Electric Usage Meter

Jo4

I bought a gadget from ebay, which had also been on sale in Lidl, which tells you how much it costs to run applicances. The problem is I have mislaid the instructions regarding how to set it, can anyone please tell me how?

THANKS in advance!

CrabPaste

Is it anything like this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343&doy=13m1&C=SEO&U=strat15 ???

If it is, there's info/instructions on the page I listed above.

This is the one I use from Maplin and like some other appliances at Maplin, I suspect it is their own brand, though nothing on the device or the box indicates this (or any brand name for that matter).

Cardew

CrabPaste wrote:

Is it anything like this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343&doy=13m1&C=SEO&U=strat15 ???

If it is, there's info/instructions on the page I listed above.

This is the one I use from Maplin and like some other appliances at Maplin, I suspect it is their own brand, though nothing on the device or the box indicates this (or any brand name for that matter).

I think the Lidl one differs from the Maplin one in some respects; mainly in that you can enter in a price per kWh and save yourself some arithmetic!

For the OP the main function you need is the kWh display. Every unit on that is the same cost as a unit of electricity on your bill(or meter).

notbritishgas

Hi Jo4 I have the Lidl (or was it Aldi) meter complete with instuctions.As Cardew said you can program it with the cost per unit for the day and night rates and also the times night rate starts and finishes.It then works out the costs for each rate and the total.this is rather involved and you need the book to do it.

However, when first plugged in it displays the voltage.
Press function button once and it displays the current.
Press function again and it displays the watts being consumed.
Press function again and it displays the maximum watts that have been used
Press function again and it displays the Kwhours.You can then use this figure to work out your cost by multipying it by the unit cost.
Press function again and again and again and it displays the various costs if you have programmed them in.

Hope this helps. If you really need the instructions, given a little time I could scan them and email them to you.

Altarf

If anybody is looking for something similar, Tchibo are selling them this week for £9.50.
http://www.tchibo.co.uk/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/uk/-/GBP/TdUkDisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=0000608

It appears to be better than the Maplin's ones as you can enter the unit price of the electricity and it does the maths for you. It displays the current volts, amps or watts being consumed at that moment in time, the highest value of volts, amps or watts consumed at any point in time (since it was reset), the amount of watts consumed (since it was reset), and you can also set an alarm that beeps once it reaches a set number of watts consumed.

It lights up when plugged in as well, which makes it easier to read, but probably doesn't help the energy saving aspect.

Ken68

Hi Jo.....What I want is a Smart Meter, which shows the running consumption, in large figures so that I can see it clicking away the money. Then might be tempted to switch orf something . Taking weekly figures helps, but not immediate enough.

Grade_A_Reject

Ken68 wrote:

Hi Jo.....What I want is a Smart Meter, which shows the running consumption, in large figures so that I can see it clicking away the money. Then might be tempted to switch orf something . Taking weekly figures helps, but not immediate enough.

What you probably want is one of these http://www.electrisave.co.uk/

I picked mine up off Ebay for about £30. It measures the consumption on your whole house not just a single appliance in real time so you immediately see the effect of turning off lights etc.

espresso

Grade_A_Reject wrote:

What you probably want is one of these http://www.electrisave.co.uk/

I picked mine up off Ebay for about £30. It measures the consumption on your whole house not just a single appliance in real time so you immediately see the effect of turning off lights etc.

So it does what your electricity meter does! How useful not.

:rolleyes:

anniecave

Ken68 wrote:

Hi Jo.....What I want is a Smart Meter, which shows the running consumption, in large figures so that I can see it clicking away the money. Then might be tempted to switch orf something . Taking weekly figures helps, but not immediate enough.

Why not then try daily figures, incorporating the unit rates and standing charges if applicable?
In my case our flat's electricity would currently be about £3.50 per day right now.
Maybe if I did this my flatmate might turn all her appliances off more often. Or maybe she'd think i'd gone mad!

Grade_A_Reject

espresso wrote:

So it does what your electricity meter does! How useful not.

:rolleyes:

Not quite. It shows you your *current* running costs per hour unlike your electricity meter which just shows you how much you have used. A bit like comparing your speedometer in your car which tells you how fast you are travelling with your odometer which simply records how many miles you have travelled.

The idea being that if you can see in real time what your appliances are drawing you will modify your usage patterns and save money. You could argue that you could save as much just by simply switching all unused appliances off but once you get used to what your "normal" consumption is you can identify if things are not as they should be. I hadn't realised that my PC which I used to leave on overnight was costing approx 2p an hour to run.
that doesn't sound much but when you start to multiply that by the number of hours it was left on amounted to a considerable chunk of my bill.

Jo4

notbritishgas wrote:

Hi Jo4 Hope this helps. If you really need the instructions, given a little time I could scan them and email them to you.

THANKS! I have sent you a pm.