locknut

Is anyone here using a so-called Power Saver? If so, what have you gained? Has it lived up to the promise of saving on your electric bill? Judging by the ads it's the best thing since sliced bread.

speedy petey

There have been numerous posts on different boards and several YouTube videos talking about what a scam these things are.

Nestor_Kelebay

Locknut: Power Factor correction was something I took in university as part of the electrical courses I had to take as a mechanical engineer. This is the kind of thing that DOES make economic sense if you're talking about a factory with lots of inductive loads, like electric motors and fluorescent lighting. Where you're paying $10,000 per month on your electric bill, it makes economic sense to reduce that electric bill by adding industrial capacitors.

However, for a typical household, the amount you're likely to save is small (pennies per month) even for sophisticated systems that actively change the amount of capacitors in the circuit depending on the load at the time.

As with most of these kinds of items, they will in theory save you money. The amount you'll save is where the questionable advertising and misinformation generally come in.

The truth is that if you could significantly reduce your electric bill by installing these capacitors, then your own government would be encouraging you to do so with incentive programs sponsored by your local electric utility just as they do with programs to add insulation to your house or to install higher efficiency heating equipment or to replace your incandescent lights with compact fluorescent bulbs. If there were a significant savings to be had, your government would be encouraging you to make the change, not just the company selling this capacitor.

I agree that the best thing you can do to save on electricity in your home is to turn off lights you're not using, and if you have electric heat, put on a sweater instead of turning the thermostat up.

JoeD

Power factor is not a consideration in residential billing. It will not save a thing
They are all scams.

Summit1991

The electric companies do offer programs... I have one in my house and I had built enough credits to not pay my first 2 electric bills.

They arn't some magic "BILL ELIMINATOR!!!!" so stop thinking that about every power saving product out there. You are pulling energy, a whole house capacitor (as they are proporly called) CAN reduce the overall load of your house. The problem is you probably arn't running the kind of equipment that is really effected by them. Here's some examples. The motor on a pool pump, it may take 240 volts to get the motor spining but once it does its only pulling somethinging like 1/4th of a volt to keep it going, because of this your sending 239 3/4ths volts right back out your neutral line. your meter is still going to read that as used energy wether you actualy used all the energy or not. Florecent lights are the same way, it takes a certain amount to get the reaction going but once it does the power needed drops drasticly.

CAN it save you money? yes, depending on the electrical equipment your running.

Is it a scam? No, dispite all of the ignorant people saying it is. The product isn't from an infomertial, stop treating it like it was.

And as for the following.
Google, it is your friend.

On a sidenote: You should probably also consider the fact that all these new appliances today (particularly energy star) ALREADY have a capacitor on them and thus wont be effected by the whole house capacitor. Wait, you do realise that that's what this is right? Your basicly making your whole house an energy star appliance... every single thing in your house... energy star... think about that.

Summit1991

Sidenote: The user removed that video, probably something to consider about it's validity.

Remember, google is your friend. Research the product first before beleiveing what everyone else says like a blind sheep.

JoeD

I stick by my orginal post. It's a scam. Volts don't come and go. Amps come and go. You aren't even using the proper terms in your explanation.

Try putting your pool pump on a variac and turn the voltage down to 1/4 volt after it starts and see if keeps on running.

Speedbump

Red Jacket came out with a Pump Motor quite a few years back that had a run capacitor built into the bottom of the motor. A Franklin 1hp two wire 230 volt motor when pumping a normal amount of water will pull 9.6 amps. The Red Jacket while pumping the same amount of water pulled 6 amps. I have tested this in the field and on my test bench many times.

Pool pumps like other pumps and devices with motors can be slowed down by lowering the cycles. If you lower the voltage too much, the motor will become hotter and hotter until it either trips out on overload, or it will start jumping in and out of start/run. Either of which can take the motor out. You can't lower the amps with any device I'm familiar with, but you can lower the voltage.

A friend of my wife started selling these things and brought one to me. She figured if she could convince me, anyone else would be easy. She had it all wired up to a motor with a switch and ampmeter. She would start the motor without the capacitor device and the amps would be (lets say cause I don't remember exactly) 8 amps. She would switch the device in line and the amps would drop by about half. I to this day have no idea how this thing made the amps drop, but I do have to agree with most of the electricians here. Places with a lot of inductive loads can benefit from such a device. While homeowners will probably have to wait for 5 years or more to even pay for the device.

Now, lf you would buy one of these, I would like to interest you in a magnetic water softener.

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FAQ's

speedy petey

I don't doubt it genius. It's from 2009 and it's YouTube.





You mean like yourself? How about your validity? Your first two posts on this site, digging up a two year old thread and you are here vilifying everyone else and standing up for something that is well known as a scam.

Go ahead, Google them all you want. That video was the tip of the iceberg. It is WELL documented that these thing are a complete scam.

So which one of these scam things are you selling?

"Blind sheep". What an ***.

speedy petey

You want a Google search? Here is one for you with quite a few valid hits: