Zorpman: That's the same product that i suggested, but as mentioned, i bought mine at Rat Shack for under $30 on sale. I don't know if they still sell them or not, but i do agree, it is a very handy product to have around. Sean
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Buy a "Kill a Watt" P3 volt/amp/watt digital meter on Ebay, <$50.00 USD.
Cheap and lots of fun. About the only inexpensive way to actually check current draw from your audio/videa gear a idle, full power, and anything in between. What is the vampire current draw of your power supply? Why are you using 10ga mains for an amp that draws 200 watts?
Also great to see line voltage in real time. See it slump, see it spike!
I am only a pleased owner of a Kill a Watt. Not involved in the company or have one for sale. |
Kind of a coincidence here given this thread, but I've been having problems at my shop with the voltage dropping. I recently noticed some of my test equipment going out of calibration or "lock" and started checking into what was going on. As it turns out, the voltage is dropping between 6 - 12 volts at random points during the day. While i thought it was more than a coincidence, a new business went in locally that pulls GOBS of power on a cyclical basis. I went down and talked to one of the guys working there and i was told that they are pulling appr 375 amps on an as needed basis. As such, i made them aware of the problems that i was having and one of the guys started looking things over. When their system fired up, the line voltage was sagging anywhere from 6 to 12 volts. Hmmm... Those are the exact same figures that i had come up with too.
I had already had our local utility provider out to check things over, but they couldn't find any problems. I surmised that this was due to the power dropping at random i.e. it is not a constant problem. As such, i guess i'll have to get them back out there and possibly change the transformer. The tech that had looked at it told me that it was VERY old and was what was feeding the whole grid in our area. As far as i know, i think that this transformer also feeds a portion of local residences within the area too. I have to wonder what it's doing to them ???
As a side note, a 375 amp draw is equivalent to appr 44 KW's of power. While i don't know the going rate for electricity in terms of KW per Hour around here, we assumed it was less then $0.10 per KW. At that rate, it costs that business $4.40 per hour for electricity when all of their equipment is running full tilt. As such, i thought that was pretty reasonable given the amount of power being consumed. Sean
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Leave it on and pay the bill...you're an audiophool!! |
I know I have a few high usage items, fish tank for example. The pumps are ~450watts 24/7, lights 360watts 12h/day, ect.. My guess is ~75.00 month.(ouch)
Everything in the house is electric so, no gas bill at least. Although the dryer, hot water/heating is all in one.
The fridge/dryer are all new/one year old, I would assume the ratings are better than most.
A few computers on 24/7, have since way upped the power savings features, although the monitors were always set to turn off after a few minutes.
I was goofing around with a Monster Cable PC awhile back and the most I could get the system to draw was ~6 amps without killing the neighbors. I am only using 5 of the 7 channels for what difference that would make. I have two subs but they switch into standby mode when not in use, I guess I might want to find out what exactly this means(HSU VTF-3's).
Well I committed a cardinal sin and hooked up the line voltage switch to shut the amp off when not is use. I'll see if this helps. At least it will not be heating up the whole house this summer...
Thanks all,
Marty |
Refrigerators are the single largest electrical consumer in the house. You might want to check the efficiency of your current model. It might have a leak or somehting. Your stereo should not be the culprit of your high bill. I had a Pass Aleph class A amp running at 200 watts when on and it did not have an impact on our bill. You might check to see what else is using juice from your panel, or perhaps a neighbor is sharing your line somehow, or the meter reader is making a mistake. We have an old Craftsman home, I work at home all day, I use the stereo constantly, and we live in California with high electricity prices and our bill is still only $60-70/month. Our gas bill is another issue, though (leaky old home)! |
No surprise to me in that situation...
7ch amp just speaks for itself: "I can run very very hot!"
Despite the famed audiophile suggestions having amp on 24/7 I found on number of SS amps(especially multichamps that have a limited heat-sink possibilities) lack of heat-sink surface v.s. power and so lack of active output elements as well that work in peak region of operation.
Such amps constantly increase its heat with large possibility to change offset if not to the point of burning than to the substatial increase of idling power consumption.
You can acquire suggested by Sean Kill-A-Watt and measure every day of constant idling and if you will read differences, than for the sake of your electric bills and speaker/amp safety turn them off when they're not in your direct attention.
As to the monoblocks, despite a large possibility of being quite different on characteristics they're less likely to be affected by heat v.s. integrated amps v.s. multi-channel amps v.s. receivers and v.s. ordinary stereo amps.
In my case as Sean pointed out, when I open my VTLs monos to fix the first time I was surprised that some of the elements were mounted differently probably due to the different techs who were building these amps. I can only assume what kind of "matching" this pair of monos underwent.... |
That bill doesn't make sense. Let's assume that you're using a 15A circuit, so the breaker would fire if the current draw were significantly more than 15A for any reasonable period of time. That means your system draws less than 15A.
Let's further assume that for some (odd) reason your system is drawing 10A (quite a bit), and that it does this 24/7.
At 120V, (10 A)(120 V) = 1200W
(1200 W) (24 hrs/day) = 28.8 kWh / day
(28.8 kWh / day)(30 days/ month)($0.0814 / kWh) = $70.33
This should be an overestimation of what you would expect to pay monthly for the stereo system, since a 10 ampere draw is a lot for most systems.
A $250/month bill doesn't make sense. But then again, I get $50 bills when I am away from home for the entire month, and the only thing plugged is in the refrigerator. I don't trust my apartment building's meters.
I would definitely investigate this further.
Michael |
Thanks for the answers, I thought the real answer would lie in the "Kill a Watt", I'm just a major cheapo. I guess I don't really want to know how much my large salt water fish tank is using, anybody want to buy a large tank?
My rate is .0814 average, and every month I end up with a $250.00 electric bill. For a single guy this just seems high. I won't bore you all with my bills here.....
Thanks
Marty |
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$0.14/kWh...WOW! We only pay $0.06 here (VA)! |
While Timo's point is valid, i would hope that the Sim ( or any other amp ) offers a little more area as a heatsink than that of what the glass of a light bulb offers.
I would suggest picking up a device from Rat Shack as i've found it to come in very handy. It is called a "Kill A Watt" and is a device that can measure the line voltage, amperage, total wattage, what frequency the AC is cycling at, the Kilowatt hours used averaged over a period of time, etc... It does all of this with a digital display for ease of use. You push a button and select what reading you want and it does all of the work. I bought it when it first came out and it was about $30 if i remember correctly. I think that they run either $40 or $50 now though as they had an introductory sale when i purchased mine.
As a side note, folks with monoblocks or identical amps might be pretty surprised to find out just how out of balance their amps really are from one another. While i knew about this before, this device really makes it easy to see just how much "production tolerance" comes into play from one identical unit to another. Sean
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It sure can, just try and touch a 75 watt incandescent light bulb and see how long you can hold on! |
Assume:
* amp uses 75W at idle
* amp is idling 24/7
* cost of electricity is $0.14 / kWh (on the high side)
So, per day the amp uses 75W * 24h = 1.8 kWh
On a monthly basis, the cost would be (1.8 kWh / day)(30 days/month)($0.14 / kWh) = $7.56
Of course, if you actually USE the amp and it draws more power, then you will need to factor that in, too.
Michael |
