Question about TV Commercial, saves up to 25% electricity?

[Tom The Great]

This is not spam, it is a serious question about a commercial that claims a product that can save up to 25% electric usage, without reducing power usage of applicances?

The website: WWW(dot)PowerSaveTV(dot)Com

They claim UL listed, so I guess it means it won't burn down the house, but has anyone figured what is going on here? Is it real? Is it a bank of capacitors to change the PowerFactor?

Any insight, or reviews would be appreciated.

thank you,

tom

[Robert Allison]

What are they advertising on that site?

[Frank]

I could not wait forever to download their literature. I googled this newsletter:

it sound like BS. Frank

[Joseph Meehan]

I did not follow the link, but I have seen a number of like product claims in the past. They all end up doing the same thing. Yes under very careful controlled conditions they could do what they claim. That is the UP TO part of their claim. In real life is it like zero. As I recall it takes a very inefficient motor and special operating conditions and even then it is likely to hit any savings over 1% a small fraction of 1% of the total time.

In short if it sounds too good to be true it is too good to be true. Your skeptical nature wins again.

[Tom The Great]

A friend of mine tried to 'steal' electricity. This is how.

The electric meter is based on a PowerFactor of 0.8, meaning that observed 100 watts of electric usage means only 80 watts was really used, so the meter shows 80 watts. He thought he could get his house setup so it could get a power factor of 1. So the house would use 80 watts, the meter would see 80 watts but since it still expected 0.8 PF it would only show 64 watts used. So 16 watts would be taken for free.

This discussion was back in the early 90's, I was wondering if this product was a realization of a crazy idea to defraud the electric company.

Now all this is guessing, I am no expert to this product, so just thinking out loud, and seeking information.

tom

[zek]

It sounds like the same thing as Green Plug. I used them for several years on fridgs, fans, well thats all. I was going to buy another for my new attic fan but I found one of my old ones. you can still get remaining buyouts of the "Green Plug" from Electronic Goldmine. Take a refridgerator, which most all new models allready have this function. It start up drawing a lot of power and current, the Green Plug allows this surge of current, however then backs off the supplied voltage when starting current subsides. Now, the fans inside slow down, not really a good thing, but with a new fridgs, its all been taken care of. I did install one on my attic fan. Before its done the two spped fan has very little speed differential between the two speeds. After installing the Green Plug, there is a big difference in speeds. High is still pretty fast but on low, the Green plug is limiting the voltage since it thinks is just idiling. gs

[Don Klipstein]

All of the usual electric meters measure true power consumption. Increasing the power factor of your home won't make any significant difference to your electric meter - maybe save you a percent or something like that by reducing losses in your wiring.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Charles Schuler]

Energy meters measure energy ... they do not assume 0.8 or any other factor.

[Jim Yanik]

"zek" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

It makes no sense to use a PF controller on an appliance that already has it built in.

BTW,real PF-controllers use an IC and a triac,not a capacitor bank.