Power monitors on discount

[watervole]

I've found this little gadget from Maplin to be wonderfully useful and mine has paid for itself several times over.

They have them discounted for the next week, so now's a very good time to by one for £15 plus postage.

Find out which items in your home eat electricity and which you don't need to worry about.

If you're concerned for the climate, get one to save CO2.  If you're worried about your wallet, get one to save cash.

If you're me, do it for both reasons!  (I'm finding that almost everything I'm doing to save the planet is also saving me money.  As a rough rule of thumb, if it doesn't save you money, then it probably isn't environmentally friendly, no matter what it says on the packet.)

Comments

[beermat]

I just got one from Ebay, turned out to be a Maplin one, model L61AQ. came to 13.98 with PnP.

[johnrw.livejournal.com]

One thing I've found with this monitor, It doesn't work accurately below the bottom of it's stated power (given as 0.2 amps or about 30 to 35 watts. If you desire to measure low wattage appliances (Satellite receciers on standby etc) you have to run it with a second, known, load to bring the total into it's measurement range. Otherwise it will state that whatever gadget you are measuring in consuming 30 to 35 watts.

I discovered this while metering the Wireless hub/ADSL both on it's own (meter claimed 30 watts) with the tower system on with Network and without the Network up (206 and 201 watts) The tower system is five years old and has a new flat screen monitor.

If you read the instructions carefully you will find this erroneous reading of low power consumption implied but not explicitly mentioned - if the gadget is switched off it accurately notes that no power is being used.