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59 Comments
- Davers, on 01/20/2009, -0/+24I wish I could buy a ready-made kit like this that would just clamp on like in the article. Would make electric usage much more controllable.
- RainbowRunner, on 01/20/2009, -0/+11Check out this device. I have been using it for about 2 years and it works well. I programmed in my local electricity rates and it tells me real time how much energy I am using. It displays in cents per hour. If I turn off the lights in the kitchen I can watch it drop by 2 cents per hour. It paid for itself in the first three months. About $150.
http://www.theenergydetective.com/index.html - divinediva, on 01/20/2009, -0/+8A pretty good idea of power usage of every appliance.
- cuoops, on 01/20/2009, -0/+7Don't be fooling around your breaker panel unless you know what you're doing. You can easily get killed. If you don't unscrew the one in the example correctly, it can easily fall or slide inside the panel resulting in about 100 amps going through your body.
- sailadayaway, on 01/20/2009, -0/+6Jackpot:
http://www.powermeterstore.com/c550/power_use_moni ... - lovemorgul, on 01/20/2009, -0/+6the software would monitor your actual electricity usage in each room.
- tablatronix, on 01/20/2009, -0/+6Heres some I have bookmarked.
http://www.energymonitor.com/
http://www.theenergydetective.com/ted-footprints-m ... - davecachia, on 01/20/2009, -1/+6Pretty cool - but i'm pretty sure we shouldn't be encouraging people to DIY with this one..
There are some people out there that could do some serious damage to themselves, or worse, their electronics. - inactive, on 01/20/2009, -0/+5and the only way to do that is if your house is completely set up for that when you wire it.
That was part of his point, he wanted to get a monitoring system without having to do anything to the wiring of his house or break into anything.
But if you wanted to go and do this for each room, or per outlet, you could. But if you really are that worried on an outlet but outlet basis - just checked whats plugged in. Read the tags on the back, it will tell you the rate, write in a peice of masking tape, and tape it to the end of the plug. That way at each outlet you can already see what sort of power is plugged in.
lowering electricty usage is real easy stuff because if you want less, just turn ***** off. - RicardoWilliams, on 01/20/2009, -1/+5yeah!
- kyoorius, on 01/20/2009, -0/+4Did something similar with my gas furnace and a Lacrosse weatherstation.
http://www.omnistep.com/furnacemonitor/
The script pulls the data in realtime, so it might be a little slow to load. - FirstDigg, on 01/20/2009, -0/+4I'd buy it too if it didn't cost that much. Anyone wanna make them and sell them? :)
- maino82, on 01/20/2009, -0/+4for those interested, square d makes a branch circuit monitor that fits into your panelboard and allows you to monitor every circuit individually: http://www.powerlogic.com/product.cfm/c_id/1/sc_id ...
you can also have controlled circuit breakers that can be remotely controlled or be set up to be automatically controlled upon activation of a relay. in our office we are implementing this in such a way that certain breakers are turned off when the security system is set (general purpose lighting, some receptacles that don't have computer loads, etc) so that when no one is in the office we aren't sucking up energy in things that people aren't using. - pier2, on 01/20/2009, -0/+3Excellent work on this low cost device. There is a guy in MD who has been building and selling a really neat energy monitor that does temperatue and other inputs. Check out his Web Energy Logger - http://www.welserver.com/
- jonr, on 01/20/2009, -0/+3Yes please.
- mikelfellin, on 01/20/2009, -0/+3yeah they've been around for a while now. Its called a kill-a-watt. I have one I use to monitor all kinds of things. But I would also like a way to view total household consumption. The kill-a-watt is only suited for 120 volts.
- LJSeinfeld, on 01/20/2009, -0/+2well... I suppose you could, assuming everything in the room you wanted to monitor was on one circuit - which it shouldn't be.
The pictures in TFA show him hooking it onto the mains from the meter. - OutpostNetwork, on 01/20/2009, -0/+2Excellent article. Working with anything electrical can be scary. This looks like something I can do without killing myself.
- mstachiw, on 01/20/2009, -1/+3More Like a HSEDIFY Have Someone Else Do It For You
- KittySpark1es, on 01/20/2009, -0/+2That's so cheap! Except now I have to come up with the money to get an electrical engineering degree. :-(
- inactive, on 01/20/2009, -0/+2Very cool. Power is going to get way more expensive and monitoring its use will be the norm.
- sailadayaway, on 01/20/2009, -0/+2I'd make them if I could figure out half of what he was saying... I'd love to figure out how I'm using nearly 1500 kWh in a small 2 bedroom apartment...
- du1834, on 01/20/2009, -0/+2And the next nominee for this year's Darwin Award goes to....
- Euph0rik, on 01/20/2009, -0/+2And don't forget about the goddamn phase conjugate tracking system!
- spaceyraygun, on 01/20/2009, -1/+3because there isn't a little tag on every appliance that tells you how long you've used each appliance. or how long one has been in standby or some other way appliances drain electricity without you knowing about it.
- rif42, on 01/21/2009, -0/+1That is certainly an advanced setup: Incoming telephone calls and when fridge door was opened, weight of each family member etc. Making all his house info public on the Internet, I do not understand. I am sure he also has some advanced burglar alarm, but providing all this info in public also gives info to possible burglars.
- martoq, on 01/21/2009, -0/+1If you will notice he is connecting the clamps to the incoming street circuit. Shutting off the main breaker won't do dick unless your power company has an outside shutoff...which most don't.
- dazparkour, on 01/20/2009, -0/+1Doh.
- haikuFU, on 01/22/2009, -0/+1It's a USB port, says right on their site.
- stix213, on 01/21/2009, -0/+1And here I already thought that looking at how fast that little wheel spins outside worked just fine. Looks like there is stuff I need to buy to monitor my power usage on the "cheap"
buried - Rustman, on 01/21/2009, -0/+1This guy has been monitoring everything in his house for a while. You can see it all on here >> http://bwired.nl/
- Bloodwine, on 01/20/2009, -1/+2Nice, but I'd really like some sort of way to monitor electrical usage on a per-outlet basis. Allow me to find the big energy eaters in my house.
I know you can buy devices that plug electronics into and monitor it's individual usage, but I'd like to be able to monitor everything without having to buy a plethora of monitoring devices. - inactive, on 01/20/2009, -0/+1This still can be scary if you're not an electrician. You have to be very careful when you're inside the breaker box.
- DearInternets, on 01/20/2009, -0/+1"Or worse, their electronics"
You got that backwards right? - inactive, on 02/05/2009, -0/+1When Obama arbitrarily makes energy twice as expensive, we're going to need this.
- moppsy, on 01/20/2009, -0/+1Just pull out your meter.
Then you can grab anything in the breaker box you want.
Just be sure to turn everything off and trip the main breaker before you pull it. - TiMMY8765, on 01/20/2009, -1/+2well you should switch off your power from outside before doing any of this
- haikuFU, on 01/21/2009, -0/+1Did you buy their software?
Can you pull data from the USB port without their software easily? It looks like you need some sort of license to even activate the USB port. Did you activate yours? How did they have you do it?
This thing looks neat, but they seem to want you to use their crappy software, and I want the raw data to make my own. I don't want some desktop software running 24/7. A daemon is fine that dumps the data somewhere. But some bloated GUI app is not. - haikuFU, on 01/21/2009, -0/+1It's $2350 list price.
- stonebear, on 01/21/2009, -0/+1Seems a bit redundant to me; why not just step outside and read the power company's meter. Does one really need a minute by minute, or even an hour-by-hour update over a network? The guy that recently installed a temporary meter on my house said the new one with variable metering will update a website I can go and track my power usage in detail.
- tightscrummy, on 01/20/2009, -1/+2That's only true if you run your house on DC or only power purely resistive loads with AC. Otherwise you need to account for the phase angle.
- iomonkey, on 01/20/2009, -0/+0Kill-A-Watts (as in the power monitoring device) not kilo-watts
- inactive, on 01/20/2009, -2/+2Even easier... Set up a video camera and connect it to a monitor.
- wertach, on 01/20/2009, -1/+1tightscrummy , Drank any koolaid ? Phase angle has nothing to do with power usage. Watts is Watts, the power meter on a house doesn't consider phase angle. It would only come in to consideration on an industrial situation, and then only if they are charged on a "peak scale".
- ogarza, on 01/20/2009, -0/+0Besides, this monitor assumes the power factor is 75%.. wth?
Everyone knows that the appliances that are the big consumers do not fall in the average power factor.
You will either have a PF close to 1.00 for resistive loads like heaters, toasters, ovens, stoves. But for an inductive load like motors and pumps it will be closer to 0.60.
This is a nice way to know when something is using power, but you can't tell how much, since the spikes in the graph are the ones with the extreme PF conditions and will either be much or too little, the averaged loads are the constant ones in the background which you will not notice at all.
If someone want's to take on this project himself, I suggest sampling the current and voltage and their displacement. A simple enough mod to the article's project.
However the method in the article is more of a novelty and conversation piece than an actual power meter. - mati2, on 03/13/2009, -0/+0ok left with no words ..::buried::..
- Munk3y, on 01/22/2009, -0/+0We Energies employees are digging me down, HELP!!!
- RainbowRunner, on 01/21/2009, -0/+0It's not connected to my PC at all. It's just a small console on my kitchen counter. You must be looking at a different model. I don't know anything about a USB port. There is a plug but I don't think it is a USB. I'm sure you can find out on their web site
- cesargarzah, on 01/20/2009, -0/+0now you can track your energy usage!! it's time to do something about, like save some energy or test appliances...good job!!
- inactive, on 01/21/2009, -1/+1The 1980s called. They want their terrible joke back.
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