Went to a homeshow last week and there was a company selling a box
with VY large caps inside that promised to reduce your electric bill
by 25% and provide whole house surge protection.

They had a demo which had (from left to right) a electric meter,
switch box with a plug, a circuit breaker box, another switch box with
plug, and a 110V motor. They had ammeters plugged into each plug. With
the motor running, each meter was reading the same on both the supply
and load side. The box with the caps in it was connected to the switch
box through a 2 pole, 20A breaker and at this time it was turned off.

They then switched on the CB for the caps and the supply meter dropped
by 50%. The supply was reading about 2.5 amps while the load meter was
reading about 4.6 amps. The electric meter slowed noticeably slowed
down.

IS this for real ? How does this work. They claim that it increases
the power factor to 85% (or more) and reduces Harmonic feedback.

Any feedback would be appreciated.


Willy

willy wrote:
Went to a homeshow last week and there was a company selling a box
with VY large caps inside that promised to reduce your electric bill
by 25% and provide whole house surge protection.

They had a demo which had (from left to right) a electric meter,
switch box with a plug, a circuit breaker box, another switch box with
plug, and a 110V motor. They had ammeters plugged into each plug. With
the motor running, each meter was reading the same on both the supply
and load side. The box with the caps in it was connected to the switch
box through a 2 pole, 20A breaker and at this time it was turned off.

They then switched on the CB for the caps and the supply meter dropped
by 50%. The supply was reading about 2.5 amps while the load meter was
reading about 4.6 amps. The electric meter slowed noticeably slowed
down.

IS this for real ? How does this work. They claim that it increases
the power factor to 85% (or more) and reduces Harmonic feedback.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

it's part true, but not about saving on your eletric bill. That part was
rigged.

A capacitor bank can sort of cancel out the inductive load from a motor,
but adding one inside your home won't drop your electric bill by 25%.
Electric meters with the spinning discs don't measure the extra current
drawn from loads with bad power factor.

so in the end, it's a scam because they're blatantly lying to you.

On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:01:25 -0800, willy wrote:

snips
IS this for real ? How does this work. They claim that it increases
the power factor to 85% (or more) and reduces Harmonic feedback.

If it is like the one mentioned in this post a few weeks ago, then
*mostly* no. Unless you have a bowling alley in your basement

From: Bob Ferapples
Newsgroups: alt.engineering.electrical
Subject: Electrical Energy Saving Devices
Message-ID:
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:09:19 -0700

Only three weeks ago so it should still be on most NSP servers. Try
clicking on the message id. Look it up on Google if this doesn't work...
--
William

Power factor correction caps do save energy, due to reduction of
current and heating of wires, and such. With large customers,
utilities either charge them for low power factor, or otherwise insist
on increasing power factor. For residential settings, effects of
p.f. correction should be minimal, since we do not run big motors or
SCR fired welders, all that much.

i

Ignoramus28555 wrote:
Power factor correction caps do save energy, due to reduction of
current and heating of wires, and such. With large customers,
utilities either charge them for low power factor, or otherwise insist
on increasing power factor. For residential settings, effects of
p.f. correction should be minimal, since we do not run big motors or
SCR fired welders, all that much.

i


sure - as long as you don't have to recharge the caps...

On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 08:01:25 -0800, willy
wrote:

Went to a homeshow last week and there was a company selling a box
with VY large caps inside that promised to reduce your electric bill
by 25% and provide whole house surge protection.

They had a demo which had (from left to right) a electric meter,
switch box with a plug, a circuit breaker box, another switch box with
plug, and a 110V motor. They had ammeters plugged into each plug. With
the motor running, each meter was reading the same on both the supply
and load side. The box with the caps in it was connected to the switch
box through a 2 pole, 20A breaker and at this time it was turned off.

They then switched on the CB for the caps and the supply meter dropped
by 50%. The supply was reading about 2.5 amps while the load meter was
reading about 4.6 amps. The electric meter slowed noticeably slowed
down.

IS this for real ? How does this work. They claim that it increases
the power factor to 85% (or more) and reduces Harmonic feedback.

Any feedback would be appreciated.


Willy

Caps will reduce power factor, which will reduce mains current
consumption if you have low power factor loads.

They will not reduce power consumption, which is what KWH meters
measure.

If you have a lot of lightly-loaded induction motors or transformers,
you get some power loss in the house wiring due to the increased
current, but this loss would only be a couple of percent unless your
wiring is worse than marginal.

In the demo scam, they probably had the motor connected with small
wires, which would be lossy at higher currents, to get the power meter
to slow down when caps were switched in.

If the name "Dennis Lee" was connected to that demonstration, I would stand
back, very far from the scam.

Try Googling "free electricity", "Dennis Lee", or "perpetual motion".

Flash




"willy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Went to a homeshow last week and there was a company selling a box
with VY large caps inside that promised to reduce your electric bill
by 25% and provide whole house surge protection.

They had a demo which had (from left to right) a electric meter,
switch box with a plug, a circuit breaker box, another switch box with
plug, and a 110V motor. They had ammeters plugged into each plug. With
the motor running, each meter was reading the same on both the supply
and load side. The box with the caps in it was connected to the switch
box through a 2 pole, 20A breaker and at this time it was turned off.

They then switched on the CB for the caps and the supply meter dropped
by 50%. The supply was reading about 2.5 amps while the load meter was
reading about 4.6 amps. The electric meter slowed noticeably slowed
down.

IS this for real ? How does this work. They claim that it increases
the power factor to 85% (or more) and reduces Harmonic feedback.

Any feedback would be appreciated.


Willy