Kill-A-Watt at Santa Rosa Costco $25.99
- Thread starter gdm42001
- Start date
coralfarmer
Aquarist
we have one at my work they are great.
Reef Bass
colors and textures
Yes, warmth indicates juice consumption. I'm a bit surprised at 52 watts.
There are appliances like toaster ovens which could be unplugged without any negative impact. However, I've noticed with my Comcast dvr and some other electronics in general, if you turn them off, they loose valuable settings. Much like the old vcr which lost the time when unplugged for more than a few minutes.
My dvr looses all the program information. Yes, it will redownload it all in about 10 to 15 minutes after being turned on, but that's a bit of an inconvenience when wondering "what's on?". My old surround sound processor used to loose all the level settings for the various channels that I had set using a sound pressure meter to calibrate the surround. My current preamp gets pretty warm when on and I bet it's juicing when off too.
I hope to have some time later today (now that I'm not worrying about flatworms) to investigate the usage of electricity by some items.
There are appliances like toaster ovens which could be unplugged without any negative impact. However, I've noticed with my Comcast dvr and some other electronics in general, if you turn them off, they loose valuable settings. Much like the old vcr which lost the time when unplugged for more than a few minutes.
My dvr looses all the program information. Yes, it will redownload it all in about 10 to 15 minutes after being turned on, but that's a bit of an inconvenience when wondering "what's on?". My old surround sound processor used to loose all the level settings for the various channels that I had set using a sound pressure meter to calibrate the surround. My current preamp gets pretty warm when on and I bet it's juicing when off too.
I hope to have some time later today (now that I'm not worrying about flatworms) to investigate the usage of electricity by some items.
Reef Bass
colors and textures
Not only did I gain some insightful information, but I had way too much fun checking electrical consumption with the Kill-A-Watt.
As I suspected most plugged in devices that convert AC to DC consume 2-8w just being plugged in. By thoughtfully rearranging the plugs behind my audio video equipment from unswitched to switched outlets, I was able to cut my 24/7/365 consumption there from 73w to 46w (excluding monitor). 30w of that is my Comcast Motorola DCT3416 dvr which I'm not going to put on a switched outlet because of its subsequent inability for it to record when unplugged as well as loss of program information. My Comcast box also consumes 30w whether on or off. That leaves me with 16w lost, which I can live with as it includes power conditioning.
Other figures I wanted are for reef use.
All pumps, skimmer, aqualifter - 130w
T5s - 117w when on
heaters - 356w when all on
fan - 11w when on
MHs - 848w when on
minimum 24/7/365 draw - 130w
everything going at once besides lighting - 497w
MHs + T5s - 965w
maximum draw - 1462w
12 hours a day my tank is running in 130w mode plus up to 356w additional for heating when necessary. Not so bad. The other 12 are the expensive hours. Add 117w for the T5s and for 10 of those 12, add 848w for MHs. However, the heaters tend to not be on when the MHs are, so the total draw then is more like 1106w (965+141). Good to know.
As I suspected most plugged in devices that convert AC to DC consume 2-8w just being plugged in. By thoughtfully rearranging the plugs behind my audio video equipment from unswitched to switched outlets, I was able to cut my 24/7/365 consumption there from 73w to 46w (excluding monitor). 30w of that is my Comcast Motorola DCT3416 dvr which I'm not going to put on a switched outlet because of its subsequent inability for it to record when unplugged as well as loss of program information. My Comcast box also consumes 30w whether on or off. That leaves me with 16w lost, which I can live with as it includes power conditioning.
Other figures I wanted are for reef use.
All pumps, skimmer, aqualifter - 130w
T5s - 117w when on
heaters - 356w when all on
fan - 11w when on
MHs - 848w when on
minimum 24/7/365 draw - 130w
everything going at once besides lighting - 497w
MHs + T5s - 965w
maximum draw - 1462w
12 hours a day my tank is running in 130w mode plus up to 356w additional for heating when necessary. Not so bad. The other 12 are the expensive hours. Add 117w for the T5s and for 10 of those 12, add 848w for MHs. However, the heaters tend to not be on when the MHs are, so the total draw then is more like 1106w (965+141). Good to know.
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