How much power does a 120v 15A lighted switch use anyway?

Just bought a dozen Leviton decora single pole 15A 120VAC lighted rocker switches (model 5611, aka model 105-05611-21S).

Nothing on the box says how much power each of the lighted bulb uses when the switch is in the off position.

Do you know how much power a lighted switch uses?

Reply to
Glenda Copeland
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Is it neon or led?

Reply to
Jack Hammer

About as much as a 110 volt neon bulb. I'm sure you can find specs for those a lot of places. But it's very little, just a guess 0.01 to

0.1 watts? Let me know what you find out.
Reply to
mm

A neon uses about 0.15KWH a year.

Reply to
gfretwell

It looks to be neon.

Here are some URLs that describe the switch, but not how much power the light uses:

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Reply to
Glenda Copeland

I have had a lighted switch at my day job. It had a high intensity neon lamp, apparently either C2A (NE-2H) or A1C ("mini NE-2H) (hard to tell through the switch). Figure about 1/4 watt.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

I am going to guess at anywhere between 0.1 to 0.2 Watts. Nothing to be concerned about imo.

Reply to
Jack Hammer

I had experience with a lighted switch at my day job. The neon lamp was definitely a high intensity type, probably C2A (NE-2H) or A1C ("mini NE-2H").

Figure about 1/4 watt for those, which means around 2.2 KWH per year times 1/100 of the percentage of the time that the neon lamp is on.

That is, until the neon lamp starts flickering (uses less then) after

25,000-50,000 hours. High intensity neon lamps in 120 VAC use tend to flicker and then gradually completely die as they age. Standard intensity ones do less of that and more of simply fading from their bulbs being discolored.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

Glenda Copeland wrote

Not enough to worry about.

Reply to
Rod Speed

mm Close. I get .096 watts with one that has a 150,000 ohm resistor in series with lamp. So if the utility KW cost $ .10 you can figure out the rest. WW

Reply to
WW

I got my number from the 1 meg ohm resistor your typical neon has in series with the bulb. Consider an ionized neon as a dead short.

Reply to
gfretwell

This would be about 9 cents a year, if the light is off all year.

Reply to
mm

Much less than the stand-by power a wall-wart uses even when nothing is plugged into the wall wart.

Reply to
hrhofmann

Hi, It is negligible regardless what's in there, neon or LED. I'prefer LED, neon emits electric noise.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

You are correct. And if I am not mistaken you get more lumen/watt from led then neon.

Reply to
Jack Hammer

It's likely either an NE2 or an NE2H, which a quick web search shows are rated for .03W and .09W, respectively. The right answer is "fagetabooutit".

Reply to
keith

The energy used reading and responding to this post now equals more than the lifetime energy used by this switches lamp............

Reply to
hallerb

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Agree: We have a lighted switch still working some 40 years later with a small neon inside it. The neon glows when the switch is 'off'. Making it easy to find the switch in the dark! Presumably the switch mentioned by the OP is that? There are however other switches that light 'on' when the switch is operated, useful for indicating that something remote and out of site has been left on .................! In our case that could be "Oh. The lighted switch in the kitchen shows the garage light has been left on"! Typically indicators employ a neon using 'a couple of milliamps'. Probably around 115 x 0.003 =3D maybe 4 one hundredths of a watt at the most!

24 hours a day 365 days =3D 24 x 365 x 0.04 =3D 302 watts or 0.3 k.watt.hrs. each; per year. At ten cents per k.watt.hr that's about 3 cents per lighted switch, per year. That is the equivalent of leaving one 100 watt bulb switched on, once, for one or two seconds or so, longer than necessary!

A typical (neon) spec might be.

DC breakdown volts:70avg DC maintain volts:59avg after 100 hours at design current design current/milliamps 0.3 end of life is 5v change in breakdown for maintaining voltage maximum diameter:0.275inchs neon glow lamp pre-aged:no voltage range:105-125v

PS: Remembering that in operation there will be a small resistor in series with the neon indicator and the whole thing (resistor plus neon) will be across the 115 volt supply (switch off) so that most of the 302 watts per year will be dissipated by the resistor and least by the neon indicator itself. At this low power the resistor will not even get warm! Except academically the whole topic of how much power is used by each neon indicator, similar to those on appliances etc. is not worth bothering about. Leaving an outside door open for a few minutes during winter, for example, to bring in groceries on a cold/windy day, will entail more heating cost than a years use of ten such indicators!

Reply to
terry

Our utility prices are 11 cents (¢) per kilowatt (KW) for the first KW of the month but 48¢ for the last two or three weeks' worth of kilowatts. I would guess the average KW out here to then be about 35¢.

So, if I add a dozen of these lighted switches, and they're on most of the day, say, 20 hours per day for 30 days in a month, at .096 watts per hour, that comes to about a penny per day, I think.

12switches x 20hours/day x 30days/month x 0.1watts x 35¢/KW x 1KW/1000W = 25¢/month
Reply to
Glenda Copeland

Using California electric rates, I get, for a single switch, 31¢/year?

1switch x 24hours/day x365days/year x 35¢/KW x .1W x 1KW/1000W

We have tiered pricing out here where the first week or so costs about

11¢/KW, the next week is about double, and the last two weeks of the month it's more than 4 times as much so I averaged that to about 35¢/KW.
Reply to
Glenda Copeland

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