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Most wasteful electronic gadget on the market.

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LAN_403

Coherent

Thu Nov 19 2009, 06:26PM

Registered Member #1886 Joined: Sun Dec 28 2008, 02:55AM
Location:
Posts: 73

Nik wrote ...

The biggest power waster in my house is the new energy star dryer and the new microwave. The old clothes dryer took about 30-40min to dry a nik sized load of laundry. The new low consumption one takes about 90min and the clothes still come out damp. Our old 1970s beast of a microwave could explode my pizza pockets about 10 seconds faster then the box said I should leave them in for, the new "more efficient one" takes about 30 seconds longer. Maybe its just me as a special case but I liked the old power hogs because they were faster. Now it takes longer or more smaller loads/meals to get the same amount of laundry/eating accomplished.

On a related note there was an article on /. that pointed out most CFL bulbs have terrible power factor of around 0.4 (that's around 66 degrees lagging). Now if the bulb is labeled 100W equivalent (26W bulb). With a 26W true power and PF of .4 that means it actually 65VA. So your hydro company has to supply (120v mains) 541ma instead of 217ma that you would assume from seeing the 26W label. 324ma doesn't seem like a big problem but when every one is forced to switch to CFL more then half of the current supplied for lighting goes into the reactive load of the bulb and essentially does nothing. That is a big problem and a BIG waste of money.

/hoards his incandescent bulbs, they look nicer

I've gotta agree with this. Lately it seems that a lot of these newer 'more energy efficient' electronics either:
1-Take longer to do the job and thus negate their efficiency.
2-Cost a ton more and add to the E-Waste problem. Compare CFL lights to normal incandescent. They cost about 5x more per bulb and when they finally do die you're left with a nasty mercury filled tube attached to a lead covered circuit board in the base. When an incandescent bulb dies you just chuck it in the trash without a second thought.
3-Do the job poorly.

Another problem is how people tend to leave energy efficient electronics on for a longer amount of time. Fluorescent lights are a major example of this. It's not uncommon for people to just leave these on all the time because they're so "efficient". Also I know somebody who will routinely fall asleep watching tv and leave their big 200W plasma tv on all night. I've told them about it and they're like "it's alright it's an energy star tv"

Nik

Thu Nov 19 2009, 06:28PM

Registered Member #53 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:31AM
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 638

GeordieBoy wrote ...

I'm with you and Rod Elliot 100% on this one! "Energy Efficient" bulbs are horrible things...

Har har, I know, "down with establishment" and the like but in my field (electrical construction) it is already a problem. I have done an office building that was designed to be lit by those helical style CFLs and they were blowing breakers as soon as they were installed. The engineer called for CFL bulbs of XX wattage and figured out how many he could put on a 15amp lighting circuit using the stated XX Watts for his calculation. Because PF and VA were not a part of this bulb's label or data sheet (what ever he was reading) there were HUGE problems finishing this site. Many new circuits had to be used to power the lighting and more PF correction had to be installed in the main electrical room to prevent a fine from the hydro company.

In that cast it wasn't just the bulbs it was an engineer and a lack of foresight. Maybe if there were rules put in place that stated you have to list both wattage AND VA on lighting or maybe that they have to have integral PF correction but it's seen as such a non-issue that no one seems to care.

GeordieBoy

Thu Nov 19 2009, 10:04PM

Registered Member #1232 Joined: Wed Jan 16 2008, 10:53PM
Location: Doon tha Toon!
Posts: 881

> I have done an office building that was designed to be lit by those helical style CFLs and they were blowing breakers as soon as they were installed.

Yep, that can happen! In severe cases non-linear loads like this can even result in Neutral conductors burning out!!!

The PF problem that you refer to is really a Harmonic Distortion problem to be pedantic, not a displacement power factor. It's NOT the cos(phi) type of power factor where the current is sinusoidal but shifted relative to the voltage. This would be relatively easy to correct with PFC capacitors. It's the sort of power factor where the current waveform is all messed up

and can't be put right with PFC caps!

Switch-mode power supplies in general tend to draw a large 3rd harmonic component from the mains supply because of their rectifiers. When this happens on all 3 phases of a 3-phase supply, the 3rd harmonic components of the loads on all the three phases add up and combine constructively in the Neutral!

This higher current combined with the fact that it is at 3x line frequency (i.e. 150Hz) instead of 50Hz can mean that Neutral conductors need to be up-rated. Particularly in places like datacentres where there hundreds of SMPSUs on the same mains feeder.

The reason why PF (or VA) is not printed on compact fluorescents is probably because it is quite heavily dependent on the supply impedance at the location where they are being used. It would probably say something like 0.4<PF<0.85 if it was printed on them.

-Richie,

Steve Conner

Sat Nov 21 2009, 12:45PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

To be fair, every CFL I've seen has a line current rating printed on it, as well as a wattage. If the engineer above had gone by the current rating, there would have been no problem.

As Rod Eliot points out, they have really bad power factor. Maybe the solution for office buildings is to go to 300V DC for lighting circuits, with a big central rectifier equipped with active PFC. And an IGBT in every light switch

I also get this feeling that "energy efficient" = "pathetic". I'm quite a fan of lighting technology and have bought lots of unusual bulbs over the years. I'm convinced that the equivalent wattages for CFLs are seriously inflated, and the quality of light never seems as good. If incandescent bulbs were butter, the CFLs would be low-fat spread. I do like the daylight ones though, for task lighting at work.

I was looking at Philips' new LED GU10 lamps the other day, and they don't really do much for me.

Don't get me started on plasma TVs. All I can say is that they consume less power than they used to! Some of the old ones were 500+ watts with a big rack of fans blasting away. They dragged TV power consumption right back into the 1960s!

Killa-X

Sat Nov 21 2009, 02:19PM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Steve McConner wrote ...

To be fair, every CFL I've seen has a line current rating printed on it, as well as a wattage. If the engineer above had gone by the current rating, there would have been no problem.

As Rod Eliot points out, they have really bad power factor. Maybe the solution for office buildings is to go to 300V DC for lighting circuits, with a big central rectifier equipped with active PFC. And an IGBT in every light switch

Hmm..I know many commercial lightning such as schools, around here, use 277V lighting systems. Also, instead of Plasma TV, what about lasers? Mitsubishi already has one that was suppose to be out already, use a tiny fraction of power that plasma uses, last a LOT longer, and be a lot more colorful, because it can do 20% more than plasma, in color pallet, to what the human eye can see. I have seen laser TVs next to plasma TV, and it makes the plasma look like crap..

It practically was just about what that picture shows, except you cant really tell because I dont know how laser VS LCD goes, with colors.

Also, Guess I was wrong. After googling, its 2X the colors, and cheaper price. And they're already on the market, did not know that. :) Sadly, last i checked, they said they wont have any plans for screens under 4ft...They only have plans for large screens, that will allow the best 3D viewing with stereoscopic also. yay :D

guess a 65inch TV is about a 100W light?

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