Power Savings Devices

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professor_jonny
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Power Savings Devices

Post by professor_jonny »

Some time ago I designed a device to save on our power bills it is fully legal I will explain it below.

i actually copied it off a comercial product believe it or not and made my own.

Old analogue ferarris type analogue meters are unable to capture sharp current draw like modern electronic meters.
noting this "benifit of large sharp current draw I made a device to connect to my hot water cyclinder that switched on an igbt (transistor) with a very short rise time that charged a cap bank with a series inductor to limit inrush current.
What this did was fire the igbt to charge the caps really fast then turn of the power to the mains for a short time and dump it to the element then turn back on again charge up the caps real quick then start over again, I designed the device to have the least amount of switching losses and was aprox 95% efficient in its design.

for it to work i have a 1 farad 450 volt cap bank made from a hole lot 1000uf motor capacitors in an old wooden drawer and sat in in the hot water cubbard, it saved me aprox 10% of my hot water heating costs per year but I lost 5% in ist efficency which it actually only saved me 5% of of the heating costs or aprox $75 a year which is about only about 2.5% of my power bill but it was cool.
works out to be 1/4 of a months power per year.

it was all pillaged from second hand parts from work and cost me nothng but to build it it would cost $5000 NZD if all the parts were new and would of taken 66 year to pay for its self :-)

But now they are fitting smart meters into our house and it now will be made redundant :-(

does any one have any cool power savings devices ?

I pulled it out over the weekend and are thinking about repurposing it to make something but the only thing that comes to mind is a rail gun but that could be a little bit dangerious does any one have any ideas ?
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xman
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Re: power savings devices

Post by xman »

Sweet, a big thumb for starting this thread P.J., I feel I may benefit from it somehow. :D . I always thought a cool way to save on the power bills would be to use the Off Peak times to charge up a bank of batteries using a mains battery charger of high capacity. I recently saw a 60amp battery charger that would be ideal. Yes I know solar is an option but I find it ridiculously priced for panels but this way does exactly the same without the cost of the panels. Yes, I'm still buying electricity to run the charger but in Off Peak it is 1/3 the price. Other than the lack of solar panels, the rest of the system is exactly that as using in a off grid solar system.
Down the farm running solely on solar panels to charge up a battery bank is sufficient for night use providing the sun is out the following day which it isn't always. I have 4 X 100watt panels at present with another 4 to go up but at best running on 4 panels as it is now, the best I have seen coming off the panels on the best day's conditions is only 24 amps. This drops to a mere 3-5 amps in winter. To supplement the panels I'm looking at getting a car petrol motor to spin a 90amp car alternator. I figure the cost of gasoline this motor would use would be offset by the saving on buying more solar panels and this motor can make power day or night, rain or sun, when I want it and need it. I also figure while this gasoline motor is running, I may as well use the heat generated in the cooling system's water and power an electric radiator fan to blow air through the radiator and inside the house for heating in winter. I gotta mount the engine's radiator somewhere, may as well be in some ducting to throw the heat into the house in winter and outside the house in summer.
I recently saw an episode of "Mountain Men" where one of the guys made a "smoker" that was basically a 12 gallon drum with a smaller drum inside it. The larger drum had a fire made inside it and the smaller sealed drum, (excluding a 3" pipe running from it), had timber placed inside it. The fire heated up the wood that would "smoke" and this smoke was connected to the carburetor of his 4 X 4 truck via the pipe. The truck's engine now runs without using gasoline. This setup would be idea for me because wood is something I will never need to buy again while I own the farm.
It is this episode of Mountain Men that features the wood burning truck....
http://www.history.ca/mountain-men/vide ... l-episodes
Mountain Men
Season 3 ⋅ Episode 7
Rite of Passage

As a off topic question for you P.J., I have to power some post lamps approximately 50 meters away from the farm house. I'm asking your opinion on whether I should-
1- Run figure 8 cable using the 12vDC from the battery bank to power 12volt bulbs, probably LED bulbs, in each of the post lamps.
2- Run figure 8 cable and use a buck inverter in the house to "step up' the voltage to 24vDC to allow for voltage drop over the 50 meter run and then step the DC voltage back down using "step down" buck inverter to the required 12vDc for the light bulbs.
3- Run smaller figure 8 cable and use one of the many 12vDC to 220vAC 75watt inverters I already have and change the 12v bulbs to 85-240vAC CFL bulbs.
The figure 8 cable will be run through conduit under ground and I intend on having about 5 light posts with one or two bulbs in each. I have both one and two lamp lamp posts to use. This is one of a couple of such setups for lighting but this 50 meter run is the shortest. The longest would be some 140 meters away. I don't want to use a solar panel preferring it to run off the house's existing solar setup and I want to be able to control the lights from the house using a conventional light switch for each of the sets of remote lights sets.
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Re: power savings devices

Post by professor_jonny »

The problem with batterys is what you put in is not what you get out and you have to tie up with the efficency of your batterys vrs the cheaper rate power, (this is where lithium batterys come in as lead is not so efficient)

there are solar systems out now that run lithium batterys and they are very efficient compaired to lead batterys and for the size you can quadrouple your energy storage but the cost of them it some what double the investment of lead batterys.
As they are newer tech it is unknown how well they will hold up with the rigours of use it is a little bit in the guinnie pig zone but they have been well proven in laptop, phones, power tool's and that sort of things.

I tied with the idea of using the ripple relay in the house that turns the hot water on and off from the power company and when it its running use a relay to cut the power off from the normal meters to the rest of the house and make it run off the cheaper hot water meter but the problem is that i believe this is ilegial but no one I talked to actually knew if it was or not, they all said it was ilegial but did not actually know.

one cool device is a ecodrain or shower heat water recovery but me and plumbing dont mix :-) other wise i would have one as they are cheap and you can some what self install them.
what it does it note when you have a shower 85% of the heat goes down the drain and what it does is fit to the drain under your house from the shower and heats the incoming cold water from the stuff going down the drain.

https://ecodrain.ca/en/

in estimate is saves 10-20% of your hot water heating costs and the one i looked at would save $150-300 in our house a year but as we are top fed water it wouls mean a major rework of our water to our shower costing lots.
some shower pans have the built in if you go to a hotel and find the shower jacked off the floor that is usually why as they have a big spral heat exchanger in the bottom.

If your wires are long xman bumping up the transmission to 240 will be the best idea but if the 12v lamps are low enough current and you speck the cable as per asnzs 300 ecp and pick a cable with low enough volt drop you will be fine, but it may be a some what heafty cable.

recently there has been a lot of grid tied battery less solar systems in the market but I don't know much on how effective they are as they are some what new, I know power company's sell you the power at a rate but pay you less than whole sale rate for the power you make back into the grid, The problems with these systems are that and also that you are making power when you are not at home using it when is the most benefit is made.
are they worth the effort xman to buy and install one ?
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Re: power savings devices

Post by professor_jonny »

My mate has a wood fired oven that has a radiator in the side of it and it heats their hot water and house and is also usefull for the oven and stove.

His power bill is $60 a month made up of a $45 dollar line charge and connection fee and the rest is actual power where we pay aprox 220 -290 a month with the same amount of people at home.

it just requires 1 small block of wood every 5-6 hours and it just runs all day all year.
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Re: power savings devices

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We use one of these in the kitchen at the farm..
Image
It's pretty nice for use as an oven for heating up frozen pizzas and pies. I wouldn't say it's ideal for heating up a quick coffee solely because it takes a while to heat up from cold. If it was already going as in winter then it is ideal for this as well. Here it is in situ..
Image
I can't find a picture of the water heater attachment we bought for one of the wood heaters unfortunately but to give you some idea, it requires two 1 1/4" holes to be drilled through the back steel of the heater and you mount it inside the firebox with the inlet and outlet 1" pipes sticking out the back of the heater that you attach your water supply to and pipe off to your tank for your hot water.
A variation to a mate's wood fire heater, his was an open fireplace, is to make a wood grill inside the heater made of 1" steam pipe that is basically an "S" shape going from one side inside the heater box to the other with the two ends going out the side. This "grill" is for placing the wood on and the coals and ash fall through under it inside the heater box of coarse. The pipe glows red hot after a while and he used a 6" PC fan mounted inside a small box to blow air through it and it came out the other end super heated but unlike the heater's heated air, this is in a pipe that can then be ducted where you want it. His wife used it to dry the clothes in winter on a cloth air dryer positioned about 2 meters away from the pipe's outlet. About 20 minutes and the wet clothes were dry. Just standing 2-3 meter way from the pipe was better heat than the fire itself.
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Re: power savings devices

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These are pictures of the water heating attachment for the wood fire heater....
Image
Image
Like I said, drill two holes through the back wall of the heater box, push the pipes through and bolt to the back wall of the heater and connect up the water feed to one pipe and the other pipe to the hot water storage tank. I see a good use for it in winter but in summer I think the LPG water heater will be used on account the last thing I need in the farm house in summer is a wood fire going. Maybe a simple heat exchanger would be a good alternative in summer using the water heated by the car motor to heat a heat exchanger. Maybe a water pipe welded in the exhaust pipe itself leading from the car motor would be a good alternative for heating the water and that way I'm putting the heat in the exhaust to use. That should be an easy enough job for my local car exhaust guy to make up at a cheap price. I sold him an Xbox at a good price some time ago. Maybe it needs new content by now. :D
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Re: power savings devices

Post by psyko_chewbacca »

A simple and low cost solution would be to put a timer that switches OFF power to water heater during the night.

No need to keep water at a stable temperature while everyone is sleeping, just make sure it will turn back on 1-2 hours before everyone wakes up, depending on the capacity of your unit. Same logic can be applied if everyone leaves the house for the day.

That solution is ideal if everyone sleeps and go to work at the same time. For me it's not that good. My girlfriend sometimes work the night shift (around 1 week per month) and when she does, she's on a opposite schedule of mine. Forgetting to adjust the timer so everyone can take hot showers would result in dire consequences!!

I was thinking of an automated solution some time ago. I'll have to replace my water heater in a short while and I wanted to install a pulsing water counter/meter. That way, I could hook it up to a small microcontroller that would switch ON power to the heater as soon as it detects water flowing and turn it back off after a short while. Of course, for optimal results, a high power water heater is preferred. The microcontroller would be able to gather data on how much time it was ON and how's my hot water consumption.
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Re: power savings devices

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It cost's just as much to keep it hot as to heat it up. modern cylinders loose so little as they are so well insulated but older ones I cant say the same.

We have worked with meridian energy in conjunction with otago university did comparative tests of solar hot water vrs heat pump hot water and heat pump hot water is the most cost effective.

we make a product called a Varivac and they did all the testing on it and did a lot of other devices at the same time.

problem can be in rural instalations is calcifying of of hard minerals on the solar tubes or heat exchangers in heat pumps as the heat of the water approaches 70 degrees which is why you get a max water temp on most of these systems of 65 degrees.
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Re: power savings devices

Post by spicemuseum »

professor_jonny wrote:problem can be in rural instalations is calcifying of of hard minerals on the solar tubes or heat exchangers in heat pumps as the heat of the water approaches 70 degrees.
Is that only a problem in rural installations? For a large proportion of southern England, rural and urban, limescale is a part of everyday life.
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Re: power savings devices

Post by asbo »

spicemuseum wrote:For a large proportion of southern England, rural and urban, limescale is a part of everyday life.
Too right, we have to replace the immersion heater element nearly every other year! And kettles and taps etc :(
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Re: power savings devices

Post by professor_jonny »

your water stsndards must be a bit different over there im supprised on that?
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Re: power savings devices

Post by xman »

We use sacrificial anodes here to preserve the hot water tanks. Problem is they last about 10 years and no one changes then so the system rusts out after about 12 years. It is because of these anodes in hot water tanks, we were taught as kids never to drink the hot water as it is toxic.
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Re: power savings devices

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xman wrote:We use sacrificial anodes here to preserve the hot water tanks. Problem is they last about 10 years and no one changes then so the system rusts out after about 12 years. It is because of these anodes in hot water tanks, we were taught as kids never to drink the hot water as it is toxic.
copper and enameled/ glass steel lined tanks are a thing of the past now days stainless steel is the way to and no maintanance of the anode but as the element is copper coated in nickle tends to become the annode in these newer cyclinders if your water is not so good, not by design tho.
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