how much standby power do ALL your appliances use?

[Phil in Melbourne]

I just picked up a MS6115 energy meter from Jaycar.

I went around the house and measured these devices - all on standby. You
may be interested in the results.

Microwave with door closed, showing clock on display 0W
IR activated remote control curtains 0W
Toaster with 7 segment standby indicator 0W
Old dish washer with presumably no standby circuitry 0W
New washing machine 12W
New small-ish TV 12W
7 year old large TV 12W
7 year old DVD player 13W
New DSTB 13W
Around 6 year old DSE soldering iron station 7W (poor design, power switch
is on secondary winding)
Desktop PC 10W
New HP Printer 9W
4 year old HP printer 7W
Wireless router 10W
Cable modem 5W
Laptop with battery fully charged 7W
New fridge with LED panel lit up, compressor not running 0W


That's a total of 117W of 24 hour standby power. That equals 2.808 KWh per
day of power. And our average energy bill for the last quarter..... 8.8KW
average per day.......

So just under ONE THIRD of our total power usage goes towards standby power.
Isn't that crazy?

Another interesting observation is that devices such as the fridge, the
toaster and the microwave all use standby power but the MS6115 is not
sensitive enough to register it.

I have a device that turns off my two monitors and speakers when the PC is
switched off. That would add another 20W easily.

Solution? Turn stuff off at the wall. Will I do it? Probably not.

I will however route the TV, DSTB, DVD player through the amplifier's
auxiliary power output. I will now have to turn on the amplifier when I
watch TV, but it will save a lot of standby power.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Phil in Melbourne"

I just picked up a MS6115 energy meter from Jaycar.

** Have you calibrated the meter ?

Firstly, with say a 40 watt light bulb - should read 40 watts.

Then, with a 10uF mains capacitor - should read zero.

I went around the house and measured these devices - all on standby. You
may be interested in the results.

** But you used a dodgy and uncalibrated meter.

Microwave with door closed, showing clock on display 0W
IR activated remote control curtains 0W
Toaster with 7 segment standby indicator 0W
Old dish washer with presumably no standby circuitry 0W
New washing machine 12W
New small-ish TV 12W
7 year old large TV 12W
7 year old DVD player 13W
New DSTB 13W
Around 6 year old DSE soldering iron station 7W (poor design, power switch
is on secondary winding)
Desktop PC 10W
New HP Printer 9W
4 year old HP printer 7W
Wireless router 10W
Cable modem 5W
Laptop with battery fully charged 7W
New fridge with LED panel lit up, compressor not running 0W


That's a total of 117W of 24 hour standby power. That equals 2.808 KWh per
day of power. And our average energy bill for the last quarter..... 8.8KW
average per day.......

** A $100 power bill for a quarter is very low.

You must use gas for nearly everything.

So just under ONE THIRD of our total power usage goes towards standby
power. Isn't that crazy?

** Nope - cos all that waste energy goes to heat up your house.

Darn cold in Melbourne at the moment, ain't it?

Another interesting observation is that devices such as the fridge, the
toaster and the microwave all use standby power but the MS6115 is not
sensitive enough to register it.

** That meter is just not suitable for reading standby power - Jaycar make
no claim that it is.

Solution? Turn stuff off at the wall. Will I do it? Probably not.

** Nah - that will only increase you gas heating bill.

I suppose you house is full of CFLs too ??



....... Phil

 

[MisterE]

That's a total of 117W of 24 hour standby power. That equals 2.808 KWh per

day of power. And our average energy bill for the last quarter..... 8.8KW
average per day.......

If you are dealing with mA current why not just make up a little rig so you
can use a multimeter and get some accurate readings? For the high power
stuff you can just walk out to your power box and see how long it takes to
spin around.

So just under ONE THIRD of our total power usage goes towards standby
power. Isn't that crazy?

The only thing crazy is your low bill! I would guess most people are at
least 3 times that much. Though I remember a british study that said 10th of
all home power is being used by standby, and it was enough for them to start
banning devices from having a standby mode, effecitvely eliminating 'soft
power' switches. They had some interesting circuits for TV's, because they
want the remote control to actually phsyically switch a relay to turn power
off completely. They used capacitors to store enough energy for the switch
back on, and then there were arguments that that used more power than hours
of

Solution? Turn stuff off at the wall. Will I do it? Probably not.

The best idea I saw was a power board that would switch the outlet off when
the power draw was under a certain amount for a certain amount of time, like
less than 5W for more than 1 hour. Then you had to physically switch the
outlet back on again. Saw them years ago in a british magazine and never saw
of the device again (it was like 150 pounds for a 4 outlet powerboard, which
is probably why...)

 

[David L. Jones]

I just picked up a MS6115 energy meter from Jaycar.

I went around the house and measured these devices - all on standby. You
may be interested in the results.

Microwave with door closed, showing clock on display 0W
IR activated remote control curtains 0W
Toaster with 7 segment standby indicator 0W
Old dish washer with presumably no standby circuitry 0W
New washing machine 12W
New small-ish TV 12W
7 year old large TV 12W
7 year old DVD player 13W
New DSTB 13W
Around 6 year old DSE soldering iron station 7W (poor design, power switch
is on secondary winding)
Desktop PC 10W
New HP Printer 9W
4 year old HP printer 7W
Wireless router 10W
Cable modem 5W
Laptop with battery fully charged 7W
New fridge with LED panel lit up, compressor not running 0W


That's a total of 117W of 24 hour standby power. That equals 2.808 KWh per
day of power. And our average energy bill for the last quarter..... 8.8KW
average per day.......

So just under ONE THIRD of our total power usage goes towards standby
power. Isn't that crazy?

Another interesting observation is that devices such as the fridge, the
toaster and the microwave all use standby power but the MS6115 is not
sensitive enough to register it.

I have a device that turns off my two monitors and speakers when the PC is
switched off. That would add another 20W easily.

Solution? Turn stuff off at the wall. Will I do it? Probably not.

I will however route the TV, DSTB, DVD player through the amplifier's
auxiliary power output. I will now have to turn on the amplifier when I
watch TV, but it will save a lot of standby power.

There are some atrocious and very suspicious figures there!
I would seriously doubt the low level accuracy of the meter. I believe this
exact meter (rebadged I think) was recalled by one supplier for being
inaccurate at low currents.

Dave.

 

[David L. Jones]

I just picked up a MS6115 energy meter from Jaycar.

I went around the house and measured these devices - all on standby. You
may be interested in the results.

Microwave with door closed, showing clock on display 0W
IR activated remote control curtains 0W
Toaster with 7 segment standby indicator 0W
Old dish washer with presumably no standby circuitry 0W
New washing machine 12W
New small-ish TV 12W
7 year old large TV 12W
7 year old DVD player 13W
New DSTB 13W
Around 6 year old DSE soldering iron station 7W (poor design, power switch
is on secondary winding)
Desktop PC 10W
New HP Printer 9W
4 year old HP printer 7W
Wireless router 10W
Cable modem 5W
Laptop with battery fully charged 7W
New fridge with LED panel lit up, compressor not running 0W


That's a total of 117W of 24 hour standby power. That equals 2.808 KWh per
day of power. And our average energy bill for the last quarter..... 8.8KW
average per day.......

So just under ONE THIRD of our total power usage goes towards standby
power. Isn't that crazy?

Another interesting observation is that devices such as the fridge, the
toaster and the microwave all use standby power but the MS6115 is not
sensitive enough to register it.

I have a device that turns off my two monitors and speakers when the PC is
switched off. That would add another 20W easily.

Solution? Turn stuff off at the wall. Will I do it? Probably not.

I will however route the TV, DSTB, DVD player through the amplifier's
auxiliary power output. I will now have to turn on the amplifier when I
watch TV, but it will save a lot of standby power.

There are some atrocious and very suspicious figures there!
I would seriously doubt the low level accuracy of the meter. I believe this
exact meter (rebadged I think) was recalled by one supplier for being
inaccurate at low currents.

Dave.

 

[RMD]

I just picked up a MS6115 energy meter from Jaycar.

I went around the house and measured these devices - all on standby. You
may be interested in the results.

Microwave with door closed, showing clock on display 0W
IR activated remote control curtains 0W
Toaster with 7 segment standby indicator 0W
Old dish washer with presumably no standby circuitry 0W
New washing machine 12W
New small-ish TV 12W
7 year old large TV 12W
7 year old DVD player 13W
New DSTB 13W
Around 6 year old DSE soldering iron station 7W (poor design, power switch
is on secondary winding)
Desktop PC 10W
New HP Printer 9W
4 year old HP printer 7W
Wireless router 10W
Cable modem 5W
Laptop with battery fully charged 7W
New fridge with LED panel lit up, compressor not running 0W


That's a total of 117W of 24 hour standby power. That equals 2.808 KWh per
day of power. And our average energy bill for the last quarter..... 8.8KW
average per day.......

So just under ONE THIRD of our total power usage goes towards standby power.
Isn't that crazy?

Another interesting observation is that devices such as the fridge, the
toaster and the microwave all use standby power but the MS6115 is not
sensitive enough to register it.

I have a device that turns off my two monitors and speakers when the PC is
switched off. That would add another 20W easily.

Solution? Turn stuff off at the wall. Will I do it? Probably not.

I will however route the TV, DSTB, DVD player through the amplifier's
auxiliary power output. I will now have to turn on the amplifier when I
watch TV, but it will save a lot of standby power.

Hi Phil,

I have two of these meters. I spent quite a bit of time mucking about
with them.

They are fine measuring power down to about 15-25 watts but are not
accurate under that. They will definitely show a 7W light bulb as
consuming zero power.

My power consumption is about 19KWHr per day. About half of that
consumption is standy power for me. (I'm a "vampire power" King! )

I cut my Electricity bill by about $70/quarter by shutting down some
of my installations which were constantly consuming standby power,
since my circumstances had changed and it was no longer necessary to
run these things constantly.

Gas pilot lights can consume a lot of gas too.

Ross

 

[Phil Allison]

"JANA"

The instrument you are using is not precise, and I would not consider it
accurate. Watts are very difficult to measure directly because they are
a result of a number of electrical factors from the combination of
current, voltage, and the phase of the load. The simple power meter that
you bought can only measure a pure resistive load, such as a light bulb,
or a heating element that are not thyristor controlled.


Most appliances including your TV, computer, and many home entertainment
systems use switching power supplies. These are complex power supplies
using high frequency inverters. Their load on the AC line cannot be
easily directly measured.

** Err - they can actually.

A typical SMPS is just another electronic load on the AC supply - but
without the complication of a laminated iron transformer. This makes finding
the power consumption easier.

Three facts are used:

1. Electronic loads draw the vast majority of their current ONLY during
the peaks of the AC supply voltage, the voltage at this time is close to
325 volts, on average, during the load current pulses.

2. When the supply voltage is a fixed value, the watts consumed is found by
multiplying the average value of the current drawn by that fixed voltage.
( Same as you would find the power being drawn from a battery.)

3. Standard DMMs will read the average rectified value of an AC current -
scaled up on the display by 1.11 to show the * rms value* of a sine wave.

So, putting this altogether:

All you do is find the AC current reading on a standard (ie non true rms)
DMM and multiply that number by 325 then divide by 1.11. The result should
be the correct power in watts, within 10%.


Remember - this is for loads that do NOT use an iron transformer, where
the magnetising current draw is almost 90 degrees out of phase with the AC
voltage.

Also, any SPMS that features electronic " power factor correction" ( PFC)
draws current that is essentially in phase with the AC voltage and of sine
wave shape. So any DMM ( or moving coil or moving iron meter ) will give
the correct value for the load current and one just multiplies this by 240
to get the power in watts.



...... Phil

 

[Mr.T]

I just picked up a MS6115 energy meter from Jaycar.

I went around the house and measured these devices - all on standby. You
may be interested in the results.

Microwave with door closed, showing clock on display 0W
IR activated remote control curtains 0W
Toaster with 7 segment standby indicator 0W

These figures are obviously wrong, just below the resolution of your cheap
meter.

MrT.

 

[Mr.T]

Not while it costs you more for billing ("service charge") than for the
electricity used on those devices anyway!

And before someone jumps in, generation plant, line costs (or wire size),
transformer size, maintenance costs etc. are nearly ALL related to usage,
NOT non-usage.
Billing is about the only thing totally unrelated, yet costs a fortune IMO.
And it's not just electricity billing that's a total rip off either.
As with Bank charges, they charge whatever they can get away with, if you
have no alternative.

MrT.

 

[Mauried]

These figures are obviously wrong, just below the resolution of your cheap
meter.

MrT.

I made a simple Power Measuring device from a Silicon Chip Kit.
Dick Smith used to sell them , Cat 7217 was the number.
Only cost around $70 and it works really well.
Accuracy is around 1% , (can be improved if you have a srandard load)
and reads from 0.1 watts to 3750 watts.
Its based on a special Analog Devices IC ADE7756AN.
Doesnt get fooled by power factor or switchmode PS.
Think Jaycar sell em too.

 

[David L. Jones]

I made a simple Power Measuring device from a Silicon Chip Kit.
Dick Smith used to sell them , Cat 7217 was the number.
Only cost around $70 and it works really well.
Accuracy is around 1% , (can be improved if you have a srandard load)
and reads from 0.1 watts to 3750 watts.
Its based on a special Analog Devices IC ADE7756AN.
Doesnt get fooled by power factor or switchmode PS.
Think Jaycar sell em too.

I can also vouch for the SC power meter design. Have found no problems so
far, and is fairly accurate down to it's lowest resolution of 0.1W.

I got mine for something like $30 at the DSE kit fire sale :->

Dave.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Merlin Zener"

IIRC, and I might be wrong,

** A most wise disclaimer ...

that meter will read up to 10A, or 2400W.
To expect it to read less than 10W accurately would imply an accuracy
of less than 0.5%,

** The problem here is NOT one of accuracy or resolution.

The problem IS we have almost no idea how the darn thing works.

Assuming it only has a single " Watts " range, with apparent resolution of
+/- 1 count - there is grave doubt about any reading that involves only
the last one or two (decimal) digits.

However:

The OP can easily calibrate his meter - or prove it a dud with simple
tests, as I gave earlier.

If he connects a 56 kohm resistor as a load - it should read 1 watt.

Any value cap should read zero watts.

I betcha it don't.



...... Phil

 

[Mr.T]

IIRC, and I might be wrong, that meter will read up to 10A, or 2400W.
To expect it to read less than 10W accurately would imply an accuracy
of less than 0.5%, while [again, IIRC] it only claims to be accurate to
5%. Seriously, for $40.00 just how accurate do you expect it to be?

But a $10 multimeter will do better than that by simply changing ranges.

MrT.

 

[David L. Jones]

There are some atrocious and very suspicious figures there!
I would seriously doubt the low level accuracy of the meter. I believe
this exact meter (rebadged I think) was recalled by one supplier for
being inaccurate at low currents.

Dave.

IIRC, and I might be wrong, that meter will read up to 10A, or 2400W.
To expect it to read less than 10W accurately would imply an accuracy
of less than 0.5%, while [again, IIRC] it only claims to be accurate to
5%. Seriously, for $40.00 just how accurate do you expect it to be?

I expect it to be nearly as good as more reputable ones like the Kill-A-Watt
available in the US market for under US$20. (quoted 0.2% basic accuracy for
your interest)
This one is *double* that price, so I'd say it's reasonable to expect
similar performance.

Given that a very large percentage of ordinary people want (and expect) to
use these devices for standby and other low power measurements (it's all the
rage these days), then it's a very deceiving device indeed. That is why more
reputable companies like the ATA online shop pulled it from the shelves,
offered a refund, and sent an email and put ads in ReNew mag informing
everyone that it was useless at low currents. From memory the figure quoted
was 20W or so.

It's a heap of crap.

Dave.

 

[Eeyore]

The only thing crazy is your low bill!

You must be an American.

I would guess most people are at
least 3 times that much. Though I remember a british study that said 10th of
all home power is being used by standby, and it was enough for them to start
banning devices from having a standby mode, effecitvely eliminating 'soft
power' switches.

Pure TRIPE. No such ban exists. Get all your info from frothing-at-the-mouth
journos do you ? There are however IEC guidelines for standy operation power
consumption and they're hoping to get it down to ONE watt IIRC in new products.

When I measured my set-top-cable-box I did however notice that it measured 17W
in active OR 'standy mode'. Now that's inexcusable (Samsung btw and supplied by
the cable co so no choice in the matter).

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

You must be an American.


Pure TRIPE. No such ban exists. Get all your info from frothing-at-the-mouth
journos do you ? There are however IEC guidelines for standy operation power
consumption and they're hoping to get it down to ONE watt IIRC in new products.

When I measured my set-top-cable-box I did however notice that it measured 17W
in active OR 'standy mode'. Now that's inexcusable (Samsung btw and supplied by
the cable co so no choice in the matter).

And I nearly forgot to say, no 'hard' power switch either, so unplugging is the
only way to stop the energy waste.

Graham

 

[[email protected]]

And I nearly forgot to say, no 'hard' power switch either, so unplugging is the
only way to stop the energy waste.

Graham

The new TV came without a line switch. Couple of bucks and five
minutes and good-by stand by.

 

[Eeyore]

The new TV came without a line switch. Couple of bucks and five
minutes and good-by stand by.

The MANUFACTURER should fit one. In this day and age such power hogs are INEXCUSABLE.

My 21" Super-res CRT SONY PC monitor only consumes 3W in standby for example. Why
should TVs be worse ?

Graham

 

[[email protected]]

The MANUFACTURER should fit one. In this day and age such power hogs are INEXCUSABLE.

My 21" Super-res CRT SONY PC monitor only consumes 3W in standby for example. Why
should TVs be worse ?

Graham

Because yanks get their energy at such low prices that they are more
worried about appearances than energy saving. After all If they need
more of anything they just go somewhere and take it.

And yes, the MANUFACTURER should fit one. But it won't happen if the
consumer does not make a point of asking for it.

 

[Eeyore]

Because yanks get their energy at such low prices that they are more
worried about appearances than energy saving. After all If they need
more of anything they just go somewhere and take it.

And yes, the MANUFACTURER should fit one. But it won't happen if the
consumer does not make a point of asking for it.

I agree.

I also agree that Americans are to blame for most of what's wrong with the world too.

Graham