I am looking for a way to monitor the power used by various PCs. I have looked at the Seasonic PowerAngel and it looks great and comes in at a fantastic price in the US but unfortunately it looks to be only compatible with a 110V source (i.e. not the UK).
Are there any other alternative (not too expensive) devices, that do a similar job, availible in the UK? Are there aly alternative, safe measuers (e.g. with a multimeter)?.
Monitoring power consumption?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
-
ToasterIQ2000
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2005 10:36 pm
Some UPSs (Uninteruptable Power Supplies) that connect to a pc by serial or usb and report "time on battery remaining" also report total load in amps or watts.
The Prosine2000 in my attic with a small bank of AGMs is only accurate to one amp.
The APC RS 1000 in a nearby home office has a "Power Chute" icon in the taskbar. In it's 'current status' panel it claims to be / implies it is / has a little graphic that suggests ... it is accurate to one watt & I can see the numbers wander live.
I'm just browsing and bein' shallow this evening & thats what I thought of
The Prosine2000 in my attic with a small bank of AGMs is only accurate to one amp.
The APC RS 1000 in a nearby home office has a "Power Chute" icon in the taskbar. In it's 'current status' panel it claims to be / implies it is / has a little graphic that suggests ... it is accurate to one watt & I can see the numbers wander live.
I'm just browsing and bein' shallow this evening & thats what I thought of
Ah I see it, thanks a lot.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?cri ... 9&doy=22m7
I suppose it will really have to do. Even if it's inaccurate I'd hope that it would be consistant so I could see which of 2 or more PSUs was more efficient.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?cri ... 9&doy=22m7
I suppose it will really have to do. Even if it's inaccurate I'd hope that it would be consistant so I could see which of 2 or more PSUs was more efficient.
the by far easiest way to measure the Wattage of your entire rigg is just lend a Amp meeter (clamp kind that you just put around the cable without removing any insulation) from a friend, and take amp you get times the voltage (say, 10 A x 230 volt (europe) or 20 amp x 110 Volt and there u go, wattage!
Easy as pie, but you need to find a way to seperate the two wires in the cord (you cant measure right on the cable if it has 2 wires though), i have a normal extension cable that i stripped the outer layer on, so i expose the two (or 3, for grounded cables) wires inside, and just put a amp clamp around one of them (all but the green/yellow one).
also, there is cheap wattage meeters in many stores (try those that sell electic things, engines, lamps etc). you can prolly lend one if you dont need it for long.
Easy as pie, but you need to find a way to seperate the two wires in the cord (you cant measure right on the cable if it has 2 wires though), i have a normal extension cable that i stripped the outer layer on, so i expose the two (or 3, for grounded cables) wires inside, and just put a amp clamp around one of them (all but the green/yellow one).
also, there is cheap wattage meeters in many stores (try those that sell electic things, engines, lamps etc). you can prolly lend one if you dont need it for long.
-
Michael_qrt
- Posts: 154
- Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2002 5:53 pm
- Location: Sydney
jmkhenka wrote:the by far easiest way to measure the Wattage of your entire rigg is just lend a Amp meeter (clamp kind that you just put around the cable without removing any insulation) from a friend, and take amp you get times the voltage (say, 10 A x 230 volt (europe) or 20 amp x 110 Volt and there u go, wattage!
Easy as pie, but you need to find a way to seperate the two wires in the cord (you cant measure right on the cable if it has 2 wires though), i have a normal extension cable that i stripped the outer layer on, so i expose the two (or 3, for grounded cables) wires inside, and just put a amp clamp around one of them (all but the green/yellow one).
also, there is cheap wattage meeters in many stores (try those that sell electic things, engines, lamps etc). you can prolly lend one if you dont need it for long.
This will only measure Volt-Amps not Watts. Power supplies are not perfect resistive loads and so they have a power factor of less than 1. So this will not work to measure the the total power consumption or even the relative power consumption if the two supplies have different power factors. You need a proper AC power meter to measure Watts accurately.
Having said that, I'm not sure of the regulations in the UK but if power supplies are required to have active power factor correction then both supplies should have power factors at or above 0.97 (estimated) and measuring Volt-Amps would give you close to the power in Watts.
Right, I picked up that AC meter from Maplin!
It seems pretty good. At first I couldn't think of a way to test it but then I had a "duhhh" moment when I looked at the lamp! It was a 60W bulb in and sure enough the meter reports 59W. I have 150W and 100W bulbs to try too.
I have it hooked up to the PC just now. 150W was the peak when I first powered up (drives spinning up etc), it settled to 110W idle and only went up to 126W under P95 torture test.
After leaving it on a while it's now sitting at 91W idle.
Specs: Mobile XP 2500+ @ defaults, 9600 Pro Ultimate, 1GB Geil ultra RAM, 2x80GB P80s Spinpoints, 2 Optical drives etc on a Nexus NX4090 with fan mod.
It seems pretty good. At first I couldn't think of a way to test it but then I had a "duhhh" moment when I looked at the lamp! It was a 60W bulb in and sure enough the meter reports 59W. I have 150W and 100W bulbs to try too.
I have it hooked up to the PC just now. 150W was the peak when I first powered up (drives spinning up etc), it settled to 110W idle and only went up to 126W under P95 torture test.
After leaving it on a while it's now sitting at 91W idle.
Specs: Mobile XP 2500+ @ defaults, 9600 Pro Ultimate, 1GB Geil ultra RAM, 2x80GB P80s Spinpoints, 2 Optical drives etc on a Nexus NX4090 with fan mod.
"Kill-a-Watt"?
I picked one up a couple weeks ago. Really handy device - I was a little surprised by how much or little some things use.
My two "big" PC's at home, with two monitors running, with a game on one machine: 550 watts!
Same two PC's, put into "standby" mode: 74 watts (at least 12 watts of that is parasitic loss on the UPS).
After realizing that my two LCD monitors each chew up 70 watts of power when live, I moved them off the UPS (1200va) to give myself an extra couple minutes when the lights go out.
My two "big" PC's at home, with two monitors running, with a game on one machine: 550 watts!
Same two PC's, put into "standby" mode: 74 watts (at least 12 watts of that is parasitic loss on the UPS).
After realizing that my two LCD monitors each chew up 70 watts of power when live, I moved them off the UPS (1200va) to give myself an extra couple minutes when the lights go out.