Big Clive - these things REALLY work! I've plugged these into EVERY single power outlet in my house so now I can't plug anything else in and my power usage has dropped dramatically! Thinking about it, I probably would get a better result just shutting off the mains circuit breaker to the house...
6 років тому+3
kirkb4989 lol really you did it ? Good stupid joke
Brilliant!! Let me try it too... he-he These "magic" boxes should also come with pamphlet instruction to disconnect or turn off all unused appliances, including power supply bricks, which will probably save more than that measly 0.496Amps. lol
@@absolutely1337 that's not all the TV and cable box use a lot of power even when turned off so do computer and monitor you can cut your power use by up to 30 % by shuting them off when not in use
@@douglaswindsor120 i just instal power strips on everything and flip them off when not in use. My power bill is very low. Vampire power draw is a real thing, folks.
In factories or other industrial installations, the facility engineer knows about inductive loading; the correct capacitance for every device is wired in with the device. In fact, if their vendors are on the ball, the correct matching capacitor will generally be part of the device (at the very least, the documentation of the device will advise the capacitance needed). It’s not like this is something that was just discovered - Steinmetz wrote about it while he was creating the fundamental principles of electrical engineering.
@@andyxox4168 Of cause facility managers understand the site electrical systems, if the facilities electrical load is significantly out of phase (inductive or capacitive) the Utility will significantly increase your Unit charge. Be aware, even if you alter your inductive or capacitive load your meter will track the modified Wattage consumption and you will also be down on power.
i invested 15 minutes and 49 seconds of my time to watch this demonstration and it saved me quite a bit of money and i only used a small amount of power so thank you for your knowledge .
+PianoVideosJustForU (PVJFU) Just gonna edit that for you: *BigClive abandons his love for electronics and power and goes **_back_** into voice acting.*
Top tip if you think a case may be live: Don't touch it with the inside of your finger tips, the muscular contraction can cause you to involuntarily grab the device (which isn't good). Use the backs of your fingers instead. That way, any muscular contraction pulls you away from it. Even topper tip: Use the right tool for the job :D
+Zadster Even better tip... get someone else to grab it!!! Or be sensible and just don't touch it! lol Great tip though... same as the electricians with one hand always in the pocket ;)
With AC there will be no muscular contraction. Still best to flick with knuckles to test for live as the contact is relativity high impedance and all you get will be a tingle.
If you have an inductive load... oh there is a circuit board in there If you have an inductive load... there is the capacitor If you have an inductive load... oh hold on
If you have an inductive load it buggers up the phase of the power. Pulls the current in one direction relative to the voltage. A capacitor pulls it in the other direction. So it cancels out. As a capacitor charges, it pulls large current even when the voltage is low, when the voltage is starting to rise in it's sine wave. An inductor resists change in current, so only starts to draw current a while after the voltage rises. Electric companies don't like large inductive loads, because their system, and most loads, is based around the idea of loads being resistive, with a 1:1 relationship between voltage and current. Disturbing this messes up the system. So if you're a factory with huge motors, the electric company charge you extra for that. But it only makes an actual difference if you have large loads. A little motor won't make any noticable difference. Nothing domestic should be any big deal. And electric companies only charge you based on a resistive model anyway. So a capacitor in a box won't make a difference. And especially the tiny one here. You need proper big capacitors to balance out proper big motors. And that's how Clive's sentence would have ended.
Diplomatic. He plays a safe game. But on the other hand he also talks about how good this portion, and how that portion is not enough to do the trick. Which means Clive knows exactly what is needed to save power. But, the diplomacy and safe game again. But well, greenaum explained us a lot.
Question: if I have old fashioned power meter, with inductances within, instead a new digital power meter, would it make a difference? Nobody mentioned such thing, it would be interesting to do measurements. With inductive load, of course. Can you do that, please?
I like this thing for the individual parts! I like the box, short cord and fuse already mounted. The capacitor is useful for my vacuum tube projects too. Bonus!
Clive, have you ever thought of doing a video showing all your bench equipment? Like one video that shows all your bench power supplies, all your multimeters/capacitance reader/etc, power monitors (AC Eco Eye, your various USB 5v dongles, etc), and whatever else you generally use during your videos but which we might not see, or not see for very long. Some of them show up briefly in the videos when you use them, but for example I've never seen which bench power supply you use (maybe it's in an earlier video I've not yet seen.) So I thought it would be useful to have one single video that showed it all in one go, with reasons why you chose those units and suggestions for newbies on what to get and what to look for. Like you did for electrical components and then soldering stations, but for "bench equipment" or "measuring equipment" or whatever the best name is. Cheers!
@@firstlast8805 do you know that the word "man" spells "men" You should go around the neighborhood to see the true meaning of the word men. Be blessed by the God!
This is a very nice case that definitely would cost more if you bought it from a major distributor as new (not new surplus). And then the power input connector and the fuse holder - that’s quite a bit of value. I might order a couple as project boxes. People selling may be confused how Clive’s debunk video garnered them sales, lol. (Of course they probably don’t care).
I had an excess solar panel 250w and just for the heck of it i got a small 300w Chinese grid tie inverter to see if i would save some electricity (more of a environmental than financial curiosity). I had it since last august. About two months ago i got a legal notice to have my power box examined as it appeared that i was "abusing" the meter. the measurements showed too little consumption for a long period of time. I don't have much power consumption to begin with as i have a hybrid solar and gas heater and gas stove but didn't expect that outcome...
wow looks like the spare 250w panel started saving you energy to buy from grid, power companies dont like that..im assuming the inverter is a pure sine type, anything else would trip the elcb
+fidel catsro They sure don't. I certainly didn't expect to be dragged from office to office explaining myself and my measly solar setup, not to mention the threats of legal implications. The inverter was indeed labeled as pure sine though at that price i wouldn't be certain of anything.
My compliments, sir, and admiration too ! Through 50 years as an engineer and home tinkerer, it never occurred to me to replace an AC dropping resistor with a series XC. And what a nice enclosure in which to deliver garbage !
It is essentially a PFC device (Power Factor Correction). They are used to correct for inductive loads on the power line, to bring the current draw into phase with the voltage draw. Using LED bulbs will do the same thing as that device, as they place a capacitive load on the line. In the house, it will be mainly anything with a motor that places an inductive load on the line.
LOL. The clue that it's bollocks is in the word "Savor". I can imagine the description on Amazon: "Very good power savor make long time benefit saving to you energy bill"
I've often had this exact same thought. You contact them to report defective products and they can just say, "well what's the problem? You did buy it from bang good" lol! The moral of the story, Only report products that don't bang good ;)
These things remind me of those old infomercials for miracle diet devices, where they'd say "use this piece of equipment and, along with proper diet and exercise, you will lose weight!"
Power factor isn't just about meters. The reason you want a power factor close to 1 is because if the current is significantly out of phase with the voltage, you actually need to pull more current over the wires to get the same power (so a 100W device with a power factor of 0.5 will result in roughly twice the current flowing over the wire than a 100W device with a power factor of 1.0 (for the same wattage)). That means you either need much beefier wires, or you can end up with a lot more heat and resistive losses in the wires. This is why it's particularly important in industrial (or datacenter) contexts, where you have lots of equipment pulling lots of power from a given circuit, and you want that to be as efficient as possible. Capacitors can also be used to filter out higher frequency electrical noise (which is probably what they were getting at with the sine waves on the box), but that generally requires having the thing you're protecting be on the *other* side of the capacitor from the noise source (or very close by). Just plugging a capacitor into a nearby socket will do nothing in that regard.
6uf 450v caps are used for window type air conditioners in the Frigidaire brand. They have a mounting tab that appears to be broken off on your cap in the video.
Same... I have no clue yet I spend so much time just watching his videos. And his little doodles and diagrams. It's all very interesting even though I have no idea what's going on :P
It's really fascinating stuff if you take the time to learn it. Whether or not you will ever use physics in your career, I feel that everyone should have a basic understanding of how electronics work considering that we use them on a daily basis.
But you will have to spend all the savings on your health because those led's are harmful to your health. I guess you haven't thought of that, have you?
I love these videos of quack products that you do. :-) The first thing I thought when I read the title (after I finished laughing) was, "I have a device that saves power - it's called a switch!"
Hey man, keep up the good work opening stuff up and commenting on how it works while dequackering the world. Keep spreading the science and information. You are doing a good job educating people by just showing that there is no magic in anything we use in our daily lives.
A small cap across the mains in not going to do much if anything to clean harmonic distortion and noise from the mains, and cleaning the mains supply will not make any noticeable difference to saving on you're power bill either. Big Clive is 100% correct excellent video. The cap across mains is typically intended as power factor correction and needs to be matched to counteract a inductive load such as a motor transformer or inductive lightning ballast. The bogus 200kw rating, the lies about saving power, and failure to provide a protective earth, is concerning. No earth on exposed conductive parts is also a breech of the regulations in most countries.
By connecting another device to the home electrical network you will only increase consumption, if you really want to reduce consumption then replace the appliances with higher consumption by others with lower consumption and greater efficiency( The savings will be seen in the medium or long term), keep off the appliances that you do not need to have on or those that you are not using. Note: It would be a very good idea to check your home's electrical network to make sure there are no leaks or loose wires.
I got a feeling that the only way to do this right would be to use TWO, ELECTROLYTIC capacitors, both with a diode, obviously so that both'd work one side of the ac fluctuations. And, I think the circuitry inside the supposedly power saving device in the video is in fact losing at least an equal amount (or more) of power as what the amount it is 'saving' would be a s it discharges continuously to allow for that change of polarity 50 times a second - or am I mistaking?
tx for the info. I was really curious about this. I never believed that those gizmos do anything. Very good explanation about how people believe that the thing works, It happened that I fooled myself too in such a manner. two years ago, I replaced the bulb I use more with a LED one. did not noticed any saving. I use light quite little. About half a year ago I changed all the other bulbs, just because I like the idea of LED illumination. I noticed a sudden lower bill of about 30 percent. I was convinced that the new bulbs were the cause, even I use them just few minutes daily. I simply denied my brain to do the math. The first one I changed I use it about 2 hours daily. Recently, I woke up from my dream. I realized that I should had have about 30 hours daily of bulb usage to perform that saving. I do not really know the cause but I guess it was a short on a socket. It exploded about the same time, so I replaced the wiring. So, before the short, just had a trickle of about 120 w. Maybe I am wrong, but this is the only idea I have to solve the mystery
Most household appliances are quite inductive. This results in inductive current (VAr:s) flowing in the wiring alongside the work current (Watts). Although the VA current does no work it will generate losses in the wiring. This device is just a capacitive compensator. Technically it will reduce the total VA current resulting in less losses in the wiring. There are some safety aspects though. If an appliance VA current is completely compensated there will be resonance. This could result in strong currents between the appliance and this device. There is a fire hazard. If an appliance is to be compensated the appliance should always be fitted with its own capacitor inside the appliance casing. Appliances should never be fully compensated. The efficiency factor (cosine fai) should not be more than 0.95. Resonance currents may explain fuse box or switch gear explosions. The grid voltage usually contains strong harmonics. The third harmonic is the strongest. They are usually caused by driving the grid transformers close to saturation. These harmonics are actually cleaned up these devices, to some degree, but they can cause the capacitor to run quite warm. The capacitor will deteriorate fast and eventually short out. They may explode. Lighning causes shock waves in lines and house wirings. The shock wave will go where the impedance is smallest. A device like this could provide that. The device may explode. However. It may save other appliances from destruction.
then if i understood well ... that device actually matched the maximum theoretical pure sine wave factor ... which ..means would save lots of power over time if under heavy kw LOADS ?? right ? but of course ..with the understanding ..that switching off equipments is the best way to save :):)
+SutekhAeon Maybe you're right. 99.9% of humans who change science din't get rich but poor with their interests and often loose their lives. The best way to avoid reduce your liquidity is to save every penny and avoid girls.
"ELI the ICE man" ELI = with L (Inductance) Voltage (E) leads current (I) ICE =with C (Capacitance) Current (I) leads voltage (E) Capacitive reactance negates inductive reactance to improve power factor and reduce reactive current.
+RIB B Do you really need a mnemonic for that? It't obvious that you need to put some charge (=current x time) into a capacitor before the voltage rises.
+superdau But not everyone is a fucking expert like you fella. How about trying to encourage people to learn, which is what this channel is about, rather than belittling their efforts.
+RIB B I never could remember that..instead I always thought about complex (a+i*b) representation of resistance.. C and L rotate vector in opposite directions..forward by phase or back by phase..
sir,haven't seen or heard a smart man like you since i was in high school. and that was my electronics teacher,and she was one of the very best. subscribed on your channel
Excellent result with the correct capacitor meter and the measurement values and the result is spot on. Nice case and at least no loose items in the box. The 200kW may relate to the power savings over a year, in a lightly loaded house.
I bought one of these for the aluminum case... where i bought it it was $11 and an extruded aluminum case of that size was $9.. so i basically got a decent cap to use for something else for $2
My bill shows line charge, production charge, fuel charge, tax - the wattage charge is almost equal to fixed charges. I changed to tankless water heater, insulated windows, added ceiling fan & down sized the heat pump after the upgrades. Next is changing the heatpump from (air to air) to (water to air) after I remove trees. The temperatures now are 2 degrees up in summer & 2 degrees down in winter.
Would have been nice to see the actual sine wave before and after with an oscilloscope and possibly a 24hour test running once without the device and once with the device to see if it actually lowers the power consumption on your power meter that the utilities read from. Other than that - very detailed explanation! 😊 thank you.
Residential power meters measure both the power going into your home, as well as the power reflected back to the power company, with the net being what you actually consume. Power reflection happens from inductive loads which temporarily store power in a magnetic field then when that field collapses, it send that power back to the utility. While that can add current in your power lines, your not actually consuming it and so aren't charged for it. Capacitors also store power in the form of a electrostatic potential between two plates and releases it back to the grid. Each unit of capactive reactance cancels the same amount inductive reactance. So while you seen .489 amps at 240 volts you were not seeing 117.360 watts being used. Rather, you were seeing 117.360 volt amps being absorbed from and reflected back to the mains line.
Ian Oliver " So these devices actually increase* your charged-for consumption," Simple answer: No. More complex answer: Maybe just a tinny amount. Read below for a more detailed explanation. Look at this image of a capacitor in an alternating current circuit. sub.allaboutcircuits.com/images/quiz/00577x02.png Power is Voltage times Amps. Consider these four different situations with a capacitor during a complete (0-360 degrees) cycle of applied alternating voltages. 1. 0-90 degrees of a cycle, voltage and amps are both positive. so power is positive and you'r consuming power. 2. 90-180 degrees of the cycle, voltage is positive and amps are negative. so power is negative and you'r sending power back. 3. 180-270 degrees of the cycle, voltage and amps are both negative. So power is positive, and you'r consuming power. 4. 270-360 degrees of a cycle, voltage is negative and amps are positive. So power is negative and you'r sending power back. Adding up all the power flows. gives you a zero net flow of power. A little more nuanced answer: But, if you add in the tiny amount of resistance found in the wires, then yes you will loose a tiny amount of power due to line losses. For residential consumers, it is generally so insignificant that its not worth mentioning. "Your charged for consumption" is the net power that you consume. These devices temporarily absorb power and reflect it back. If I gave you an apple and moments later you give it back, you didn't actually consume it, thus I cant charge you for what you did not consume. But, the apple still changed hands twice. The apple in this analogy represents power not current. This is how it is with residential power consumers. Industrial power consumers are a special situation. They consume so much more power and often have very poor power factor. If we carry on the analogy, were you I might have exchanged an apple, Industrial consumes exchange truck loads. If power lines are like freeways. those freeways can only allow so much traffic, unnecessarily exchanging truckloads limits the number of truck a given highway can deliver. Adding an extra lane helps, but is costly. Alternately, power companies charge industrial consumers for the actual power flow rather then net power flow. This creates an incentive for industrial consumers with poor power factor (often excessively inductive) to employ power factor correction through introducing capacitive reactance.
Florian Uhlemann you do recognize, that this device is not powerful enough to do anything except blank that stupid old green LED. The point he was making was in the event that you had a device that function correctly, through it, One could change the differential between phase of voltage and amperage. I don't care if you put a big Flippin magnet on this thing it won't do anything at all to your bill. But know this is a Chinese POS, with false advertising, and dreams of grandeur, straight up and out right bullshit, nada,nit,crapola!!!! In the American vernacular Dogshit tastes better than this works.....LOL
Do all you people want Google to remove the comment section? Please be respectful and kind to a person sharing information.And usernames say a lot about your character which I'm sure that's the point your trying to portray. It's not impressive and very small of you
I fully agree with your recommendation that if one desires to save on electricity, setting the AC temperature one degree higher will result in significant power saving. Or placing the cooling tower would significantly reduce the energy consumption. A sucker is born every day for these gizmos!
clicked link and the first set of comments sound more educated than pretty much any other video ive seen in a long time. man its nice to see and hear people not feel alienated by being intelligent. ill subscribe and like and who knows maybe ill actually learn somehthing.
It's just a capacitor it doesn't do anything other... I could give you the technical terminology but the long and short of it is that would only work if you were paying a service charge witch is how the power company charges commercial buildings for their power bill and even in that application it's too small to have any significant effect
I can't speak for the video maker but here in the UK it is standard practice to have a service charge "per hour" for connection to the grid. For domestic consumers as well as industrial consumers. There's an awful lot of individual suppliers. BUT it's only really going to do something if you have huge power consumption. I agree with you.
It is very neat, too bad the casing is wasted by putting in useless crap like this one. You can get these same exact aluminium project boxes online cheaper than buying this thing and salvaging just the case.
An oldie but a goodie. I've only ready about a hundred of the comments but I noticed a few talking about switched mode power supplies (hereafter "switchers). My tuppence worth: In many modern settings, domestic and office, the biggest contributor to poor power factor is the multitude of switchers in electronic equipment. Unless they are designed with "active power factor correction," called "active harmonic filtering" (or something similar) in some places, switchers have awful power factor but it is not simply a matter of phase difference between current and voltage. They are non-linear loads (and have a negative input resistance characteristic to boot, but that isn't really problematic). When you directly rectify and capacitively filter AC, current only flows when the instantaneous DC voltage out of the rectifier exceeds the instantaneous cap voltage. This means that the current only flows near the peak of the AC sine wave and the peak current can be VERY high - the higher the filter capacitance the higher and narrower the peak current "spike" (meaning the RMS to average ratio is higher). In practical terms you cannot fix this very non-linear behavior with simple linear parts like capacitors (some "valley fill" techniques can be used to improve power factor, but the the parts cannot just be added external to the switcher). Active power factor correction is typically done with a boost switcher that makes the instantaneous input current directly (first-order) proportional to the instantaneous line voltage - but, in a feat of magic, INVERSELY proportional to the input voltage averaged over several cycles (that's the negative input resistance coming into play). The result is input current that is sinusoidal and nicely in phase with the input voltage. Typically the DC bus voltage would be around 385V for "universal" input (85 to 265 VAC).
I'm a keen audiophile and there are hundreds of quack products that apparently improve the sound. Interestingly, the more they cost, the more kudos that is attached to them.
+Mysterious Squirrel If you are a keen audiophile then you understand that such a product could actually improve sound in certain scenarios. Suppose for example you have equipment putting high frequency ripple on the AC mains, then an LC in series with an unregulated linear amp PSU, particularly on a discrete amp design with low PSRR, could improve sound. Could you actually HEAR the difference? Maybe not, an unregulated PSU powering a discrete amp circuit tends to have all kinds of unique distortions going on.
Stinky Cheese I know in the 80s a company called BBE started building what they called 'sonic maximisers'. Basically they were a pre amp that sat in the tape loop, much like an effects unit does. They were dirt cheap and brought the sound to life. Mistake 1 was the name 'sonic maximiser' and mistake 2 was the cheap price. The Hi Fi press absolutely rubbished them. Meanwhile, pointless and worthless gadgets that did nothing with huge price tags attached to them were vaunted as must have tweaks.
This is a Charlton type device. Without going in to anything complicated to explain, the power meter in your home will measure the total power used not caring about phase shifting and etc. With the power cord shown and from seeing inside of it, there is no possible way 200kW can pass through it. The power cord would melt down and so would everything inside of its case. At 240 Volts this would be over 800 Amps. At 120 Volts that would be over 400 Amps. This is a lot of power to be able to run through a small box like this. The capacitor in that unit is really in parallel to the load. It will not make any difference, other than using an extra 1/2 Amp of power consumption. In North America where 60Hz is used, it will consumer a bit more than 1/2 Amp. In actual effect that gadget will use more power and not less! Over time that extra 1/2 Amp will add up to some extra cost on the power bill. Best practice is to use good quality LED lights. CFL will also save power cost, but are being phased out slowly. The average LED or CFL light uses about 1/6 to 1/8 of the power consumption of the equivalent Lunins in an incandescent lamp. There should be a power consumption savings of about 60% to 70% with the newer technology lights. Turn off the lights when not required. In cold climates like Canada if you turn down the heat by about 2 Celsius degrees you can save as much as 3% to 5% on the very cold days. You can set your heat to 20C instead of 22C. This should work with electric, or oil, or gas heating. If you are using a space heater to have some extra heat, turn it off when not required. A space heater will consume a lot of extra power. In the end, turn off lights when not needed, and if possible run your heating a few degrees colder. Use LED lights instead of incandescent lights.
The imbalance of the load can be read on the neutral wire. I always do a load balance and believe it has reduced my power bill. This said a friend bought a 'magic box' from an unscrupulous contractor that additionally sold him 'semi-annual maintenance' on the bogus device. I was waiting for the guy after I had explained it to my friend. They had bought the device for THOUSANDS of dollars and paid an additional $1800 annually for 'maintenance'. I worked as a licensed electrical contractor in several states and have 2 degrees in Science and Engineering. Anyway the prosecutor got in on it and the vendor did go to prison. He had ripped off many people with his scam but this was only one of his ongoing enterprises. There are ways to save on your electric bill, reducing actual consumption is the best way. There are also some electrical devices that capitalize on the way the old meters operated, squirrel cage motors were one of such devices. Consult an electrician or an electrical engineer before buying crap like this unless you are like the video maker and just checking the false claims out. Worse case scenario, you burn down your house or suffer a deadly electrical shock to your body. Best case, you've been robbed.
Neutral wire current flow as an indication of imbalanced load is a DIFFERENT CONTEXT than power factor correction for reactive loads being discussed in this example. Neutral wire current flow in the North American residential electrical supply is to and from the center electrical tap of a 240 VAC residential supply power transformer normally in the street right-of-way. The neural center tap electrical supply line forms two 120 VAC circuits at the residence, a lower 120 VAC circuit and an upper 120 VAC circuit. Current flow is between the power supply transformer's upper 240 VAC electrical tap and its center tap and its center tap and its lower 240 VAC electrical tap. When the lower and upper 120 VAC circuits have exactly the same loads then the neural supply line would theoretically have no reason to flow current because the current return of the upper circuit exactly matches the current sourcing of the lower circuit. That means if you had exclusively one 100W light bulb on the lower 120 VAC circuit and one 100W light bulb on the upper 120 VAC circuit when only one bulb is on the neural wire would flow all the current needed for that one bulb with a corresponding measurable voltage drop on the neural supply line wire due to the wire's resistance. Simmerly if you turn off the lower 120 VAC circuit bulb and turn on the upper 120 VAC circuit bulb you'd find a voltage drop on the neutral wire. Now, if you have both bulbs on, theoretically you've cut out all current flow in the neural supply line because current return of them upper 120 VAC circuit exactly matches current sourcing of lower 120 VAC circuit. That means you've effectively cut out half the power line voltage drop experienced by the lower and upper 120 VAC circuits when used individually because you are sinking and sourcing current at the residence. This by-passes sending and receiving current through the neural supply line wire to the street transformer and its associated power loss. This seems like a good idea, but I'd think the neural supply line voltage drop and power loss would be almost undetectable. Most likely if you are having electrical problems your supply wires are old and deteriorated, under sized, and many possible mechanical ills that create erratic behaviors you may be inclined to notice more after you've made some change to your electrical system. You could also have a erratic and bad neural supply line so reducing your dependance on it improves your over all electrical performance. Most likely if the neural supply line is bad the other supply lines should be replaced as well. Old residences in North America frequently only had 100 Amp supply lines and when any large appliance would start up, like the AC, the lights would dim as the large start up current creates a severe voltage drop across the old 100 Amp supply lines. The power company will typically upgrade your lines to 250 Amp for free. Just say your putting in a massive hot tub with electric heat!
As Douglas Engle said, balancing the loads has no effect on metering on a edison 120/240 center tapped single phase supply. If the conductors are undersized then sure you will lose some from overload / causing conductors to heat....but if that is the case you need to wonder why your main breaker is not popping. I would get a qualified electrician to check the conductor and main breaker size. Power factor, that is actually a thing - especially on commercial and industrial setups. You can get charged for a poor power factor, where the grid is providing capacitance to inductive loads. Generally the utility will bill for a power factor that is worse than 0.9 (90% of unity) This is where the amps and volts are out of sync by greater than 90% . And I agree the annual maintenance - what a scam. Possibly a capacitor bank if the owner was running a huge amount of poor power factor equipment may help the owner avoid a power factor penalty, but it would unlikely on a residential setup. I am glad you talked some sense into your friend.
+wolfe1970 That's how you know an engineer. The thing doesn't do shit, but it's neatly laid out and quite properly made, so an engineer will like it ;D
+wolfe1970 It works perfectly. It makes the user think they are saving cash and gives them a warm happy feeling when they plug it in. Especially if something live has touched the case inside.
Yes this is the typical thing that would have to be way bigger for switching power supply noise cancellation in huge office buildings. Usually when office buildings went all fluorescent from incadescent every CFL or fluorescent tube lighting fitting comes with a tiny switch mode power supply within and those tend to release switching noise back to the mains and since they are all in sync their noise adds up and produces big alternating current on odd resonance frequencies blowing everything including their main power line itself when it melts :D So industrial size filters had to be fitted wasting away much of the power the so-called energy efficient lightbulbs saved :)
PunakiviAddikti Yeah but they have more functions, and personally I love my Casio for when I need to quickly switch between scientific notation, fraction, and normal form of input and output, or go crazy with parenthesis, or being able to go back in memory for a certain equation I put in and swap values, using trig functions, etc. When it comes to repetitious work I find it very efficient. But, I suppose if bigclive doesn't need it often then a $15 calculator would be just an extravagant expense (and with a scientific calculator he wouldn't know how to use the memory keys on a basic one 😂) even though it can be a little tedious to use.
Unfortunately one cannot accurately determine the value of a capacitor connected across mains voltage based solely on it's current draw. This is due to the fact that mains voltage is not composed only of a 50Hz sine wave, but also a fair amount of noise and harmonic distortion (last time I looked, it was about 10-15% THD).
Nice. It's really something to know that companies build and sell devices that they KNOW are worthless. I guess that is what you do when you know you can market something to suckers.
I know. I have physics to first year degree level. I was thinking in terms of saving 200 kwh per year. Current isn't measured in watts. The device is connected in parallel with the household system thus the current isn't all passing through the device. You'd never get 900 amps through that tiny cable!
I know it's entirely different. I have already explained. And there's still no way that a parallel connected device can carry 900 amps. Please read my messages.
Where I work we have larger conditioners for vfds that kept failing, we had industrial-size conditioners installed to smooth out the dirty three phase incoming power and had great success.
The best electricity saving device I've seen was a really long extension lead plugged into my neighbors garden shed ..... going to my house.
+Slot1Gamer you need it for all those consoles
or from the streetlights to your house (only works at night) but its genuinely one ive heard of people doing lol
+The Mad Hammer I can imagine those with EVs would top up in large parking lots this way.
+The Mad Hammer - Here in the UK street lights are always powered on, and switched with a photocell at the top of the lamp.
good girl！he use the tool all made in china，haha😄
Big Clive - these things REALLY work! I've plugged these into EVERY single power outlet in my house so now I can't plug anything else in and my power usage has dropped dramatically! Thinking about it, I probably would get a better result just shutting off the mains circuit breaker to the house...
kirkb4989 lol really you did it ? Good stupid joke
Brilliant!! Let me try it too... he-he
These "magic" boxes should also come with pamphlet instruction to disconnect or turn off all unused appliances, including power supply bricks, which will probably save more than that measly 0.496Amps. lol
lol
The kiddie socket protectors do that job as well and cost less per piece. And you get kiddie protection thrown in for free! :)
Lmao
The best electricity saving device I've ever seen is the OFF switch
celebrate Earth Hour on March 21 at 8:30p to 9:30p... switch it all off
Coverage Awareness Studio I rather not?
ppl would be surprised how much you will save in a month unplugging the microwave and kerrig or similar coffee machine. power bars make things easier.
@@absolutely1337 that's not all the TV and cable box use a lot of power even when turned off so do computer and monitor you can cut your power use by up to 30 % by shuting them off when not in use
@@douglaswindsor120 i just instal power strips on everything and flip them off when not in use. My power bill is very low. Vampire power draw is a real thing, folks.
Bigclive is the only human who can't draw a stick man but can draw beautiful twinned sine waves
I understand almost nothing when it comes to electronics, however I'm really drawn to your videos and watch them with great detail. Big thumbs up
I love the fact there are people out there like yourself who like to prove the fraud companies do to consumers . Thank you very much Sir.
Gotta love Big "If You Have An inductive Load" Clive :) 4:42
I am impressed. Not many people still have resister color bands memorized. I've long since forgotten them. Well done!
In factories or other industrial installations, the facility engineer knows about inductive loading; the correct capacitance for every device is wired in with the device. In fact, if their vendors are on the ball, the correct matching capacitor will generally be part of the device (at the very least, the documentation of the device will advise the capacitance needed). It’s not like this is something that was just discovered - Steinmetz wrote about it while he was creating the fundamental principles of electrical engineering.
You give most facility managers far too much credit for understanding the electrical systems in their installations and factories …
@@andyxox4168 Of cause facility managers understand the site electrical systems, if the facilities electrical load is significantly out of phase (inductive or capacitive) the Utility will significantly increase your Unit charge. Be aware, even if you alter your inductive or capacitive load your meter will track the modified Wattage consumption and you will also be down on power.
@@normie8895 … you give ‘facilities managers’ too much credit, ‘cause’ some of them don’t pay attention to spelling/grammar
@@andyxox4168English teachers look great in skirts
I always found those capacitor rooms creepy. They sound so ominious and it feels that there's some inductive voltage when you just walk in the room.
i invested 15 minutes and 49 seconds of my time to watch this demonstration and it saved me quite a bit of money and i only used a small amount of power so thank you for your knowledge .
How did I just sit through 16 mins of gibberish, yet feel thoroughly entertained throughout?
I swear to god your voice better than ASMR for sleep! It's so relaxing!!!
+Treyton Nugent (HWP) ikr
*BigClive abandons his love for electronics and power and goes into voice acting.*
+PianoVideosJustForU (PVJFU)
Just gonna edit that for you:
*BigClive abandons his love for electronics and power and goes **_back_** into voice acting.*
I knew it was of Irish origin, but since you mention French it makes more sense, as I'm a Cajun. :P
ratcat17 Lol, I live in the U.S. Cajuns are basically just exiles from France and then Canada. :P
Top tip if you think a case may be live: Don't touch it with the inside of your finger tips, the muscular contraction can cause you to involuntarily grab the device (which isn't good). Use the backs of your fingers instead. That way, any muscular contraction pulls you away from it. Even topper tip: Use the right tool for the job :D
+Zadster Even better tip... get someone else to grab it!!! Or be sensible and just don't touch it! lol Great tip though... same as the electricians with one hand always in the pocket ;)
Chris Landry Indeed... they are quite elastic in nature and bounce back from nearly anything! :-O
Just give it the foreskin test. You get a hard on and touch the case with the very tip of your foreskin. If it retracts, it's live.
Zadster
I always get the cat or the dog to go sniff the appliance in question. If the appliance throws a shock they alert me immediately.
With AC there will be no muscular contraction. Still best to flick with knuckles to test for live as the contact is relativity high impedance and all you get will be a tingle.
If you have an inductive load... oh there is a circuit board in there
If you have an inductive load... there is the capacitor
If you have an inductive load... oh hold on
I literally scrolled by as he said that.
Aperture Laboratories same
If you have an inductive load it buggers up the phase of the power. Pulls the current in one direction relative to the voltage. A capacitor pulls it in the other direction. So it cancels out.
As a capacitor charges, it pulls large current even when the voltage is low, when the voltage is starting to rise in it's sine wave. An inductor resists change in current, so only starts to draw current a while after the voltage rises.
Electric companies don't like large inductive loads, because their system, and most loads, is based around the idea of loads being resistive, with a 1:1 relationship between voltage and current. Disturbing this messes up the system. So if you're a factory with huge motors, the electric company charge you extra for that.
But it only makes an actual difference if you have large loads. A little motor won't make any noticable difference. Nothing domestic should be any big deal. And electric companies only charge you based on a resistive model anyway.
So a capacitor in a box won't make a difference. And especially the tiny one here. You need proper big capacitors to balance out proper big motors.
And that's how Clive's sentence would have ended.
Diplomatic. He plays a safe game. But on the other hand he also talks about how good this portion, and how that portion is not enough to do the trick. Which means Clive knows exactly what is needed to save power. But, the diplomacy and safe game again.
But well, greenaum explained us a lot.
Question: if I have old fashioned power meter, with inductances within, instead a new digital power meter, would it make a difference? Nobody mentioned such thing, it would be interesting to do measurements. With inductive load, of course. Can you do that, please?
I like this thing for the individual parts! I like the box, short cord and fuse already mounted. The capacitor is useful for my vacuum tube projects too. Bonus!
You got the deluxe model with a fuse!!
The premium version has 2 mystery black box capacitors.
lol
A 200kw fuse apparently.
But the fuse is fake~
😂
Clive, have you ever thought of doing a video showing all your bench equipment? Like one video that shows all your bench power supplies, all your multimeters/capacitance reader/etc, power monitors (AC Eco Eye, your various USB 5v dongles, etc), and whatever else you generally use during your videos but which we might not see, or not see for very long.
Some of them show up briefly in the videos when you use them, but for example I've never seen which bench power supply you use (maybe it's in an earlier video I've not yet seen.)
So I thought it would be useful to have one single video that showed it all in one go, with reasons why you chose those units and suggestions for newbies on what to get and what to look for.
Like you did for electrical components and then soldering stations, but for "bench equipment" or "measuring equipment" or whatever the best name is. Cheers!
Thank jesus. My sinwaves were getting very rough
Well 5g may cause a allergy season reaction that never ends creating nasal sinwaves effected by the moons industrious gravity.
My "sinus"es were getting congested till I got this. he-he
Men, you are better than my university teacher. Good job!
ZaitzDucu all men or this man? Back to university...
@@firstlast8805 do you know that the word "man" spells "men"
You should go around the neighborhood to see the true meaning of the word men.
Be blessed by the God!
3:36 you can tell this is a vintage edition: he says "one moment" without the now invariable "please" on the end.
yesss I love vintage Clive
This is a very nice case that definitely would cost more if you bought it from a major distributor as new (not new surplus). And then the power input connector and the fuse holder - that’s quite a bit of value. I might order a couple as project boxes. People selling may be confused how Clive’s debunk video garnered them sales, lol. (Of course they probably don’t care).
in argentina there's actually a legal limit to the aparent current deviation, if you pass it, there's an overcharge.
I had an excess solar panel 250w and just for the heck of it i got a small 300w Chinese grid tie inverter to see if i would save some electricity (more of a environmental than financial curiosity). I had it since last august. About two months ago i got a legal notice to have my power box examined as it appeared that i was "abusing" the meter. the measurements showed too little consumption for a long period of time. I don't have much power consumption to begin with as i have a hybrid solar and gas heater and gas stove but didn't expect that outcome...
wow looks like the spare 250w panel started saving you energy to buy from grid, power companies dont like that..im assuming the inverter is a pure sine type, anything else would trip the elcb
+fidel catsro They sure don't. I certainly didn't expect to be dragged from office to office explaining myself and my measly solar setup, not to mention the threats of legal implications. The inverter was indeed labeled as pure sine though at that price i wouldn't be certain of anything.
would love to know more about your set up. do you have a utube video about it?
Hello how can I get a set-up like yours?
Your power inverter must SYNCHRONIZE the waveform with the incoming power, or there will be trouble.
it would've been really nice to see the action of this device using an oscilloscope :)
My compliments, sir, and admiration too ! Through 50 years as an engineer and home tinkerer, it never occurred to me to replace an AC dropping resistor with a series XC. And what a nice enclosure in which to deliver garbage !
It is essentially a PFC device (Power Factor Correction). They are used to correct for inductive loads on the power line, to bring the current draw into phase with the voltage draw. Using LED bulbs will do the same thing as that device, as they place a capacitive load on the line. In the house, it will be mainly anything with a motor that places an inductive load on the line.
Err. Exactly what our man said.
They could have titled it: "Physics ignoring device"
LMAO.....!!!!
Impossibru machine
LOL. The clue that it's bollocks is in the word "Savor". I can imagine the description on Amazon: "Very good power savor make long time benefit saving to you energy bill"
So, a Quantum Device, ok....
@@mikakorhonen5715 in my head it sounded like the Asian guy off hangover wrote that
Bang good products.
When plugged in it Bang's good.
😂
I've often had this exact same thought. You contact them to report defective products and they can just say, "well what's the problem? You did buy it from bang good" lol! The moral of the story, Only report products that don't bang good ;)
Dazzwidd
Some of these Products should come from a Brand Named: 'BlowFuse''
Not sure if theres such a Brand, but you never know ^^
q
In another twist, Bang Good sells some Good Bang for your buck devices for sure... tsk tsk :D
I'm in my 30's..and I just found out what the M buttons on a calculator do....Holy shit...
I'm just coming up to my 60th and I don't know, then again I've never had the need to use it, I don't think, lol.
I feel like my friend who asked me when I press ctrl+Z "wait wait, how did you do that?!"... I Feel born again
me to lol im 49
im almost 30 and my mum told me what does that buttons do like 20 years ago
Me too, and I'm 50 come this December
These things remind me of those old infomercials for miracle diet devices, where they'd say "use this piece of equipment and, along with proper diet and exercise, you will lose weight!"
Power factor isn't just about meters. The reason you want a power factor close to 1 is because if the current is significantly out of phase with the voltage, you actually need to pull more current over the wires to get the same power (so a 100W device with a power factor of 0.5 will result in roughly twice the current flowing over the wire than a 100W device with a power factor of 1.0 (for the same wattage)). That means you either need much beefier wires, or you can end up with a lot more heat and resistive losses in the wires. This is why it's particularly important in industrial (or datacenter) contexts, where you have lots of equipment pulling lots of power from a given circuit, and you want that to be as efficient as possible.
Capacitors can also be used to filter out higher frequency electrical noise (which is probably what they were getting at with the sine waves on the box), but that generally requires having the thing you're protecting be on the *other* side of the capacitor from the noise source (or very close by). Just plugging a capacitor into a nearby socket will do nothing in that regard.
i thank you for taking the time to show us these quack devices, realy appreciated!
6uf 450v caps are used for window type air conditioners in the Frigidaire brand. They have a mounting tab that appears to be broken off on your cap in the video.
I have no clue what he's talking about but I love listening to him talk XD
Same... I have no clue yet I spend so much time just watching his videos. And his little doodles and diagrams. It's all very interesting even though I have no idea what's going on :P
It's really fascinating stuff if you take the time to learn it. Whether or not you will ever use physics in your career, I feel that everyone should have a basic understanding of how electronics work considering that we use them on a daily basis.
Same here, excellent
suk up
Lovely Scots voice he has aye!
"it's a naughty, charlatan's device but it's quite cute nonetheless"
gotta like the video just for this phrase
2:28 the tell-tale sign of an experienced bang good customer.
i changed all my bulbs to led and my bill was cut by 40%
now available at the 99 cents store in 3 sizes. screw the big box prices ; )
Must have been all the capacitors inside them
But you will have to spend all the savings on your health because those led's are harmful to your health. I guess you haven't thought of that, have you?
The Pale Horse how are LEDs harmful to health?
Go and do the research. I did
just as i was about to go to sleep, two new videos! thanks clive :)
+Nathan Finch You're welcome. Anything I can do to help reduce that irksome sleeping thing. Meanwhile I'm just about to make VERY silly video indeed.
+Nathan Finch I know right My wife will be angry in the morning when i don't wake up!
+bigclivedotcom can't wait!! looks like we'll all be struggling to get up tomorrow!
+Nathan Finch yeah I was pleasantly surprised as well :)
Nathan Finch
Its his fault !! lets invade Scotland!! O wait some of the best single malts come from there ! ok lets destroy his bothy!
I love these videos of quack products that you do. :-)
The first thing I thought when I read the title (after I finished laughing) was, "I have a device that saves power - it's called a switch!"
How many multimeters do you have? You bust out a different one in every video I've seen.
Wow , you're a smart one. Loving the note pad as an explanation tool. Good job pal
Not only do you get to play with "a naughty little charlatan device", you also get $5 worth of parts to make a new project...
The cap would make a good bypass cap on a pro audio driver
Hey man, keep up the good work opening stuff up and commenting on how it works while dequackering the world.
Keep spreading the science and information. You are doing a good job educating people by just showing that there is no magic in anything we use in our daily lives.
A small cap across the mains in not going to do much if anything to clean harmonic distortion and noise from the mains, and cleaning the mains supply will not make any noticeable difference to saving on you're power bill either. Big Clive is 100% correct excellent video. The cap across mains is typically intended as power factor correction and needs to be matched to counteract a inductive load such as a motor transformer or inductive lightning ballast. The bogus 200kw rating, the lies about saving power, and failure to provide a protective earth, is concerning. No earth on exposed conductive parts is also a breech of the regulations in most countries.
By connecting another device to the home electrical network you will only increase consumption, if you really want to reduce consumption then replace the appliances with higher consumption by others with lower consumption and greater efficiency( The savings will be seen in the medium or long term), keep off the appliances that you do not need to have on or those that you are not using. Note: It would be a very good idea to check your home's electrical network to make sure there are no leaks or loose wires.
I got a feeling that the only way to do this right would be to use TWO, ELECTROLYTIC capacitors, both with a diode, obviously so that both'd work one side of the ac fluctuations. And, I think the circuitry inside the supposedly power saving device in the video is in fact losing at least an equal amount (or more) of power as what the amount it is 'saving' would be a s it discharges continuously to allow for that change of polarity 50 times a second - or am I mistaking?
"If you have an inductive load" Counter: 4
It says "ROSH" instead of "ROHS" on the package :)
+Toumal Rakesh Clever way to feign compliance or just a typo? :-)
ROSH - Reduction of Surplus Housings
Maybe they had a lot of aluminum cases they needed to use for something.
@@jessstuart7495 Add CE mark for that effort: Chinese Engineering.
Rating for INROSH current?
Thanks for maths. I enjoyed that. If it wasn't expensive, the case looks like it would make a nice project box. I do like aluminium.
Your videos are always so chill and comfy
tx for the info.
I was really curious about this. I never believed that those gizmos do anything. Very good explanation about how people believe that the thing works,
It happened that I fooled myself too in such a manner. two years ago, I replaced the bulb I use more with a LED one. did not noticed any saving. I use light quite little. About half a year ago I changed all the other bulbs, just because I like the idea of LED illumination. I noticed a sudden lower bill of about 30 percent. I was convinced that the new bulbs were the cause, even I use them just few minutes daily. I simply denied my brain to do the math. The first one I changed I use it about 2 hours daily. Recently, I woke up from my dream. I realized that I should had have about 30 hours daily of bulb usage to perform that saving.
I do not really know the cause but I guess it was a short on a socket. It exploded about the same time, so I replaced the wiring. So, before the short, just had a trickle of about 120 w. Maybe I am wrong, but this is the only idea I have to solve the mystery
月着电20~60%... I can't believe people actually fall for this shit. Good video.
Most household appliances are quite inductive. This results in inductive current (VAr:s) flowing in the wiring alongside the work current (Watts). Although the VA current does no work it will generate losses in the wiring.
This device is just a capacitive compensator. Technically it will reduce the total VA current resulting in less losses in the wiring.
There are some safety aspects though. If an appliance VA current is completely compensated there will be resonance. This could result in strong currents between the appliance and this device. There is a fire hazard. If an appliance is to be compensated the appliance should always be fitted with its own capacitor inside the appliance casing. Appliances should never be fully compensated. The efficiency factor (cosine fai) should not be more than 0.95. Resonance currents may explain fuse box or switch gear explosions.
The grid voltage usually contains strong harmonics. The third harmonic is the strongest. They are usually caused by driving the grid transformers close to saturation. These harmonics are actually cleaned up these devices, to some degree, but they can cause the capacitor to run quite warm. The capacitor will deteriorate fast and eventually short out. They may explode.
Lighning causes shock waves in lines and house wirings. The shock wave will go where the impedance is smallest. A device like this could provide that. The device may explode. However. It may save other appliances from destruction.
Isnt the reason we drive ground rods into the ground to reduce objectionable current like nearby lightning strikes?
then if i understood well ... that device actually matched the maximum theoretical pure sine wave factor ... which ..means would save lots of power over time if under heavy kw LOADS ?? right ?
but of course ..with the understanding ..that switching off equipments is the best way to save :):)
The aluminum case is used/designed as a heat sink to keep the capacitor from burning out
I had to LIKE this video. After 20 years I FINALLY know how to use the Memory Function of a calculator.
So basically it does nothing, aside from reducing your liquidity.
+SutekhAeon Maybe you're right. 99.9% of humans who change science din't get rich but poor with their interests and often loose their lives. The best way to avoid reduce your liquidity is to save every penny and avoid girls.
+dharmabodhy LOOSE? I don't think so.
How does this look? LOSE
+dharmabodhy But Where's the fun in that?
Loving the ROSH Chinese, Restriction Of Substances Hazardous lol!
😅
Restriction de substance hazardous. Boom. Frenese.
TheLastPost it seems to be ROUSH
Ashens reference - RRY CH!
"ELI the ICE man"
ELI = with L (Inductance) Voltage (E) leads current (I)
ICE =with C (Capacitance) Current (I) leads voltage (E)
Capacitive reactance negates inductive reactance to improve power factor and reduce reactive current.
+RIB B
Do you really need a mnemonic for that? It't obvious that you need to put some charge (=current x time) into a capacitor before the voltage rises.
+superdau But not everyone is a fucking expert like you fella.
How about trying to encourage people to learn, which is what this channel is about, rather than belittling their efforts.
+lazaglider true dat!
+RIB B I never could remember that..instead I always thought about complex (a+i*b) representation of resistance.. C and L rotate vector in opposite directions..forward by phase or back by phase..
did you take physics with Dr. Watters?
sir,haven't seen or heard a smart man like you since i was in high school.
and that was my electronics teacher,and she was one of the very best.
subscribed on your channel
Excellent result with the correct capacitor meter and the measurement values and the result is spot on. Nice case and at least no loose items in the box. The 200kW may relate to the power savings over a year, in a lightly loaded house.
The salesmen used to have demo cases with a very lossy unloaded motor to show the apparent power savings.
'having a bang good evening'
that joke is like 'installed linux had a bash'
Can we just talk about how beautiful that sin wave was?
I bought one of these for the aluminum case... where i bought it it was $11 and an extruded aluminum case of that size was $9.. so i basically got a decent cap to use for something else for $2
warmfreeze your logic is screwed
The fuse holder is reusable also.
I thought the same thing, anodized case for that device was cool
I'd imagine the 0.3W consumption is the LED and the ESR of the capacitor. There is about 0.5A of out of phase current flowing in that capacitor.
My bill shows line charge, production charge, fuel charge, tax - the wattage charge is almost equal to fixed charges. I changed to tankless water heater, insulated windows, added ceiling fan & down sized the heat pump after the upgrades. Next is changing the heatpump from (air to air) to (water to air) after I remove trees. The temperatures now are 2 degrees up in summer & 2 degrees down in winter.
Would have been nice to see the actual sine wave before and after with an oscilloscope and possibly a 24hour test running once without the device and once with the device to see if it actually lowers the power consumption on your power meter that the utilities read from. Other than that - very detailed explanation! 😊 thank you.
Residential power meters measure both the power going into your home, as well as the power reflected back to the power company, with the net being what you actually consume.
Power reflection happens from inductive loads which temporarily store power in a magnetic field then when that field collapses, it send that power back to the utility. While that can add current in your power lines, your not actually consuming it and so aren't charged for it. Capacitors also store power in the form of a electrostatic potential between two plates and releases it back to the grid. Each unit of capactive reactance cancels the same amount inductive reactance.
So while you seen .489 amps at 240 volts you were not seeing 117.360 watts being used. Rather, you were seeing 117.360 volt amps being absorbed from and reflected back to the mains line.
So these devices actually increase* your charged-for consumption, in a residential situation?
*by more than the power consumed by the LED, obviously
Ian Oliver "
So these devices actually increase* your charged-for consumption," Simple answer: No. More complex answer: Maybe just a tinny amount. Read below for a more detailed explanation.
Look at this image of a capacitor in an alternating current circuit. sub.allaboutcircuits.com/images/quiz/00577x02.png
Power is Voltage times Amps. Consider these four different situations with a capacitor during a complete (0-360 degrees) cycle of applied alternating voltages.
1. 0-90 degrees of a cycle, voltage and amps are both positive. so power is positive and you'r consuming power.
2. 90-180 degrees of the cycle, voltage is positive and amps are negative. so power is negative and you'r sending power back.
3. 180-270 degrees of the cycle, voltage and amps are both negative. So power is positive, and you'r consuming power.
4. 270-360 degrees of a cycle, voltage is negative and amps are positive. So power is negative and you'r sending power back.
Adding up all the power flows. gives you a zero net flow of power. A little more nuanced answer: But, if you add in the tiny amount of resistance found in the wires, then yes you will loose a tiny amount of power due to line losses. For residential consumers, it is generally so insignificant that its not worth mentioning.
"Your charged for consumption" is the net power that you consume. These devices temporarily absorb power and reflect it back. If I gave you an apple and moments later you give it back, you didn't actually consume it, thus I cant charge you for what you did not consume. But, the apple still changed hands twice. The apple in this analogy represents power not current. This is how it is with residential power consumers.
Industrial power consumers are a special situation. They consume so much more power and often have very poor power factor.
If we carry on the analogy, were you I might have exchanged an apple, Industrial consumes exchange truck loads. If power lines are like freeways. those freeways can only allow so much traffic, unnecessarily exchanging truckloads limits the number of truck a given highway can deliver. Adding an extra lane helps, but is costly. Alternately, power companies charge industrial consumers for the actual power flow rather then net power flow. This creates an incentive for industrial consumers with poor power factor (often excessively inductive) to employ power factor correction through introducing capacitive reactance.
Florian Uhlemann you do recognize, that this device is not powerful enough to do anything except blank that stupid old green LED. The point he was making was in the event that you had a device that function correctly, through it, One could change the differential between phase of voltage and amperage. I don't care if you put a big Flippin magnet on this thing it won't do anything at all to your bill. But know this is a Chinese POS, with false advertising, and dreams of grandeur, straight up and out right bullshit, nada,nit,crapola!!!! In the American vernacular Dogshit tastes better than this works.....LOL
skisex
"It's the 2015 model. Very modern!"
lol
"i'm having a banggood evening"
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
(͡ ͡° ͜ つ ͡͡°)
+Derp Herp Only in Bangkok
+drkastenbrot
That's anti-semitic you racist, nazi, sexist, bigot!
Kablam?
Do all you people want Google to remove the comment section? Please be respectful and kind to a person sharing information.And usernames say a lot about your character which I'm sure that's the point your trying to portray. It's not impressive and very small of you
I fully agree with your recommendation that if one desires to save on electricity, setting the AC temperature one degree higher will result in significant power saving. Or placing the cooling tower would significantly reduce the energy consumption. A sucker is born every day for these gizmos!
clicked link and the first set of comments sound more educated than pretty much any other video ive seen in a long time. man its nice to see and hear people not feel alienated by being intelligent. ill subscribe and like and who knows maybe ill actually learn somehthing.
It's just a capacitor it doesn't do anything other... I could give you the technical terminology but the long and short of it is that would only work if you were paying a service charge witch is how the power company charges commercial buildings for their power bill and even in that application it's too small to have any significant effect
I can't speak for the video maker but here in the UK it is standard practice to have a service charge "per hour" for connection to the grid. For domestic consumers as well as industrial consumers. There's an awful lot of individual suppliers. BUT it's only really going to do something if you have huge power consumption. I agree with you.
You're not going to hook it up to an oscilloscope to see if it cleans up your sine wave?
+Eric Taylor see if it works better than sudafed for that.
+John Długosz LOL that is for sinus pressure hahaha
I like the thing just for its case. It can be reused in so many ways.
It is very neat, too bad the casing is wasted by putting in useless crap like this one. You can get these same exact aluminium project boxes online cheaper than buying this thing and salvaging just the case.
I love that people like you do independent research into product claims.
An oldie but a goodie.
I've only ready about a hundred of the comments but I noticed a few talking about switched mode power supplies (hereafter "switchers). My tuppence worth:
In many modern settings, domestic and office, the biggest contributor to poor power factor is the multitude of switchers in electronic equipment. Unless they are designed with "active power factor correction," called "active harmonic filtering" (or something similar) in some places, switchers have awful power factor but it is not simply a matter of phase difference between current and voltage. They are non-linear loads (and have a negative input resistance characteristic to boot, but that isn't really problematic).
When you directly rectify and capacitively filter AC, current only flows when the instantaneous DC voltage out of the rectifier exceeds the instantaneous cap voltage. This means that the current only flows near the peak of the AC sine wave and the peak current can be VERY high - the higher the filter capacitance the higher and narrower the peak current "spike" (meaning the RMS to average ratio is higher). In practical terms you cannot fix this very non-linear behavior with simple linear parts like capacitors (some "valley fill" techniques can be used to improve power factor, but the the parts cannot just be added external to the switcher). Active power factor correction is typically done with a boost switcher that makes the instantaneous input current directly (first-order) proportional to the instantaneous line voltage - but, in a feat of magic, INVERSELY proportional to the input voltage averaged over several cycles (that's the negative input resistance coming into play). The result is input current that is sinusoidal and nicely in phase with the input voltage. Typically the DC bus voltage would be around 385V for "universal" input (85 to 265 VAC).
I'm a keen audiophile and there are hundreds of quack products that apparently improve the sound. Interestingly, the more they cost, the more kudos that is attached to them.
+Mysterious Squirrel If you are a keen audiophile then you understand that such a product could actually improve sound in certain scenarios. Suppose for example you have equipment putting high frequency ripple on the AC mains, then an LC in series with an unregulated linear amp PSU, particularly on a discrete amp design with low PSRR, could improve sound. Could you actually HEAR the difference? Maybe not, an unregulated PSU powering a discrete amp circuit tends to have all kinds of unique distortions going on.
Stinky Cheese I know in the 80s a company called BBE started building what they called 'sonic maximisers'. Basically they were a pre amp that sat in the tape loop, much like an effects unit does. They were dirt cheap and brought the sound to life. Mistake 1 was the name 'sonic maximiser' and mistake 2 was the cheap price. The Hi Fi press absolutely rubbished them. Meanwhile, pointless and worthless gadgets that did nothing with huge price tags attached to them were vaunted as must have tweaks.
Mysterious Squirrel they still sell them apparently
" A naughty charlatan device "... I love it
Naughtiness confirmed :)
Do you mean that I can't just reduce my energy consumption by plugging something in, that I actually have to make an effort, how dare you lol
I listen to these videos to sleep...I just love your voice.
The capacitor may actually save a fraction of wattage at the start-up of an older compressor or washer motor if it's not hitting the peak of the wave
U should teach, u're way better at explaining than my teachers.
Nice little projects btw
the housing is nice indeed
+forestbird agree, the housing is quite fancy indeed, you could use it to house maybe a power bank or something more useful
Horadic or radio
Power saving device,huh. If your kids unplug it and touch the plug they wont be consuming electricity anytime soon.
They will need another power saving device called a defibrillator!☺️
This is a Charlton type device. Without going in to anything complicated to explain, the power meter in your home will measure the total power used not caring about phase shifting and etc.
With the power cord shown and from seeing inside of it, there is no possible way 200kW can pass through it. The power cord would melt down and so would everything inside of its case. At 240 Volts this would be over 800 Amps. At 120 Volts that would be over 400 Amps. This is a lot of power to be able to run through a small box like this.
The capacitor in that unit is really in parallel to the load. It will not make any difference, other than using an extra 1/2 Amp of power consumption. In North America where 60Hz is used, it will consumer a bit more than 1/2 Amp. In actual effect that gadget will use more power and not less! Over time that extra 1/2 Amp will add up to some extra cost on the power bill.
Best practice is to use good quality LED lights. CFL will also save power cost, but are being phased out slowly. The average LED or CFL light uses about 1/6 to 1/8 of the power consumption of the equivalent Lunins in an incandescent lamp. There should be a power consumption savings of about 60% to 70% with the newer technology lights. Turn off the lights when not required.
In cold climates like Canada if you turn down the heat by about 2 Celsius degrees you can save as much as 3% to 5% on the very cold days. You can set your heat to 20C instead of 22C. This should work with electric, or oil, or gas heating. If you are using a space heater to have some extra heat, turn it off when not required. A space heater will consume a lot of extra power.
In the end, turn off lights when not needed, and if possible run your heating a few degrees colder. Use LED lights instead of incandescent lights.
Jerry G. ??? You have NO CLUE what you are talking about. What a mor0n.
I'm an electrical engineer and I love your channel.
The imbalance of the load can be read on the neutral wire. I always do a load balance and believe it has reduced my power bill. This said a friend bought a 'magic box' from an unscrupulous contractor that additionally sold him 'semi-annual maintenance' on the bogus device. I was waiting for the guy after I had explained it to my friend. They had bought the device for THOUSANDS of dollars and paid an additional $1800 annually for 'maintenance'. I worked as a licensed electrical contractor in several states and have 2 degrees in Science and Engineering. Anyway the prosecutor got in on it and the vendor did go to prison. He had ripped off many people with his scam but this was only one of his ongoing enterprises. There are ways to save on your electric bill, reducing actual consumption is the best way. There are also some electrical devices that capitalize on the way the old meters operated, squirrel cage motors were one of such devices. Consult an electrician or an electrical engineer before buying crap like this unless you are like the video maker and just checking the false claims out. Worse case scenario, you burn down your house or suffer a deadly electrical shock to your body. Best case, you've been robbed.
Neutral wire current flow as an indication of imbalanced load is a DIFFERENT CONTEXT than power factor correction for reactive loads being discussed in this example.
Neutral wire current flow in the North American residential electrical supply is to and from the center electrical tap of a 240 VAC residential supply power transformer normally in the street right-of-way. The neural center tap electrical supply line forms two 120 VAC circuits at the residence, a lower 120 VAC circuit and an upper 120 VAC circuit. Current flow is between the power supply transformer's upper 240 VAC electrical tap and its center tap and its center tap and its lower 240 VAC electrical tap.
When the lower and upper 120 VAC circuits have exactly the same loads then the neural supply line would theoretically have no reason to flow current because the current return of the upper circuit exactly matches the current sourcing of the lower circuit. That means if you had exclusively one 100W light bulb on the lower 120 VAC circuit and one 100W light bulb on the upper 120 VAC circuit when only one bulb is on the neural wire would flow all the current needed for that one bulb with a corresponding measurable voltage drop on the neural supply line wire due to the wire's resistance. Simmerly if you turn off the lower 120 VAC circuit bulb and turn on the upper 120 VAC circuit bulb you'd find a voltage drop on the neutral wire. Now, if you have both bulbs on, theoretically you've cut out all current flow in the neural supply line because current return of them upper 120 VAC circuit exactly matches current sourcing of lower 120 VAC circuit.
That means you've effectively cut out half the power line voltage drop experienced by the lower and upper 120 VAC circuits when used individually because you are sinking and sourcing current at the residence. This by-passes sending and receiving current through the neural supply line wire to the street transformer and its associated power loss.
This seems like a good idea, but I'd think the neural supply line voltage drop and power loss would be almost undetectable. Most likely if you are having electrical problems your supply wires are old and deteriorated, under sized, and many possible mechanical ills that create erratic behaviors you may be inclined to notice more after you've made some change to your electrical system.
You could also have a erratic and bad neural supply line so reducing your dependance on it improves your over all electrical performance. Most likely if the neural supply line is bad the other supply lines should be replaced as well. Old residences in North America frequently only had 100 Amp supply lines and when any large appliance would start up, like the AC, the lights would dim as the large start up current creates a severe voltage drop across the old 100 Amp supply lines. The power company will typically upgrade your lines to 250 Amp for free. Just say your putting in a massive hot tub with electric heat!
As Douglas Engle said, balancing the loads has no effect on metering on a edison 120/240 center tapped single phase supply. If the conductors are undersized then sure you will lose some from overload / causing conductors to heat....but if that is the case you need to wonder why your main breaker is not popping. I would get a qualified electrician to check the conductor and main breaker size.
Power factor, that is actually a thing - especially on commercial and industrial setups. You can get charged for a poor power factor, where the grid is providing capacitance to inductive loads. Generally the utility will bill for a power factor that is worse than 0.9 (90% of unity) This is where the amps and volts are out of sync by greater than 90% .
And I agree the annual maintenance - what a scam. Possibly a capacitor bank if the owner was running a huge amount of poor power factor equipment may help the owner avoid a power factor penalty, but it would unlikely on a residential setup.
I am glad you talked some sense into your friend.
So... In layman's terms: This is a quack device that does nothing to save power?
Chris Rod Replace the question mark in your sentence with a period and you'd be correct.
So you like it but it doesn't do anything ?
+wolfe1970 That's how you know an engineer. The thing doesn't do shit, but it's neatly laid out and quite properly made, so an engineer will like it ;D
+turbo pascal Funny as im an engineer myself, i like stuff that actually works as well as looking neat and tidy
wolfe1970 Well, okay, but for some, actually working is a bonus ;)
+wolfe1970 It works perfectly. It makes the user think they are saving cash and gives them a warm happy feeling when they plug it in. Especially if something live has touched the case inside.
+bigclivedotcom And it might make magical blue smoke, right? :D
my man love is strong with this man thx for videos over the years
Yes this is the typical thing that would have to be way bigger for switching power supply noise cancellation in huge office buildings. Usually when office buildings went all fluorescent from incadescent every CFL or fluorescent tube lighting fitting comes with a tiny switch mode power supply within and those tend to release switching noise back to the mains and since they are all in sync their noise adds up and produces big alternating current on odd resonance frequencies blowing everything including their main power line itself when it melts :D So industrial size filters had to be fitted wasting away much of the power the so-called energy efficient lightbulbs saved :)
Clive, you need a scientific calculator so bad. :P
+themaritimeman They've all got tiny displays. Not so good for the video.
Ah, good point; I hadn't thought of that.
Those things cost a fortune compared to a simple calculator.
PunakiviAddikti Yeah but they have more functions, and personally I love my Casio for when I need to quickly switch between scientific notation, fraction, and normal form of input and output, or go crazy with parenthesis, or being able to go back in memory for a certain equation I put in and swap values, using trig functions, etc. When it comes to repetitious work I find it very efficient. But, I suppose if bigclive doesn't need it often then a $15 calculator would be just an extravagant expense (and with a scientific calculator he wouldn't know how to use the memory keys on a basic one 😂) even though it can be a little tedious to use.
Also he has his well-trimed intellect. No need for oversofisticated calculators. Even though I love my Casio and my HP..
Ah, it´s torks... a moment, I need my emergency kit! :D
wow,that muti-meter got a huge display on it!!! (may be it is the biggest i've ever seen)
+郭牧楠 That's why I use it in the videos. It's got a fantastic display.
yes,I agree.
And the shape of that meter is fantastic too!
Am I hearing some subtext here?
Also the curves of that meter are so sexy!
+Gasgiant That's what she said...
Unfortunately one cannot accurately determine the value of a capacitor connected across mains voltage based solely on it's current draw. This is due to the fact that mains voltage is not composed only of a 50Hz sine wave, but also a fair amount of noise and harmonic distortion (last time I looked, it was about 10-15% THD).
Nice.
It's really something to know that companies build and sell devices that they KNOW are worthless. I guess that is what you do when you know you can market something to suckers.
This guy is amazing!
What's amazing is how people who "know" electricity can never explain it to those who don't. :)
"Power companies HATE this!"
No they don't... it doesn't work.
One clever trick.
I think you mean 200 kWh
paulanderson79
200 kw, fits in your hand! lol
Not many homes draw 200kW. That's nearly 900 amps.
I know. I have physics to first year degree level.
I was thinking in terms of saving 200 kwh per year.
Current isn't measured in watts.
The device is connected in parallel with the household system thus the current isn't all passing through the device. You'd never get 900 amps through that tiny cable!
I know it's entirely different. I have already explained. And there's still no way that a parallel connected device can carry 900 amps. Please read my messages.
He can't mean 200 kW. It's connected in parallel. Domestic electrics are generally fused at 75-100amps for the whole dwelling.
Where I work we have larger conditioners for vfds that kept failing, we had industrial-size conditioners installed to smooth out the dirty three phase incoming power and had great success.
Sin wave drawing skill level 10! A master at work here boys :D