Electronic Saving Box Device - Worth Buying ?

[MrScratch]

Ive been having a few problems at home with the electrics and while looking at Lazada online , I came across this product.

 

 

Product details  -  28KW Electricity Power Energy Factor Saver Electronic Saving Box Device Tools EU Plug

 

Made of high quality ABS materials, environmental-friendly and durable, harmless and safe to use.

Perfect for heavy duty load or monthly consumption within 28KW, prevents electrical overheating, prolongs the life of electrical devices.

 

Protect appliance
Anti-theft electricity
Lightning protection
Over heating protection
Line loss prevention

 

Save and reduce energy by stabilizing the voltage which in turn results in reductions in power demand and less waste of efficient power.

 

Simple operation, just plug the electricity-saved box into any socket at home, no need other parts.

 

Link

 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/28kw-electricity-power-energy-factor-saver-electronic-saving-box-device-tools-eu-plug-i169679810-s210968798.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlistcategory.list.54.3b9a33583t6q2l&search=1

 

I’m wondering if this unit would be of benefit and worth buying , and how can such a small looking thing do so many things ? and has a 4.8/5 ★ rating 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[worgeordie]

Is it made by the same company that made the bomb detectors,that

Thailand bought for a lot of money and continued to say they worked,

regards worgeordie

[Farangwithaplan]

"I’m wondering if this unit would be of benefit and worth buying , and how can such a small looking thing do so many things ? and has a 4.8/5 ★ rating "

 

It certainly will. But that is small fry...Come closer. I don't want anyone else to hear this.....I've got these new anti gravity devices... Only got a few left.... Mate's rates... PM me.

 

[impulse]

33 minutes ago, MrScratch said:

I’m wondering if this unit would be of benefit and worth buying , and how can such a small looking thing do so many things ? and has a 4.8/5 ★ rating 

 

With only 8 reviews, easy.  Buy 8 for myself under different aliases and write 8 glowing reviews.

 

[Fruit Trader]

Same as...

 

[Inn Between]

The only things inside that box are a 2-micro-farad capacitor and an LED. What do you expect them to do? It sure isn't going to save any money on your electricity bill, and the only possible benefit I can see would be to possibly condition the power slightly, but even that's unlikely. 

 

I suspect the rave reviews were concocted in-house, 

[CharlieH]

It will save you 105 baht........if you DONT BUY IT.

[bankruatsteve]

I don't see how that thing plugged into a socket somewhere can affect power factor of say the water pump.  Most domestic stuff has power factor of 1.  Stabilizing voltage is a good thing but it will neither save or spend energy.  Thai's will give Lazada a 5 if they receive the package.

[sometimewoodworker]

7 hours ago, MrScratch said:

I’m wondering if this unit would be of benefit and worth buying , and how can such a small looking thing do so many things ? and has a 4.8/5 ★ rating 

It isn't, it can't.

 

 

https://youtu.be/G9dFzRFyCcQ

[Crossy]

As above it probably contains a capacitor, LED and limiting resistor for the LED.

 

The use of capacitors for Power Factor Correction is well known and useful in large industrial installations. How about in a domestic situation?

 

Let's try a worked example.

 

Our theoretical home has a couple of 12000BTU aircons running 24/7 (keep the sums simple), these will consume about 2.4kW (again let's assume they are at 100% duty cycle). If they are non-inverter the power factor will be about 0.8 (ok they are pretty old aircons).

 

The ideal PF is 1.0, so let's aim for that.

 

There are plenty of web sites that will show you have to do this calculation so I'll use an on-line calculator https://myelectrical.com/tools/power-factor-correction-calculator

 

Our 2.4kW @ 0.8 PF will need about  2kVAr of correction.

 

We need to convert that to a capacitor value, another handy-dandy calculator here http://ambercaps.com/kvar-uf/

 

Feeding in our numbers plus 220V and 50Hz gives us a capacitance of 131uF.

 

Our supply current will decrease from an uncorrected 13.6A to a corrected 10.9A. WOW that's a reduction of 20%!!

 

So we can nip down to Amorn and get a 131uF, 230VAC capacitor, stick it on our supply and start saving then?

 

Well, not really (or we would all be doing it).

 

Sadly domestic electricity meters are true Watt/Hour meters, they actually ignore the PF (and its associated reactive power) and only bill you for actual energy used. 

 

So your bill will remain identical.

 

Total saving ZERO!

 

So what about or industrial installations, why do they use PF correction?

 

Big users are actually billed extra for poor Power Factor as their reactive power is actually a significant strain on the infrastructure for no charge if they are only billed for real power. The industrial metering system measures both real power (kW) and apparent power (kVA) and the billing system applies a suitable penalty.

 

 

 

[Crossy]

Just to put a real-world spin on the above.

 

The measured Power Factor of our home (yes, I'm a sad git who actually measures and logs this twice a second along with the supply voltage and current) averages at about 0.85.

 

When I turn on the lounge aircon (Hitachi 23,000 BTU, inverter) the overall power factor actually improves to nearly 0.9 ???? 

 

Evidently the aircon has a very good PF (probably active PF control in the inverter) so it drags the total in a good direction.

 

Still doesn't save any money ????

 

[tjo o tjim]

Crossy—

Having done that same calculation and then going through pre- and post-installation data for these capacitor based energy savings devices, there is more to the equation than just savings on voltage drop.  We had waveform captures before and after of compressor starting, and you could see that the compressor got up to speed faster and began producing useful work sooner with the capacitors installed vs without.  For a compressor that cycles frequently it made a meaningful difference in energy consumption— about 5-7%.  Part of that savings came from improved motor operation as well, but that was harder to gather from the data we collected.

 

All that said, this was a device installed at the compressor starter as close to the motor as possible, and was (theoretically) more than just a power factor correction system.

 

The manufacturer claimed similar savings with rectifiers, but I didn’t have any evidence to prove that.

 

This product isn’t the same manufacturer or installation... but there are savings devices that are useful “black boxes.”

[bankruatsteve]

8 minutes ago, tjo o tjim said:

All that said, this was a device installed at the compressor starter as close to the motor as possible, and was (theoretically) more than just a power factor correction system.

What (theoretically) "more" do you think it does?

[Crossy]

 

There was, for a while, a market in the UK for "voltage optimisation devices", these were basically an adjustable transformer which took the UK 230-240V in and output 220V. The idea being that, because most motors were designed for the European 220V system they would be more efficient on 220V than the overvoltage of 230-240V.

 

Indeed induction motors when run over-voltage disspate more heat and have a poorer PF so savings are possible. Sadly in most cases the ROI was impossibly long.

 

Oh, and they cost rather more than 105 Baht.

 

https://www.greenvisionenergy.co.uk/matt-e-b60