More ecobollox

[The Medway Handyman]

Watched a TV show t'other night called 'I didn't know that' or something, anywho it was a 'green' episode.

The two presenters called in a 'green consultant' A Sloan ranger called Gimima/Cordelia/Arabella or similar.

She went around the house making suggestions about how to reduce energy costs, obviously educated well beyond her natural intelligence.

One of the first things she suggested was a 'Savaplug' to reduce the electricity consumed by the fridge. Sounded like pure snake oil to me.

Its become an industry this green movement. Think I might set up as The Medway Green Consultant & go around spouting rubbish for suitably high fees.

[meow2222]

what these do is deliver full power to the fridge during startup, then reign power back by chopping the waveform to reduce consumption once the compressor is running. They do work. Theyre increasingly becoming incompatible with new machines that already have such tech built in though.

an industry that costs the country left right and centre.

NT

[martin_pentreath]

Looks like we'll never know. "Please note: The Savaplug has been taken out of production until further notice."

[RubberBiker]

Not very useful advice, as the SavaPlug has been withdrawn from sale.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Hmm. If you reduce the power to the compressor motor surely it will just run longer to achieve the desired temperature? And likely with the motor being not as efficient too, since they're designed for a sine wave. Then there will be the heat produced by the chopper inside the magic plug.

[Graham.]

I was sceptical until I saw them in use in a supermarket, (Iceland I think)

[The Natural Philosopher]

What you really are trying to do is tune the motor for enough starting torque to start, and efficiency when running.

These are to an extent in contradiction, so scope for better efficiency probably exists.

However I am dubious than any 'one size fits all' box is likely to be the best resolution: what is more needed is proper electronic control built into they fridge.

However as with most ecobollox, the savings are really small compared with e.g. Not using te car *every* day etc etc.

So in the end its just another sop to green conscience that doesnt affect overall consumption that much anyway.

[The Medway Handyman]

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or resiting the fridge a bit further from th ecooker or CH boiler..

[mogga]

You should speak to Gordon Brown if you've got snakeoil to sell. He's desperate at the moment for anything that might con people into thinking the recession is over. :) How much has he spent at Sir Tsar Alan's computer company recently?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I wasn't aware that Sir Alan HAD a computer company anymore, if indeed he ever did.

Like many others, he made his money exploiting a narrow window of opportunity when indigenous design and marketing could exploit a new market just before the manufacturers with deep pockets got in on the act.

There is almost no money ion computer hardware anymore.

[Stephen Howard]

I suspect that any savings such a device may have given may be just as easily gained by simpler and more practical means - such as decanting milk into a jug kept by the kettle to save opening the fridge every time a cuppa is brewed, or buying a decent fridge thermometer and setting the fridge with greater accuracy.

Regards,

[meow2222]

makes no difference to motor speed. Compressor motors need enough torque to start, but once running need much less. These are induction motors, not universal types.

same speed, less power use = more efficient

Having opened one I'm not that surprised they were withdrawn. However I believe they do work. The long list of newish machines they wont work with must have killed the market for them too.

How the savings compare with the high plugcost I dont know. I never managed to get any more than marketing handwaving on that point.

NT

[Stephen Howard]

You tumbled their ruse, innit.

If you were able to see their headquarters you'd see the company director standing at the window, shaking his fist and exclaiming " Curse you, Medway Handyman! Curse you and all you stand for!!".

Either that or someone has told them that Sava rhymes with Lava and therefore doesn't make any sense.

Or it could just be crap.

Regards,

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Oh I'm sure you could improve the efficiency of a basic freezer. But I'm not convinced it can be done with a plug in device.

[David Hansen]

On Sat, 6 Jun 2009 11:45:11 +0100 someone who may be "Graham." wrote this:-

I believe they were involved in engineering the things and they measured the reduction in electricity consumption after they were fitted in a shop.

As has been said, it is so effective that the same thing is now built into "modern" [1] fridges and freezers (the savings are greater with freezers as the motor generally runs for longer). I imagine that is why they have discontinued making them.

[1] at least the last decade, perhaps two decades.

[dmc]

He does - we just spend a large 6 figure sum with it! Not quite sure what his connection with it is but I know he stick one (if not both) of the apprentice finalists in there for 6 months or so before picking the winner (there is a long gap between the penultimate and the last episode).

Viglen - they build desktops (not bad), servers (not so good) and resell HDS sans (shiny :-)) to certain markets. We have just bought a couple SANs and a load of PCs from them.

Viglen seem to be doing ok.

Darren

[Graham.]

My Bosh fridge freezer certainly has a triac controlled compressor but it hadn't occurred to me that it might be operating other than a switch

[Part timer]

We had a Zanussi fridge/freezer dating from 1988 pack up 18 months ago. Replaced it with a Bosch Classixx with far better efficiency (so if it lasts as long as the one it replaced, the money saved on the leccy bill will "pay" for it). The Bosch manual warned against using those plugs (I remember seeing them in that tat catalogue "Innovations" years ago), also dodgy non-sine waves from inverters, generators on ships etc IIRC.

[Owain]

"Viglen, the UK PC maker, has won a Office of Government Commerce contract worth up to £30m to supply public sector organisations with

70,000 PCs. Its chairman, Sir Alan Sugar, is very pleased indeed. "We are delighted to have been awarded this contract on an equitable basis", he says. Does this suggest to you that he thinks some contracts are awarded on less equitable terms? According to Sir Alan, the win "proves that British companies like Viglen can punch outside their weight against stiff overseas competitors, who internationally are many times bigger than us". Viglen emerged triumphant from a tender process which is described as a "reverse online auction". Its prize is a 24-month gig to supply 45-plus central government, councils, and NHS trusts with Energy Star compliant desktop PC, notebooks and TFT screens."