Monitoring Power Usage

Random

Right, I wanna get some kind of device to monitor what power my PC and assorted networking / printers / scanners / phones are all using. I leave my PC on most of the time with about a gazillion things plugged into 2 or 3 power outlets with extension leads flowing from them.

Is there some sort of plug I can buy to monitor power usage? And then multiply it by what the ESB charge and work out an accurate amount of power used?

Capt'n Midnight

Every few months LIDL sell one for about €8 - it can be set to count units too not too sure if you can enter a unit price to give you a running total

put a request in on adverts.ie or borrow one or wait or source it elsewhere for twice the cost.

some PSU's also give power output if you could borrow one

Random

I've no problem doing the math myself. .. usage*cost per unit = cost
That's all grand ... just wanna make sure they're clear enough to read.
What exactly are they called? €8 seems a bit cheap to me - do they actually do the job? Has anyone relied on one for keeping track of power so's not to get a shock on the bill ?

PSU with power output is no good unfortunitly ... as I've got a billion things plugged into extension leads.

Shiny

I bought a watt meter in Maplin for €30 euro a good
while ago.

Here it is:

http://www.maplin.co.uk

search: watt meter

For some reason I cant give a direct link.

but here is a picture of it anyway

Bob the Builder

Shiny wrote:

I bought a watt meter in Maplin for €30 euro a good
while ago.

Here it is:

http://www.maplin.co.uk

search: watt meter

For some reason I cant give a direct link.

Would this be it?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343&criteria=power%20supply%20monitors&doy=3m9

Shiny

Yeah !!!!

DAmn you.

when i looked at that page all i saw was
http://www.maplin.co.uk/index.html

:rolleyes:

Bob the Builder

Shiny wrote:

Yeah !!!!

DAmn you.

when i looked at that page all i saw was
http://www.maplin.co.uk/index.html

:rolleyes:

There's obviously a problem with ur computer, you must have a virus. Mine seems to be working fine :P

I just did a search and it came up....

hobie

What exactly are they called? €8 seems a bit cheap to me

I have a couple of them from LIDL ...... Energy monitors .... the problem is that they only sell them once or twice a year and they tend to sell out in just a few days :cool:

It will tell you Voltage .... watts .... amps .... KWH 's .... power factor .... and as mentioned above will even calculate the cost if you input leccie rates
(but I just do a manual calculation ..... KWH's times ESB rate)

I use one to monitor electricity consumption in my Green house over the winter

I have another for use with a Generator set which is great for voltage and load monitoring

ps. the subject of PC power consumption interested me so for the last 3 months I've had a LIDL unit on my PC .... totol KWH's for 3 months is 60 total todate for a PC/19" lcd and printer which is really $$$$$$ all ...

simply plug it into your wall socket .... plug your strip multi socket into it and zero the unit and off you go .... dead simple

Maplins unit will do just as good a job but it's a good bit higher in price

Random

The thing is that I need to buy 3 of them! Might take a look in Maplin though and see what they have on offer.

phil

Thinkgeek sell something known as 'Kill-a-watt':

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7657/

Very straight-forward to use and the maths should be pretty easy after.

Phil.

Kali

The maplins unit is pretty handy, bought one in my last job to correctly load balance UPS's across circuits... (gives the output in VA as well). Worth the money anyway.

Random

Went into Maplin and bought one today... eur45... I'll try it out for a week and get a refund if it doesn't do the job.

Random

Using the metre in Shinys post above I now have it setup.

I've used 4.63 KWH since last night. How do I relate this to cost now?

hobie

I've used 4.63 KWH since last night. How do I relate this to cost now?

look at your last ESB bill ..... take the cost a unit .... add VAT at 13.5% .... this will give you a cost per unit ..... a unit = 1 (one) KWH ....

multiply the 4.63 by the cost per unit and thats your answer

current day units from ESB cost 12.73 cents plus 1.72 cents VAT = 14.45 cents per unit(KWH) so your cost for 4.63 units should be 66.9 cents (call it 70 cents)

(I only mention day units because some peeps have both a day and night tarrifs)

Random

Right ... so it's cost 77c in the last 24 hours to run this computer and attached bits and bob.

Is that expensive?

hobie

Right ... so it's cost 77c in the last 24 hours to run this computer and attached bits and bob.

well if it stopped you going out and having 3 or 4 pints at say 15.00 yo yo's I would think it would be cheap!!!

Random

I guess I'll let it run for a month and see what I come up with

BadCharlie

Shiny wrote:

I bought a watt meter in Maplin for €30 euro a good
while ago.

Here it is:

http://www.maplin.co.uk

Got one of them also, here is what i had to say about it.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054966890&referrerid=&highlight=power+monitor

Nukem

ciaranfo wrote:

I guess I'll let it run for a month and see what I come up with

Can i make a suggestion of trying to push your PC with a benchmarking tool,use all the attached devices at once and record the max wattage required. Take a stab at the hours you use on average and get the cost per hour and then just have it for over the year. You will have your max demand then and your max cost. Work out the min usage with everything on idle and take an average reading again. From that just take a calculated average diffence of both max and min and you should have a fair reflection of your usage!