Electricity Saving Box Kyle Reckons that you can save. Well, the claim is that save 20 to 30% of your power bills just by plugging the stupid thing in. Ah, you've got to be me, you. And thankfully they didn't weld sealed the shuttlepod or anything like that.

Although, they've potted whatever's in here. so this is their secret sauce. they haven't just. well, it is just a capacitor.

right? Like, what else is bloody well gonna be in there. But that's actually a potting box. and they've put something in there because this is supposed to be an intelligent energy saver. Intelligent.

The result is the best. Uhm. so yeah, if they put just like a board in there, is it just like - just dangling loose wires in a potted box? See if we can measure it? Yep, it's a capacitor. Look 2.86 microfarads up - 90 degrees.

So it's and it's almost perfectly a capacitor. So there you go. Dissipation Factor Point: Double O1 As good as you get, it's a bloody cap. Let's do a very quick demo of this one.

This might be a tutorial on power factor and everything else, but I'm just going to plug in a scope here into my power meter which I'll show you in a separate shot I'll show you with and without this thing and you'll see that Well, it's going to make a difference. This thing's going to DC the DC converter. so it's going to have a poor power factor, but let's let's see if this heap of improves it. with a typical product.

With a typical DC to DC converter, you might have plugged in. Now this is without our power correcting wanker Riser gadget. Okay, so this is just the scope on its own. You can see it's drawing eighteen point seven watts here.

And by the way, what's for a typical consumer and also in my small office that I've got here: I Am being charged? What's your? If your bill says kilowatts, you're being charged kilowatt hours, then you're paying for real power, not apparent power, which we're going to have a look at in a second. VA Because look, if we have a look at this, this is apparent power. and sure enough is drawn a lot more apparent power so on. But unless your electricity bill says you're being charged in VA then you're not being charged this power factor.

So even if this thing worked and corrected your power factor, you kind of, you're not being charged for it. so you don't save a damn cent anyway. So you can see that the power factor is just a ratio VA versus Watts and the power factor is about half. So let's plug in the wink Arizer gadget and see if it makes a difference.

That power factor. if this thing works, it should be a higher power factor because the closer you get to one the better your correct in for that. So here we go. Got to plug it in.

Tada Plugged it in. What's it done Oh Wah wah wah. It's actually lowered the power factor. It's drawing more.

Look at this. what the hell it's drawing IAT a 70 VI It's useless. It's made it worse and it's drawn a little bit more real power because of the LED in there. cheese adds to it.

Does it? Not only does it not work, it makes it worse. On a typical DC 2ds, he can prove it. convert a product. Oh now I'll just show you something different.

a different type of load. I've got my air purifier here I've got it on maximum so you can probably hear that normally. I have it on low and it's whisper quiet. You can't hear it at all, but it's basically just a big ass fan that's you know.

It's got a little display in control and everything. but basically I got it on full. so it's pretty much you know and that inductive motor load. So this power factor correction.

Yeah, if you just put a capacitor across it, it should actually make a difference. And here it is okay. it's drawing 94 watts and apparent power 101 so it's got a pretty good power factor correction ratio. Usually if you're above point nine, you wouldn't bother to implement anything to solve it.

But I think just putting a capacitor across this. this will go up slightly. so let me plug it in. Point Nine to Nine.

let's have a look Here we go. plug it in. What's it up to? Yep, there we go. at.

Point Nine, Four, Seven. There we go. So it has improved. Point Nine Five.

Oh, it's going up. So it hasn't. Has improved it because it's basically an inductive load. so put in a capacitor in parallel.

Yes, the theory is right. So these like all these quack scam products, they're bait like you, no audio fool products and things like that. They're based on an element of technical truth, but you're not paying. But most houses are not like this.

It's not going to make a difference and you're not even paying for this apparent power. Anyway, you're paying for the real power. so it makes no difference. You, but watch what happens if I actually lower this thing.

lower the speed on this. There we go. back down. Now the power factor is much worse.

This is with the capacitor in there. Okay, so now I've got that on. Hang on. I'll put that on the lowest so that's the lowest setting.

Ergo 0.53 Okay, that's with the capacitor and without it, Point Seven. There you go. Once again, it's made it worse. It depends on the type of load that you're actually doing.

If you've got a pure inductive load, then yes, these things can make a difference. even though you're not paying for. it's only real. the industrial customers that are going to pay for this apparent power because I changed the speed of the fan there.

Now it's not drawing much at all. Therefore, the electronics in it are taken more as a percentage of that and it's becoming less of a pure inductive load. It's becoming a complex DC to DC converter load more now. So that's why the power factor has dropped very significantly compared to when the fan was on maximum.

But of course, the interesting thing about all this are real versus apparent power and everything else. Okay, yeah, we plug this wanka riser gadget in Okay, and it gives us a much worse power factor. Okay, so it's pretty bad. So it's you know.

So like you know, environmentally and grid wise and everything else this is in this case. If everyone had one of these air purifiers they're plugged in one of these, then there'd be a, you know, a fairly substantial increase on the grid to actually provide that power. But you won't actually pay anything more because your this is what you'll pay. This is real power.

Okay, so well, you'll pay a little bit more because of the little LED in here as we saw before, right? So it's joined. It's taken twenty three point three. What's at the moment, That's real power. That's what you're paying for on your bill.

Okay, so I'll go plug it in and you'll see it I'll probably go up slightly. Yeah, it's gone up. you know, because it has to display the LEDs and a few other little effectors. But you know, basically as far as your electricity bill is concerned, it's You know it's going to be exactly the same.

It hasn't done anything, just like we saw before. It actually slightly increases the consumption. Ah, these things are a complete fail because the thing is an ideal capacitor actually takes zero energy. It takes no power consumes no power whatsoever.

So if we repeat that and I actually disconnect the LEDs disconnect everything else. All we've got is just the capacitor across the thing. You'll see that the power basically won't change at all because as we saw before, this is a pretty darn good capacitor. So here we go.

We're taking 23.2 - it's going to fluctuate a little bit. Let me go plug it in. Here We go it. This is with nothing with just the capacitor itself.

And no more. LEDs There we go. Just a quickie smidgen because maybe like we don't have an ideal capacitor there, but it's pretty darn close. It's bugger-all ideal capacitors don't take any power.

and it actually really matters. Where you place this thing are relative to the load that you're trying to compensate as well. You can't just have it willy-nilly on the other side of a house. It's not going to work the same.

They're just. and to think that just whacking a capacitor on one of the power points in your home can fix anything. Order and what do they trade? Market These you know all you need. One of these per appliance, you know to plug it in right next door.

Oh yeah. so although most residential customers are only paying for this real power here, you are not paying for this apparent power. Which means that these boxes are just complete. Even if you do correct the power fact, you have the particular type of appliance, you're just not going to save any money.

They are a scam, but there might be some countries out there where residential customers are actually paying for that I Don't know I can only speak for here in Australia and in New South Wales where I live anyway. But even if you don't pay for it, this apparent power is still a real problem. And of course, poor power factor like this: V A is volts times amps. So the utilities ultimately have to provide more current down the line down the transmission line.

and of course more current down the transmission line equals I squared our losses. The losses are squared. So of course the utilities really take this seriously. this power factor and they put in power factor correction.

Here's a photo of a particular power factor correction: capacitor bank or condenser bank as they know might be known in the industry to actually correct for these sorts of things because they don't want to be providing any more current than they have to. So that's why a lot of industrial customers they were. they will be paying for VA Your bill will be in Volt amps. So yes, it pays.

If you've got a lot of you know, motor drives and all sorts of industrial machine or something, you know you're real and you're paying big electricity bills. it can really pay to put in power factor correction. But you don't just plug in one of these stupid five buck things you get on eBay You know you install it, You measure it properly in your store. Professional capacitor banks to actually correct for that.

So from an environmental point of view on an overall system grid cost point of view. Yeah, you know it's a real major problem that the utilities are certainly aware of is no magic secret that you know all the energy cartels are keeping from us. You know just by this magic box and you know you can beat the only big energy. So if every residential customer had an overall poor power factor you know of 0.5 or something, that'll be a real concern for the utilities.

And they do. As I said, do do certain things power factor correction to actually compensate for that and what your overall house is doing it. If the utility companies were really that concerned, they'd be installing VA meters to charge for apparent power instead of real power. But yep, adding a capacitor across your power point at home is just complete and utter goodness.

These things I Just garbage. Do not buy them. Yes. I Had to get medieval on the ass or that thing to make it fit with the adapter Anyway, yet do not buy these things.

They are a scam based on yes an element of engineering truth, but yet don't let that fool you. It can even like make your bill worse as you saw and one little couple of micro farad cap against your whole house supply. like even if you had a big everything was you know, purely inductive, it's going to make a rat's ass difference. Just don't touch these things.

They are 100% scam so there's only one place. These things belong You, You, you.