9 watt pump using 17 watts
- Thread starter purpfish
- Start date
- Tagged users None
So for S#}% and giggle decided tonight to dig out an old kill a watt meter I had laying around and test the draw of all the outlets I have across two EB that I have. The KW meter definitely seem to be a more accurate voltage meter as it actually report the same outlet voltage as a my Kline checker so I’d I’d like to believe the wattage shown is closer to true value. Interesting enough it would appear that on average, the reported watts of the KW meter reports about 8.75% lower then the manufacture rating. The EB832s seem to be about 3.36% lower ( ie reporting about 5% higher then the KW meter ) There were only 3 devices out of all my device that report higher that the max rated. My ai blades and g6 (minimal I think the extra draw is power the power pack is drawing itself not the lights them self for which the rating I think is for ). The other device coincidentally is also my reef octo skimmer pump. Mine is rated 70 watts at max and the eb happens to be showing 77 with the KW meter showing 70 exactly. Perhaps reef octopus quote true wattage and other manufactures give some buffer in there ratings.
Attachments
DaJMasta
Valuable Member
The EB8 is not a precision measurement device, while it should give you an idea of energy use, it's not necessarily going to be super accurate, and it will probably be least accurate at the extremes of range (17w is a little over 0.1 Amp from a 120V outlet), and the granularity of the measurement may mean you're looking at one or two least significant bits out of the measurement device (I don't have one, so not 100% on this.)
Also, importantly, if it's a DC pump in particular, the power delivered to the pump itself is only a portion of the total, since the driver and control circuit can't be 100% efficient either. If you think of the 17 watts as a totally accurate measurement, 8W for the pump and the 9W for controller circuitry, any display, any wireless functionality, and the losses from the AC to DC converter brick.
As a sanity check, you could try another outlet to see if it reports the same (maybe one measures a little different), or you could use a better power meter (at least more accurate if not more precise) to check and see if it's actually an error or just the overhead associated with driving the pump and a normal reading.
Also, importantly, if it's a DC pump in particular, the power delivered to the pump itself is only a portion of the total, since the driver and control circuit can't be 100% efficient either. If you think of the 17 watts as a totally accurate measurement, 8W for the pump and the 9W for controller circuitry, any display, any wireless functionality, and the losses from the AC to DC converter brick.
As a sanity check, you could try another outlet to see if it reports the same (maybe one measures a little different), or you could use a better power meter (at least more accurate if not more precise) to check and see if it's actually an error or just the overhead associated with driving the pump and a normal reading.
t5Nitro
Valuable Member
This is not entirely relevant to you getting a new pump, but I'm wondering if you're still running the 32 biocube? It seems nearly impossible for an additional 8 W to be raising your tank volume a few degrees.
Similar threads
