0003 Power Meter Review Teardown
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- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2024
- Pete takes a look at a cheap ebay power meter. Is it any use, is it worth the money?
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*** Newer Video Available ruclips.net/video/xFIzl5jVFOA/видео.htmlsi=TUg6d0YlSy8UWMNA this covers low and high loads and 2 other meters too!
Thank you for this video you've saved me some money. I've identified 38 devices on standby in my house, from TVs and smart speakers to USB ports built into sofas and I wanted to assess how much these were costing me. This meter appears everywhere on the internet, under various different guises, which made me suspicious. I can see now this device won't do the job for me and I must look elsewhere.
I will be trying 2 other devices soon
@@MakeOrRepair Now there's a good reason to subscribe 🙂
You worried about the size of the neutral being smaller than the live's, it could have been even smaller, the neutral 'power' goes straight through, the wire is just a tap to feed the circuit, @500mW that's going to be about 2mA
Couldn't read the meter properly, but i think you said power factor was perfect when the display was showing 000, perfect power factor is 1 (unity), but in reality the best you would get might be 0.98 or 0.99
Two good points - completely agree. I'm putting this down to the way I make the videos - The ethos of the channel is that I do things, talk while I do it and just record edit and let it go. For some stange reason I think I'm going to pick up anything stupid that I say during editing - sometime I do, sometimes I miss it. Perhaps I need to script and prepare these type of videos a little more!
@@MakeOrRepair My channel is the same, the most i do is make notes so i don't forget something important.
Thank you for your efforts on this, it would have been nice to see it's cut off, what wattage will it go down too before it goes to 0
Good point, i'll try and do a follow-on and figure it out and also how accurate are the low readings. everything is taking a long time to get to at the moment.
I feel you may have missed one or two "tricks" of this device. The admittedly poor "manual" that came with my own meter states that it does NOT read below 1W - probably that's below its resolution. The "clock" at the top of the display is NOT a clock - it is the On-runtime. It only counts minutes and hours that any load is drawing over 1W. So you can plug it into, say a freezer and come back 24 hours later. If the display shows 12:00, you know the compressor has been running 12 hours out of 24, so a 50% duty cycle. This, in turn, allows you to understand true energy consumption, rather than instantaneous power. Also, if the duty cycle is very high, you know the freezer may be struggling to keep up with the job. You can also enter the price per kWh (goin up as I speak!) and so get a REAL COST of running an appliance. Right now, I'd suggest that is the MAJOR PURPOSE of this device - to make people away of how much that old fridge in the garage is really burning through. The rather clunky reset button rests EVERYTHING - including the kWh cost, which is a bit dumb. Design - OK for the money (I'd say impressive for a tenner), but the isolation slot under the current sensing resistor is an utter waste of time!
Yes, you can work out the duty cycle if you can remember when you turned it on, then you can do the math to turn that into kWh consumed per month, year etc, but it would be so much easier if it kept track of the elapsed time instead of powered time. Comments from others indicate that people have a whole range of expectations for the device.
Hi, could you tell me how to set the cost please? I can't figure it out 🙄 thanks 😊
@@Tekoa80 I have it plugged in at the moment so I can't check. To my recollection you press and hold the cost button and after a couple of seconds it shows 4 digits. You then press function button and it makes one of the digits flash. You can then use up/down to change that digit. Then press function button again and do the next digit. When you have the right amount showing press the cost button again.
Hth
Ah, I've got it! Thank you 😊
@@Tekoa80 my manual for this device shows it will not read power below 2 watts, purchased 12/22.
Wish I had seen this before I went and bought one! Got it mainly for low draw readings and yeah, it keeps coming up at zero - even on a usb rechargeable torch that was completely flat while being charged and powering the light on at the same time. I wonder how much power it requires before it starts to give a reading? Very informative video. Cheers.
Thanks, I'm not sure if there are many low cost alternatives but i would like to compare a few makes to see if any are better.
they do not compare you get for what you pay. the big machine is for science people. the small one to give to normal human some info of each appliance consummes watts
Yes, I agree but I needed something to find out if they were hopeless, happily they do very well. But I think it is a good idea to highlight the limitations.
HI sir, just want to ask for the value of resistor on video at 22:19 timestamp? is it 120 ohms 1/2 watt? I have the same unit with you and unfortunately the resistor from my unit got burned. I will highly appreciate your reply. thank you
Looks like 33 ohms, proabably 1W to me but video colours can be deceptive, I'll check in the morning.
@@MakeOrRepair thanks for the reply. I already replace it with 120 ohm 1/2 watt and now it is working. God Bless
@@phiilvy I don't think it is critical, just part of the basic supply for low voltage side. I did check and it is 33 ohms, looking at physical size 10.6 longx3.6 body I suspect it is 1W. If I were replacing it I would proably use a welwyn MFP2 (my go-to small package 2W resistor that is flame proof.) but as I said I don't see it as critical - I would proably just check it does not get too hot since it is likely to get used unsupervised at some point!
mine also got burned (resistor), the 3rd band is the burned part which i cannot distinguished if its a 10 or 100ohms resistor.. i might try with what you installed (close with what you installed), 100ohms, 1/2w.. i'm quite new to this, does i matter if its 1w or 1/2w? thanks
Mine just got burned plugging it to a modified sign wave inverter, luckily I read this comment .It's repaired now😅.
I noticed it has NiMh batteries. This could add to the idle consumption you noticed on plugging it in.
I replaced with a 33ohm. 1/2 watt.
Thanks for the video.
Great vid, subscribed!
Thanks
Thanks for the video.
When you enter the cost of KWH into the meter, should it be entered as (in my case) 64.22 or 00.64?
If the former, is the reading showing the cost in pence?
I would have said 00.64 just because I suspect it won't count very high if you use 64.22 Although I realise this means your amount would be a tiny bit off, but then there is a tollerance on the reading anyway so near enough!
@@MakeOrRepair Thank you, appreciate that.
Nice video.. If you have any Z wave or WiFi smart sockets about any chnace of a review of their wattage comsumption. As you say difficult for cheap kit to measure low standby wattage and you do have some very nice Xitron kit. Thanks for the great review
I don't have any at the moment although I do have some remote light switches and sockets, I think a survey of some of the smart and remote devices would be good, thinking not just about direct running cost, but indirect and environmental costs. but I'll have to get hold of a wider selection and think about how to explain the different ways we measure power.
I use the device to measure the annual current consumption of my inverter air conditioner. It is constantly on and has different consumption on different days, weeks and months. This annual consumption cannot be measured with a single measurement and calculations for the whole season or year. So now I know that I use about 800 kilowatts per year for heating and cooling.
After two years of use the battery stopped working and I replaced it with a new one that only worked for a day or two. Probably what is supposed to charge the battery is not working. My knowledge extends to soldering a new battery. If anyone knows which element responsible for charging may have failed, please share!
yes, i can see that the way it accumulates kWh would help in that situation- as long as you remember when you plugged it in! I was measuring the monthly winter consumption of the heating in the lab but forgot to write down what date/time i started the measurement
@@MakeOrRepair You have this information on the first line of the screen (days, hours and minutes), you don't need to write it down.
@@hristostamov167 on my screen it is time power has been consumed, not time plugged in, so after a full day it only show a few hours since my heating turns off when temperature reached. So if I want consumption per week, I have to keep track.
I bought it to measure the difference in power of my UPS that is drawing in standby mode and the power when my computer is turned on/off
Interesting, I have not measured my UPS standby. Did it manage to do anything useful at measuring the standby? I have measured quite few things, manily freezers, Fridges and room heaters trying to improve running costs, but the inability to measure small amounts was really the main weakness for me.
@@MakeOrRepair At UPS standby, it should consume less than 10 watts for intermittence charging.
It could be used to measure power consumption of the battery overnight during standby for a period of 8 hours or maybe more. It might also be useful to tell if the battery needs replacement or not, if it draws a lot of power over a period of time.
@@lohti6399 I see it could be used to measure charging the battery overnight when it should not normally be taking any charge and therefiore indicating degrading batteries and it would be lower cost than getting UPS monitoring software. It does seem a bit faffy to me, trying to only log the periods of standby but perhaps that is because my UPS plug socket is under the desk and I would never remember to do it! I must admit I simply allow my UPS to run the battery self-test every 2-weeks.
Hi great video. I wonder if you can tell me the value of the 1watt resistor next to the neutral blue wire. These units do not like modified or square wave inverters which causes this resister to burn out. Hard to tell from video. Thanks.
I checked for thenoobguy008. I have not looked again but I suspect it is just in-rush protection for the low voltage side so not that critical. Mine was a 33 ohm, I suspect it would need to be more than 1W, just check that it does not get too hot when running you desired loads. I know thenoobguy008 said he replaced with 120 ohm 1/2 watt which would reduce the inrush quite a lot - I would still put in something like a 2W though.
@@MakeOrRepair Thank you ever so much for the info. Much appreciated. Kind regards.
i dont understand your video is 30+ min and you only test a 20 w appliance why you did not test a bigger load like electricfan or maybe home appliance or small power tool so that we will able to see the plus and minus of discripancy of the two tester. Why?
Well it is a good point it was not really planned that way, in fact i have a vaguememory of testing a heater, i must have edited it outfor some reason.. Part if it is that it is relatively easy to sense the big loads whereas measurement accuracy error shows up more at the more difficult to measure smaller values, so there is nothing much to find out unless it catches fire! Given the internal device used and the result at lower power I couldn't see much value in discovering if my particular meter measured 3 or 4% out at higher amounts each one will vary a bit.
I've got 3 low cost meters now all of them different and will be doing a video where I compare them. I will try and remember to include larger loads.
the timer is unreliable by a long way : Always write down start time / end time .
Not experienced the timer problem, but I would certainly echo to always write down start and end times because that tells you how much it consumes per day/week or whatever wheras the timer only times when the appliance is drawing reasonable current.
Horses for courses. I have two of these low price meters. It's a mains-driven home appliance meter. I have no data for standby on very small low drain devices, but it is really to help identify power guzzlers that would hike up a domestic power bill, not to function in a lab environment.
I find the oft repeated remark, "Nothing special" unhelpful - as a judgment, it's entirely unquantifiable. Who knows what ranks as "special" in Pete's mind?
Sadly, the instructions for these meters are a shocking let down, written in the usual Chinese-English gobbledygook. This is inexcusable... the Chinese have had many decades to get their instructions translated into clear, unambiguous English (or an other e.g. European language). Given the safety issues around mains electrics, why does the UK government allow these ambiguous instructions? And why does Amazon (where I got mine) do so likewise?
I choose to enjoy the device for what it is. I am aware of what it isn't. After all, each meter costs about as much as a pack of 20 cigarettes (UK) ...or... a little over a gallon of unleaded petrol (£8.59@189p/litre).
If the higher power is what you are interested in measuring then I'm sure it is completely adequate but many viewers are interested in if it is useful as a more general meter. I hadn't realised i used the "nothing special" phrase often, I'll try to be clearer. It would be fairly neutral statement in that the design, quality etc is just basic but adequate e.g they copied the datasheet but did not add better protection for example. One of the reasons I looked at lower power is that most higher power devices can either be checked on the label, or there is not much choice if you use them, just try and buy efficient devices next time. SIgnificant amount of many bills is made up from low power and standby devices, in this case it is a shame because the integrated circuit used could resolve both low and high powers but they cut corners.