Hi folks.
Hope I'm posting in the correct forum.
As I'm no expert I decided to ask you guys a question before I complain about a product to Trading Standards.

I noticed a product that was claiming to cut your electrical bills.
They claim they can cut your bills by plugging their product in, and go onto descibe how they smooth the supply. (Please see the link)
Product
My limited knowledge of electrical tells me for smoothing to do as claimed, it would have to be BEFORE the meter and not after.
Anyone care to have a look.

 

It is nonsense. A secret device invented by Nikola Tesla and suppressed by the industry. Like conspiracy theories much?

Bob

 

I thought so.
I've done more research on the company.
Con artists

 

I suspect it is simply a surge protector.

 

There is a theoretical basis for this but it does not affect your electric bill.

You may want to look up power factor correction capacitor, but keep in mind residential customer’s bills are not affected by power factor, and even if they were the power savings with the tiny capacitor that would be in the box would be insignificant.

 

$59 is a lot to pay for a night-light.

ak

 

$59 is a lot to pay for a night-light.

ak

£49 is even more.

 

There is a lesson or two you can learn from this.

 

The world is full of Snake-Oil salesmen.

 

They are advertising this ripoff all over the world so there must be many gullible fools buying it which pays for the ads and lots of profit for the sellers.

How can we stop these ads for this fake useless expensive product?

 

I noticed a product that was claiming to cut your electrical bills.

They are a bunch of rip-off artists.
They sucked me in with one of their ads that showed a beautifully made Orrery, when it came before i opened it I could see by the small box it could not be the same one.
Sure enough, it looked like it had been lashed together by a first year metal working class.
Smaller and not even CLOSE to the one advertised in their picture,
Chinese origin company.

 

My limited knowledge of electrical tells me for smoothing to do as claimed, it would have to be BEFORE the meter and not after.
Anyone care to have a look.

Ok, so you’ve been taken by a scam, live and learn. Maybe use it to learn a bit more. In industry, there is s concern for dirty, and out of phase power. Companies can be levied when the load they pose, reflects such conditions back onto the line. Lagging conditions, typical of operations with large motors and/or lighting (inductive), can be effectively corrected. This correction can be applied at the offending load itself, or at a point where a group of loads can be reached, such as a feeder, but never, before the meter, as the ‘dirty power’ only exists between its source and corrective device(s).
Residential customers don’t have high enough inductive loads to warrant correction. Commercial spaces may, depending on the lighting technology and hvac loads. I don’t know this, but would guess, that ‘energy efficient’ household appliances would contain corrective components.

 

I am billed for residential, not for industry. There is no huge industrial motor that needs a much larger product than this small one to correct its power factor.
My oven, toaster and clothes dryer are very simple heaters using a lot of electrical power that the fake product will not "correct" and not affect the electricity cost. My new high efficiency furnace and washing machine motors are made with the correction inside them.

 

You refer to "trading standards", so I presume that you are in the UK - If not, don't bother reading on. . .
I sincerely hope you bought it on a credit card* (not a debit card) because section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the card provider jointly and severally liable for the product. Your card provider will give you your money back (after a bit of argument), and that's an awful lot easier than getting your money back from a supplier overseas.
I saw the same advert, and was tempted to buy one for the entertainment value of seeing what was inside, and reporting it to TS to get it taken of the market; but it seemed like expensive entertainment, so I didn't.
If you would like it analysed, I'd be happy to do that for you.

*Also applies to Paypal, if you pay your Paypal via a credit card.

 

There is a place for residential power factor connection. It's true that (most?) residential customers aren't billed for a power power factor and VA being used.

But if you have a power inverter or generator for use during power failures, the situation changes. The ¼ horse furnace blower motor, instead of drawing the expected 186 watts from your inverter, it may be drawing several times that because of the power factor. The load you can place on your inverter or generator turns out to be much less than expected.

 

My furnace blower is a 6-pole, continuously-variable speed, brushless DC motor with a power factor corrected power supply/driver.

So there.

ak

 

Well, maybe if you put magnets on your fuel line you'll get better gas mileage. - - - NOT!
Putting a ring of magnets all with the same polar end pointed inward and a set of magnets mounted on a rotating assembly INSIDE that ring of magnets, with IT'S polarity that is the same as the outer ring will repel each ohter and cause endless spinning, thus creating free energy. - - - NOT! OR perhaps you can build an HHO device that converts water into hydrogen and oxygen gasses; burn the hydrogen in a combustion engine and generate electricity that way. - - - NOT!

The point is - nothing comes for free. To reduce the amount of electricity you use - shut things off. Many devices in your home incorporate "Instant ON", meaning they are always using SOME power. My TV's, Computers and printers are some devices that are always on. Even the furnace, when in Sumer time, still use power - unless you shut them off. Older furnaces this is not so much true because they used mechanical switches (thermostats) to turn on power. But nobody makes those any longer. At least I don't think they do. My stove/oven is always using power (clock/timer) as well as all the plug-in clocks in the house constantly use power. Coffee pot does too. To cut my power bill I'd have to go around and turn the power OFF "To those devices". There is no magic pill (or circuit) that is going to save you money other than using energy efficient equipment. But fixing the incoming power ? ? ? Again I say - - - NOT!

 

The ad for the fake electricity cost reducer truthfully says that It does not change your meter reading!
You are billed for the meter reading then this device does nothing.

The ad says the device saves up to 90% of your electricity cost. Pick a number, any number that says "up to". The number 0.001?

Why is it not available in stores? Because stores do not want to be sued for selling the fake device.

 

OR perhaps you can build an HHO device that converts water into hydrogen and oxygen gasses; burn the hydrogen in a combustion engine and generate electricity that way. - - - NOT!

Unlike your other examples, this one is not impossible when used in conjunction with a hydrocarbon-burning internal combustion engine, which is where it is often seen as a "fuel consumption reducing device". Whether it is practicable is entirely another matter. Many people think that the principle is getting more energy from burning the Brown's gas than you put in to produce it, but it isn't.
A diesel engine is between 30% and 40% efficient - that gives plenty of scope for loss reduction. Adding some combustible gas to the air intake, but not enough to cause detonation when it is compressed, has been shown to improve the combustion efficiency of the diesel, hence showing some improvements in fuel consumption. Search for "Propane fumigation of diesel engine" if you want to know more - there are proper scientific papers on the subject. I don't know if Brown's gas has been studied in the same context.
. . . . but that's not what this topic is about, but debunking free energy scams rather fascinates me!

 

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