Kill A Watt toy

madmax

I just got one of these Kill A Watts and its awesome!
http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4460-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B000RGF29Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1280703093&sr=8-2

You plug it inline between the wall outlet and your device and it gives you the total cost of using the device as well as KWH, watts, amps, voltage, frequency, VA hours, time on etc. Pretty much you connect it, hit reset, run your device and once completed stores the results until you reset it.

Just got it but so far I know:
*Making a steak in my infrared oven takes 25 minutes and costs me 5 cents.
*Making a family sized frozen lasagna in the microwave takes 18 minutes and costs 5 cents.
*Running the dishwasher on light wash with no heat dry costs 4 cents.
*Now this is an UNBELIEVABLE one, a load of clothes washed on light wash, slow spin dry in my front loader costs an unusually low 0.4 cents per wash! I should have bought one of these years ago!
*Running my little fan for 8 hours overnight costs 5 cents.
*Here is a real LOOSER! The microwave wastes 14 watts continuously when off! It is over the range and has lights. With the lights on high it uses 22 watts. When it is on low it uses 22 WATTS! Not much good design there... OK so it is only $15 wasted but I could use a new CD. Think of it this way, I can wash my clothes for a year for $21 but this silly thing does nothing and costs $15 to keep it plugged in??
*The stereo system and plasma, all powered down with nothing turned on is 40 watts! All wasted. $45 a year for that! Easy enough, I'll start flipping the switch on the power conditioner. It uses about 3.5 watts in standby, I guess for the remote.

I'm not a miser or anything, just like to know where I'm putting the $$.
This is a really cool little toy to play with.

VR3

Id spend well over 100-200 bucks a year to keep my audio gear on 24/7 -- reason being is my amps take days to charge and my tube preamp sounds best when warmed up...

Worth it

madmax

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote: »

Id spend well over 100-200 bucks a year to keep my audio gear on 24/7 -- reason being is my amps take days to charge and my tube preamp sounds best when warmed up...

Worth it

That may not be so bad. Mine turned out to be $630 per year if on 24/7 but not playing although I do have some tubes which may not be as efficient as your system. The $45 was only plugged in, not turned on.

mhardy6647

Kill-a-watt is no toy, it's a tremendously handy gizmo.
Mine gets used in the "shop" when I am working on vintage vacuum tube amplifiers, as I can easily measure current draw directly when I bring one up on the Variac. I can also check the line voltage and frequency... besides all that other stuff the OP mentioned :-)

Everyone should have one.

Polkitup2

I bought one of those a few months back and measured everything in the house. It costs me 6 cents to watch a 2 hour movie on my entertainment system.

geebolt

I originally got one to see if PC had an adequate power supply by measuring its power consumption. The highest readings came during boot up and peaked at about 50% of my power supply's rated wattage. I've sinced used it for all kinds of other things around house. Very cool gadget.

George

joeparaski

I dare not use one on my system....some things are better left "unknown".

Joe

mmadden28

I'm assuming you all programmed it to your utility rate right? I'm not sure what the default rate it set to but if I recall it was lower than my actual rate.

I use the K-a-W-EZ all the time. I determined that my Christmas tree uses 400 watts!! To think I never gace a second thought to leaving the tree on all night long, but would never think of leaving 6 or 7 lamps on all night.

One on my favorite features is that it will calculate your usage over time based on the actually usage rate. Basically that means that it will take into account when you use the appliance and when you don't so lets say you watch TV 2-3 hours a day but its off the rest of the time (or in standby), it will properly calculate you usage based on that duty cycle over a day, week, month and a year.

Same goes for a refigerator--the compressor doesn't run all the time, so leave it hooked up for a day and you'll get a pretty accurate cost estimate.

mmadden28

geebolt wrote: »

I originally got one to see if PC had an adequate power supply by measuring its power consumption. The highest readings came during boot up and peaked at about 50% of my power supply's rated wattage. I've sinced used it for all kinds of other things around house. Very cool gadget.

George

lol, that is the exact reason I originally got one--when I was building my PC. I bought an 800W PS and wanted to see how close I was to hitting that limit. Well let's just say I had room to grow. :rolleyes:

Jstas

Man. Nerd.

I don't even want to know how much juice the MIG welder, stick welder, plasma cutter and other shop equipment I use costs. The audio equipment, microwave, fan and so on are the least of my worries.

The fridge, that's critical. That's how the beer stays cold!

madmax

Something on 24/7 can be massive compared to something you use intermittantly. After 12 hours I'm at $72 a year for the fridge. I'm sure it will go up a little as I fix dinner, it makes ice etc. I'll leave it on there for a few days at least. Very cool device! Oh the ways we amuse ourselves.

mmadden28

Jstas wrote: »

Man. Nerd.

I don't even want to know how much juice the MIG welder, stick welder, plasma cutter and other shop equipment I use costs. The audio equipment, microwave, fan and so on are the least of my worries.

The fridge, that's critical. That's how the beer stays cold!

Those welding tools...Do they run off a 15A 120V circuit? The K-a-W EZ is only for 120V-15A. Of course if you wanted to figure out the welding tools, you could just measure the current flow at the circuit panel and then calculate the KWh usage and thus the cost--
That's one of the things I wanted to do on my Dryer, Oven, and Range. Since they're both 220 (and/or hardwired), I can't use the EZ. I want to know how much it costs me to make Mac and Cheese or boil eggs, or for that matter how much to roast a turkey.

mmadden28

madmax wrote: »

Something on 24/7 can be massive compared to something you use intermittantly. After 12 hours I'm at $72 a year for the fridge. I'm sure it will go up a little as I fix dinner, it makes ice etc. I'll leave it on there for a few days at least. Very cool device! Oh the ways we amuse ourselves.

You may already know this but be sure to reset the EZ before measuring another device or it will take the old measurements (and thus duty cycles) into account for the projected costs.

nadams

I wish they have a 220v version. But I guess once you step up to measuring electric dryers and HVAC units, you'd best have a clamp meter, anyway.

danger boy

my old fridge is the electricity hog in my house.. it was the only thing running the other day when I turned off the AC unit.. and that dial was spinning pretty good..

I know a new fridge would save me some money, but i can't afford a new one till this one dies..

I would like to know though how much my home theater is costing every time I watch a movie though..that would be cool.

madmax

danger boy wrote: »

I would like to know though how much my home theater is costing every time I watch a movie though..that would be cool.

I watched 1 hour with the system at low volume for 7 cents.

I did know about the reset. I wish this thing had a USB port where I could hook up a PC and graph the results, that would be awesome!

I still can't get over .4 cents for a laundry load. Makes me feel like rolling around in the mud so I can wash more stuff.

Jstas

mmadden28 wrote: »

Those welding tools...Do they run off a 15A 120V circuit? The K-a-W EZ is only for 120V-15A. Of course if you wanted to figure out the welding tools, you could just measure the current flow at the circuit panel and then calculate the KWh usage and thus the cost--
That's one of the things I wanted to do on my Dryer, Oven, and Range. Since they're both 220 (and/or hardwired), I can't use the EZ. I want to know how much it costs me to make Mac and Cheese or boil eggs, or for that matter how much to roast a turkey.

The MIG welder is switchable and so can the plasma cutter can run on 120V. The plasma cutter is wired for a 240V plug only though. The MIG welder is wired for a 240V plug as well.

I don't want to know how much it costs me. If I knew that, I wouldn't want to turn on anything and probably sit in a Burger King or something to mooch the free intarwebs.

RuSsMaN

That all seems so cheap on your useage - I figured firing up the oven would be a LOT more. Interesting on the gear idling, maybe I'll start hitting the power strips too, instead of having things in standby mode.

madmax

The oven I spoke of is a black and decker infrared oven, about 1.5 cu ft. It is touted as being quite efficient. A real oven would most likely cost quite a bit more.
madmax

mmadden28

RuSsMaN wrote: »

That all seems so cheap on your useage - I figured firing up the oven would be a LOT more. Interesting on the gear idling, maybe I'll start hitting the power strips too, instead of having things in standby mode.

The only thing that has always concerned me about 'full off' on everything is any settings that might get lost. For example, how long would an Onkyo 805 'remember' all it's 'configuration' settings without any external power? I know it survives power failures-for a couple days at least.

My DLP rear projection however takes way too long to come up when in completely 'off' mode.

Otherwise, I think for the most part my, HT components in 'stand-by' draw relatively few watts to be of any great concern. I am however interested in all of my other appliances 'stand-by modes.

mmadden28

madmax wrote: »

... I wish this thing had a USB port where I could hook up a PC and graph the results, that would be awesome!
...D

I just ordered one of the Black And Decker power monitors. It doesn't have a computer hookup, but it does the same thing as the EZ, but for the whole house usage. Taikes its measurements at the meter. At least this way I'll be able to see how my Pool filter, Range use, Air Conditioner, etc all play into the rate and live.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ELJKLE
At $65 its the cheapest its been yet (normally about $100).
Note it doesn't work with all Service entrance meters.

Google has a promising app, but it requires either Power company participation and/or a third party device ($200 and up). I'm going to try the $65 B&D device first-I'll consider later if I want to try the Google app/device out lter, but it really looks cool.
http://www.google.com/powermeter/about/

disneyjoe7

Some of you's have a carp HT system.... I sure a 2hr movie would cost me $.50

mmadden28

mmadden28 wrote: »

I just ordered one of the Black And Decker power monitors. It doesn't have a computer hookup, but it does the same thing as the EZ, but for the whole house usage....[/I]

...

Looks like there is a way to capture the data from the B&D unit now with an addon (~$150) and linking it to Microsoft Hohm. Hmmm, I'll have to look into that a bit more.

Jstas

disneyjoe7 wrote: »

Some of you's have a carp HT system.... I sure a 2hr movie would cost me $.50

There are no fish of any kind any where near my home theater.