the option to change the mA output. Would really love a video like that.
You can buy them from eBay and lots of other places.
I wonder if they're potted. You can get a wide variety of open buck regulator modules on eBay. They're not expensive.
bigclivedotcom but they doesn’t have pwm. Or have I missed something?
I'll wait for the definitive stripdown of one of these - when Clive finds a lurid pink model on ebay.
the HOPI did show it for a brief moment or two
you should try to put in a big electrolytic capacitor, maybe it would improve the performance.
Nice one Clive!
Oh man that looks like a school project inside!
is that like a power factor corrector? We had a PFC at Safeway (before they went up the creek) in the 'Electric' room. There were 2 Econolite units designed to 'dim' the fluorescent lighting the store used to save power however they were never turned on. When I was in charge of 'Maintainance' I tried turning them on and two thumpy relays kicked in but on the display 'Error' LEDs came on so I guess they were useless. Anyway the PFC was set to a COS of 1.0 and the display usually showed 0.96 - 0.99. One day I came into work and overnight some kind of fault had developed and one of the caps inside had caught fire. I just wondered what would have caused that? It cant have been the econolites as they were in 'bypass' mode ( I never left them on after the error ) They were for 25% and 75% lighting as after close a timeclock switched off 25% of the store lighting. I think the PFC was mainly for the Air Handling units and Bakery machinery as they used huge hefty motors somewhere within their purpose.
"... bill killer. If your name's Bill you're screwed." I nearly choked on my evening grog.
At 5:24, the hopi registers a non-zero current while you're saying it's zero. It looks like the number is fluctuating. Is there a bad contact somewhere? The neon was lighting while the hopi said zero, so perhaps the capacitor wasn't making contact properly.
The Hopi did show the same 600ma but only in short pulses, if no one else noticed. :p
Looks like one of those "genuine sanwu" stickers... I have a few of their items, but sadly no power saver, haha
Awe yah big Clive gimme dat schematic
you should have said "let me shine some light on this situation" lol..
Do you think that metal case with no ground is a good idea???
Yes! With hand soldered wires inside.
No it's a terrible idea.
I probably should have written "Did they really think it was a good idea to have a metal case with no ground."
Yes, they did - do you know how much it would increase production costs to earth it?
+Thermal Ions
May I direct you to BigClives comment just above
Try - Power during Hurricanes? I like Candles & solar anyway. thanks