Slowing Electric Meters

[JhnWil875]

X-No-Archive: yes

Hi,

Have the new electronic electric meters stopped or reduced people from
tamperering with them to slow them down or do people still use Phase shift and
other devices to stop them or slow them down recording electricity usage?

Did these Phase Shift or other things that supposedly made older style electric
meters slow or run backwards ever work in the first place?

Regards,

John.

 

[Patch]

X-No-Archive: yes

Hi,

Have the new electronic electric meters stopped or reduced people from
tamperering with them to slow them down or do people still use Phase shift and
other devices to stop them or slow them down recording electricity usage?

Did these Phase Shift or other things that supposedly made older style electric
meters slow or run backwards ever work in the first place?

Regards,

John.

An old Urban legend. I have an Electrician friend that started his own
legend by telling customers that putting a bag of salt on top of the meter
would slow them down. 30 years later he still finds salt on top of meters!
LOL

 

[Jerry G.]

If you want to slow your meter, use less power. The new meters are now able
to be addressed through the power lines. We have this system here, and our
power company can instantaneously tell the power consumption and usage at
any location at any time.

You should shop around for low power consumption products. There are many
things you can do around your home to save power. We did a very detailed
evaluation of our needs, power consumption, and product availability. We
were able to bring down our energy costs by about 30% over the last number
of years. The energy costs have increased by about 4% over this period of
time.

Conserving electricity helps the environment, where they are using fossil
fuels, and nuclear power to generate electricity.

Tampering with your power meter, or trying to defeat it is illegal, and the
person's doing this can be charged with theft.

--

Greetings,

Jerry Greenberg
===========


X-No-Archive: yes

Hi,

Have the new electronic electric meters stopped or reduced people from
tamperering with them to slow them down or do people still use Phase shift
and
other devices to stop them or slow them down recording electricity usage?

Did these Phase Shift or other things that supposedly made older style
electric
meters slow or run backwards ever work in the first place?

Regards,

John.

 

[Sam Goldwasser]

An old Urban legend. I have an Electrician friend that started his own
legend by telling customers that putting a bag of salt on top of the meter
would slow them down. 30 years later he still finds salt on top of meters!
LOL

Virtually nothing you can do without physically attacking the meter
will alter how it records electricity usage. All residential power
meters measure true power. So changing the power factor inside the
house - changing the phase relationship of V and I - isn't going to
have any noticeable effect on power measured.

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[JhnWil875]

Subject: Re: Slowing Electric Meters

From: Sam Goldwasser [email protected]
Date: 02/03/04 17:46 GMT Standard Time
Message-id: <[email protected]>

All residential power
meters measure true power. So changing the power factor inside the
house - changing the phase relationship of V and I - isn't going to
have any noticeable effect on power measured.

That is interesting because some people swear that with the old style electric
disc meters there was a device that could make them go backwards, I have spoken
to someone who claimed to have done this for some reason.

Other people say that when 3 phase industrial electric motors are used a
special meter had to be installed because the motors would screw up the phase
and effect the accuracy of a normal meter, i read on an academic website today
how electricity is measured differently in different countries leading to up to
a 30% difference in reading between the different countries.

John.

 

[Sam Goldwasser]

That is interesting because some people swear that with the old style electric
disc meters there was a device that could make them go backwards, I have spoken
to someone who claimed to have done this for some reason.

Other people say that when 3 phase industrial electric motors are used a
special meter had to be installed because the motors would screw up the phase
and effect the accuracy of a normal meter, i read on an academic website today

As the other poster said, there are all kinds of urban legends. You need
to find some confirmed cases. You need more than a meter change to use
a 3 phase motor. kWhr meters are very carefully designed to accurately
measure true power and not be fooled.

how electricity is measured differently in different countries leading to up to
a 30% difference in reading between the different countries.

So what else is new?

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Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
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[Bob Urz]

As the other poster said, there are all kinds of urban legends. You need
to find some confirmed cases. You need more than a meter change to use
a 3 phase motor. kWhr meters are very carefully designed to accurately
measure true power and not be fooled.




So what else is new?

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Home Page: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm
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Well, maybe there is some truth in it. I have a electronic meter. There
was a ice storm here and the meter was covered with ice for a few weeks.
After the thaw, the power company called to ask if i was still in
business because i showed zero power use. Not sure if the ice around it
did it, but something zapped my electronic meter. I suppose now people
will be trying to freeze there meters.......

Bob

 

[- - ex - -]

Well, maybe there is some truth in it. I have a electronic meter. There
was a ice storm here and the meter was covered with ice for a few weeks.
After the thaw, the power company called to ask if i was still in
business because i showed zero power use. Not sure if the ice around it
did it, but something zapped my electronic meter. I suppose now people
will be trying to freeze there meters.......

Bob

Don't the new remote reading meters communicate at 928 MHz or so? If
so, a shield of ice might effectively kill the signal in some instances.
Of course as soon as the ice melts its back to communicating the
actual reading again.

-Bill M

 

[Chaos Master]

Patch tava com a mulhegada quando eu cheguei gritando:

An old Urban legend. I have an Electrician friend that started his own
legend by telling customers that putting a bag of salt on top of the meter
would slow them down. 30 years later he still finds salt on top of meters!
LOL

Here in Brazil it's quite common to do this, but people do it with water bottles
(!!).

 

[Alex Bird]

If you want to slow your meter, use less power.

Or get solar panels. The old style meters will slow if you are
providing some of the power yourself, and go backwards if you are
producing more power than you are using. An expensive initial
investment though...

Alex

 

[Sam Goldwasser]

Well, maybe there is some truth in it. I have a electronic
meter. There was a ice storm here and the meter was covered with ice
for a few weeks.
After the thaw, the power company called to ask if i was still in
business because i showed zero power use. Not sure if the ice around
it did it, but something zapped my electronic meter. I suppose now
people will be trying to freeze there meters.......

Maybe a virus.

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Home Page: http://www.repairfaq.org/
Repair | Main Table of Contents: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/
+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm
| Mirror Site Info: http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_mirror.html

Important: The email address in this message header may no longer work. To
contact me, please use the feedback form on the S.E.R FAQ Web sites.

 

[Bob Urz]

Don't the new remote reading meters communicate at 928 MHz or so? If
so, a shield of ice might effectively kill the signal in some instances.
Of course as soon as the ice melts its back to communicating the actual
reading again.

-Bill M

This was not a remote reading meter. Its the same size as the old
mechanical meters in a glass tub. It just has LCD read outs instead
of the old mechanical meter movements. It was alternately displaying
a number then going blank. Don't know if thats a error code or
normal.

Bob

 

[Henry Kolesnik]

If anyone figured out how to slow any particular power meter the utility
changed them out otherwise they would go broke because the temeptation would
catch on like wild fire. This idea is like the carburetor that would get
tens of more miles per gallon but the oil companies bought them. Power
meters are virtually foolproof to any common trick but if you took it apart
that opens all kinds of doors even ones with bars on them.
73
Hank WD5JFR

 

[Steve Dunbar]

JhnWil875 wrote:

Other people say that when 3 phase industrial electric motors are used a
special meter had to be installed because the motors would screw up the
phase and effect the accuracy of a normal meter,

Industrial electric service is billed differently than residential service.
There is usually a charge for "demand", which is the maximum load the
customer draws during any 15-minute period. A special meter may be used to
measure the demand. There may also be a charge for reactive power used by
inductive loads such as motors.