If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I
came across a Silvercrest plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here: <https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/>

The info sheet is here: <https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

--
Jeff

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 15/01/2025 13:38, Jeff Layman wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I
came across a Silvercrest  plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here: <https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/>

The info sheet is here: <https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

How do you know? Does it measure Power or VA? Can it show the power
factor. Pretty essential on modern equipment with SMPS.

If it doesn't measure power factor then it may well overstate standby
power resulting in un-needed un-plugging in the quest of imaginary power savings....

Dave
G4UGM

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 15/01/2025 15:55, David Wade wrote:

On 15/01/2025 13:38, Jeff Layman wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I
came across a Silvercrest  plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here:
<https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/> >>
The info sheet is here:
<https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

How do you know? Does it measure Power or VA? Can it show the power
factor. Pretty essential on modern equipment with SMPS.

If it doesn't measure power factor then it may well overstate standby
power resulting in un-needed un-plugging in the quest of imaginary power savings....

Which is why I included the word "seems". According to the dehumidifier
manual, the rated Input Power/Current is 188W/1.0A (27°C, RH60%). When I
first turned on the dehumidifier it showed the humidity was 70% and the
room temp was about 18°C. The power meter showed 170W. That didn't seem unreasonable to me. Over 6 hours, with automatic control of humidity set
to 60%RH, consumption was shown as 0.5kW (it shows to only one decimal
point). When I have an opportunity to turn it on, I'll try it with my
shredder (motor rated at 2.5kW IIRC). It'll be interesting to see how it
deals with a high-power inductive device.

It doesn't have an ability to show power factor, but I use my other
power meter almost entirely for resistive heating (fan heater), and the
new one will be used for the same. Not sure what you expect for a device costing £5.99 anyway!

--
Jeff

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 15/01/2025 19:01, Jeff Layman wrote:

On 15/01/2025 15:55, David Wade wrote:

On 15/01/2025 13:38, Jeff Layman wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I >>> came across a Silvercrest  plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here:
<https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/> >>>
The info sheet is here:
<https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

How do you know? Does it measure Power or VA? Can it show the power
factor. Pretty essential on modern equipment with SMPS.

If it doesn't measure power factor then it may well overstate standby
power resulting in un-needed un-plugging in the quest of imaginary power
savings....

Which is why I included the word "seems". According to the dehumidifier manual, the rated Input Power/Current is 188W/1.0A (27°C, RH60%). When I first turned on the dehumidifier it showed the humidity was 70% and the
room temp was about 18°C. The power meter showed 170W. That didn't seem unreasonable to me. Over 6 hours, with automatic control of humidity set
to 60%RH, consumption was shown as 0.5kW (it shows to only one decimal point). When I have an opportunity to turn it on, I'll try it with my shredder (motor rated at 2.5kW IIRC). It'll be interesting to see how it deals with a high-power inductive device.

its low power capacitive devices that seem most problematic. You are not
going to use the shredder for many minutes...

It doesn't have an ability to show power factor, but I use my other
power meter almost entirely for resistive heating (fan heater), and the
new one will be used for the same. Not sure what you expect for a device costing £5.99 anyway!

Not a lot, but if I am really trying to save money it would help to know
if its real power or not.,..

Dave

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:38:31 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I
came across a Silvercrest plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here: ><https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/>

The info sheet is here: ><https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

Thanks for the headsup: following your tip I bought one yesterday.

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

Funnily enough, one of the first things I tried it on was a
mini-dehumidifier which runs off a 9v wall-wart. The next thing I
tried was a mains powered table fan.

Why should this be interesting? Because they were plugged into
adjacent sockets on a twin-gang outlet and after I unplugged the wall
wart from the Silvercrest Plug-in power meter I plugged it into the
empty socket and then plugged the table fan into the power meter which
was still in the other socket..

...at which point the wall wart blew up.

Literally.

With a Bnag! and the letting out of all the Magic Smoke.

And the top blew off and flew across the room. (It was a small room,
mind.)

I presume the wall wart's time had just come and I hope the presence
of the power meter was coincidental - I can't see how it could have
influenced anything like that - but I thought I'd just mention what
happened anyway.

Nick

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 18/01/2025 20:12, Nick Odell wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:38:31 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I
came across a Silvercrest plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here:
<https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/> >>
The info sheet is here:
<https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

Thanks for the headsup: following your tip I bought one yesterday.

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

Funnily enough, one of the first things I tried it on was a
mini-dehumidifier which runs off a 9v wall-wart. The next thing I
tried was a mains powered table fan.

Why should this be interesting? Because they were plugged into
adjacent sockets on a twin-gang outlet and after I unplugged the wall
wart from the Silvercrest Plug-in power meter I plugged it into the
empty socket and then plugged the table fan into the power meter which
was still in the other socket..

...at which point the wall wart blew up.

Literally.

With a Bnag! and the letting out of all the Magic Smoke.

And the top blew off and flew across the room. (It was a small room,
mind.)

I presume the wall wart's time had just come and I hope the presence
of the power meter was coincidental - I can't see how it could have influenced anything like that - but I thought I'd just mention what
happened anyway.

Wow! Looks like a capacitor in the SMPS wallwart blew. Must have been
pure coincidence, but more than a little unnerving. Out of interest, did
the power meter show anything vaguely accurate with the wallwart power
supply? Unless designed for them, they don't tend to be accurate with an
SMPS. I'll have to try one with a 60W SMPS for another dehumidifier I
have to see what it shows.

--
Jeff

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 09:17:20 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

On 18/01/2025 20:12, Nick Odell wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:38:31 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I >>> came across a Silvercrest plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here:
<https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/> >>>
The info sheet is here:
<https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

Thanks for the headsup: following your tip I bought one yesterday.

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

Funnily enough, one of the first things I tried it on was a
mini-dehumidifier which runs off a 9v wall-wart. The next thing I
tried was a mains powered table fan.

Why should this be interesting? Because they were plugged into
adjacent sockets on a twin-gang outlet and after I unplugged the wall
wart from the Silvercrest Plug-in power meter I plugged it into the
empty socket and then plugged the table fan into the power meter which
was still in the other socket..

...at which point the wall wart blew up.

Literally.

With a Bnag! and the letting out of all the Magic Smoke.

And the top blew off and flew across the room. (It was a small room,
mind.)

I presume the wall wart's time had just come and I hope the presence
of the power meter was coincidental - I can't see how it could have
influenced anything like that - but I thought I'd just mention what
happened anyway.

Wow! Looks like a capacitor in the SMPS wallwart blew. Must have been
pure coincidence, but more than a little unnerving. Out of interest, did
the power meter show anything vaguely accurate with the wallwart power >supply? Unless designed for them, they don't tend to be accurate with an >SMPS. I'll have to try one with a 60W SMPS for another dehumidifier I
have to see what it shows.

My digital multimeter and this powermeter each show my mains voltage
to be the somewhat unlikely 243v while my analogue multimeter shows
the more expected 230v. So given that possible variation, yes, the
results with devices with known outputs were pretty close to
expectation. Close enough that I'd believe that the one or two items
which read differently are probably running out of spec. As for the
wall wart: the mini-dehumidifier claims to consume 24w and the
powermeter was telling me that its wall wart was consuming 25w under
load.

Nick

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 15/01/2025 15:55, David Wade wrote:

On 15/01/2025 13:38, Jeff Layman wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today
I came across a Silvercrest plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the
one shown here:
<https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/> >>

The info sheet is here:
<https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>


I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

How do you know? Does it measure Power or VA? Can it show the power
factor. Pretty essential on modern equipment with SMPS.

If it doesn't measure power factor then it may well overstate standby
power resulting in un-needed un-plugging in the quest of imaginary power savings....

Dave
G4UGM

At a time of minimum use , ie only have on standby units that you have
you keep on , unplug the fridge/freezer and anything else intermittant
like laptop chearger etc, for an hour if possible and note the
teadingson the utility meter. And then an hour of something of constant
highish consumption , noting readings on utility meter and plug-in-line
meter , and compare compensated readings

--
Global sea level rise to 2100 from curve-fitted existing altimetry data <http://diverse.4mg.com/slr.htm>

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 18/01/2025 20:12, Nick Odell wrote:

On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:38:31 +0000, Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

If anyone's interested, while walking round the "Middle of Lidl" today I
came across a Silvercrest plug-in power meter for £5.99. I couldn't
find it in the current webpages, but it seems to be the same as the one
shown here:
<https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/silvercrest-plug-in-power-meter-4446875/> >>
The info sheet is here:
<https://media.sit-connect.com/public/articlemanual/91d268dc-a0d4-4cec-bd6b-1e496773525c.pdf>

Thanks for the headsup: following your tip I bought one yesterday.

I just tried it on a dehumidifier I have and it seems to be accurate.

Funnily enough, one of the first things I tried it on was a
mini-dehumidifier which runs off a 9v wall-wart. The next thing I
tried was a mains powered table fan.

Why should this be interesting? Because they were plugged into
adjacent sockets on a twin-gang outlet and after I unplugged the wall
wart from the Silvercrest Plug-in power meter I plugged it into the
empty socket and then plugged the table fan into the power meter which
was still in the other socket..

...at which point the wall wart blew up.

Literally.

With a Bnag! and the letting out of all the Magic Smoke.

And the top blew off and flew across the room. (It was a small room,
mind.)

I presume the wall wart's time had just come and I hope the presence
of the power meter was coincidental - I can't see how it could have influenced anything like that - but I thought I'd just mention what
happened anyway.

If it's an Inkbird it would be because it tries to take 40W from a 27W
PSU. They are always overheating and blowing up.

--
Max Demian

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Nick Odell wrote:

My digital multimeter and this powermeter each show my mains voltage
to be the somewhat unlikely 243v while my analogue multimeter shows
the more expected 230v.

I'd say 243V isn't unlikely, voltages up to 253 are within spec, mine
tends to be at the upper range, though I don't think I've measured it
since they local substation was on-generator for a week while they "did something" to it ...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)