The Power-Mate is designed for short-term measurement, such as a few hours,
or 1 day.
It's measurements are lost if the unit is disconnected from the
power, i.e. it resets completely at power-on.
However, it will keep running
for much longer provided it does not lose power.
A version with data logging
is under development.
Other pages:
If
longer term data logging of power is required, see SmartReader
Plus 3, PowerWatch 220/240V, etc on this site.
ACR PowerWatch Mains Power disturbance recorder for checking power quality
Dent
Instruments Loggers
includes: DATApro™
4 Ch Multi-Purpose Recording Meter ELITEpro™ Recording Poly-Phase
Power Meter
3 Phase Power Analyzer: Lutron DW-6092 logs to an SD flash card. With Current clamps 20/200/1200 amps.
Measure
Watts - Volts - Amps
Cost & Cost Hr - Cost Qtr, - Yr bbh
Energy
Greenhouse-Gas generation - Run Time
Many organisations are subject to soaring power bills but can’t work out why. With the Power-Mate (aka PowerMate) you can take back control through the accurate measurement. It is now also possible to determine the actual running costs of equipment or even identify faulty appliances that are using more power than they should.
In these days of occupational health and safety, safety awareness and litigation re unsafe work-practices, the Power-Mate fills another important role.
Appliance technicians, whether they work on TVs, toasters or instruments and electricians are renown for the dangerous practice of attaching 3 alligator clips to a 3 pin plug in order to place a multimeter into the circuit to check current consumption or applied voltage whilst the unit is running.
With a Power-Mate this is totally unnecessary as these measurements can be safely and simply displayed.
The Power-Mate accurately covers the range of loads from 100mW to 2.4kW, or currents from 1mA to 10 Amps. With the units Max and Min feature, start up and surge currents of electrical items are automatically captured for display.
Operation
The Power-Mate
has several main menu modes;
Instantaneous Volts, Current, Power,
Energy,
Cost, Greenhouse Gas and Elapsed Time.
When in these main modes extra information
is available from 3 other colour-coded buttons.
Whilst in Volts, Current
and Power modes, the maximum and minimum values can be displayed.
When in
the Cost, Energy and Greenhouse Gas modes, the hourly, quarterly and yearly amounts
can be displayed.
Note that measurements are lost if the unit is disconnected
from the power, i.e. it resets completely at power-on.
It is designed for
short-term measurement, such as a few hours, or 1 day.
However, it will keep
running for much longer provided it does not lose power.
| The Power-Mate will accurately measure & calculate to display the following information: Power: …… Watts/now……. Watts/peak…………..
Watts/min Greenhouse Gas: Gas/actual produced…Gas prod./hour….Gas prod./quarter…..Gas prod./year The Power-Mate does not use batteries;
it uses a small amount of power (0.5W) from the outlet it is plugged into. |
Power-Mate
Functions
Each time the “Mode” key is pressed, the Power-Mate
will advance to the next mode. The modes are Power, Cost, Energy, G-Gas, Volts
and Amps (CUrr). Extra information is available in each mode by pressing one of
the other 3 keys.
When in Power, Volts or Amps modes, the Maximum or Minimum
values since the test was started can be displayed.
In the Energy, Cost or
G-Gas modes, hourly quarterly or yearly values can be displayed.
The last
two modes are “CLEAR?” and “SETUP?”.
When Clear is selected,
pressing the “Enter” key clears the totals for time, cost, energy and
GGas.
When Setup is selected, pressing the “Enter” key allows entry
of the unit cost for energy (cents/kilo-Watt-hour), and the ratio of energy to
G-Gas emission (1.2kg per kWh is a commonly accepted value).
Some appliances
(such as mobile phone chargers) consume a very small amount of energy.
In
the Cost mode it could take many hours before even 1 cent has registered.
When checking low power items, the Power-Mate’s display of cents to four
digits is very useful and gives confidence that the Power-Mate is measuring.
When measuring low power items (say less than 5 watts) to calculate quarterly
or yearly running cost,
greater accuracy can be achieved by measuring the
consumption for 24 hours.
The Cost function will then display the actual cost
in dollars and cents to four decimal places.
Multiplying the 24- hour result
by either 91 or 364 will yield an accurate cost/qr. or cost/yr.
Power,
Energy etc
How do the power utilities charge you for their energy?
Some of quantitiesw involveed with Energy are Volts, Amps, Power, Power factor
(the phase angle between the voltage and current waveform), wave distortion ccaused
by rectification to DC and switching mode power supplies.
The Power-Mate
calculates the power usage thousands of times in each second, and integrates these
to achieve very realistic and accurate measurements.
Power-factor is therefore
taken into account in the result.
All calculations (per hour/per quarter/per
year) are based on historical data and are not just snapshot values.
Energy
is the amount of power that flows during a given time.
The Power-Mate displays
energy as kilo-Watt-hours, the same units used by electricity utility companies.
The supply voltage for Australian households is 230V AC, although it is commonly
referred to using the older term of 240V.
When the power utility produces
Energy, a side effect is the production of Greenhouse Gases (G-Gas) which
is mainly
Carbon Dioxide (CO2). The ratio of Energy produced to the amount
of CO2 gas created varies between different generator fuel sources: Coal, Diesel
or Natural Gas. If the ratio of Energy to G-Gas is entered into the Power-Mate,
it can display the amount of G-Gas that is created by the energy use of an appliance.
The accepted value of greenhouse gas liberated per kilo-Watt-hour, for a
fossil-fuelled electricity generator is 1.2kg per 1kWh.
Other Features
of the Power-Mate
When in Volts or Amps (CUrr) mode, the Power-Mate will
display the maximum and minimum voltages or currents
recorded whilst in use.
Both of these modes are very handy aids for service technicians.
The Voltage
max and min feature can be used to determine the quality of voltage from the
power outlet; a load does not
need to be connected for this purpose.
Specifications
| Watts | 0 – 2,500.0 W |
Accuracy for all ranges is better
than 1%, (typical accuracy is below 0.5%)
Note: A higher resolution model
is available which will display an extra decimal point for Watts, Volts and Amps.
The higher resolution model can display: 1 tenth of a watt, 1 tenth of a
volt and 100 micro-Amps.
User Manual, 10A version: click here (.pdf file, 27KB) Energy Auditors Guide: click here (.pdf file 334KB)
PM10A Power-Mate
10A: Qty 1-4, each: $271+GST Qty 5+, each: please enquire 8/10
(Previously
known as CCI-1058)
PM10AHD Power-Mate
15A: $340+GST
The 15A version has a 15A plug and socket on separate
cables from the unit, with wider earth pins.
Hence it is not compatible with
standard 10A power points.
(Previously known as CCI-1062)
PM15A Power-Mate 10A Heavy Duty: $394+GST
This is externally the same as the Power-Mate 10A (i.e. the plug is rated to 10A),
but the internals of the unit are rated to 15A.
(Previously known
as CCI-1058-HD)
PMP001 Pouch available for the Power-Mate, grey leather-look: $15+GST
Other Australian products:
several
specialised products including special temperature probes for PLC use,
temperature
control systems typically used in wineries,
automotive battery manufacture
plate-formation and charging equipment, and
DC/DC converter units mainly
for railway applications.
The Power-Mate has been a very popular meter over the years but it is out of the price range of many people. The manufacturer has addressed this problem with the Power-Mate Lite - their new meter aimed specifically at the domestic market.
This new meter features
* a multi line backlit LCD display
* intuitive three-button
operation
* simplified menus and
* non-volatile memory, so the meter resumes
after a power interruption without loss of data.
As well as instantaneous
power, it displays energy used and the cost per hour, quarter and year,
greenhouse
gas production and some more technical figures such as power-factor, frequency
and VA (volt-amperes).
You can also start and stop (or pause ) a measurement
period.
The meter also has preset measurement period timer choices of 1, 8,
12, and 24 hours and 2, 5, 7, 14, and 28 days.
Even better, unwanted display
screens can be suppressed from view.
The Power-Mate Lite will display up to
10 amps of load, meaning it can measure all common loads in the average home or
small office.
Accuracy error for all ranges is better than 2%, (typical accuracy is better than 1%)
Dimensions: 110 x 76 x 25 (without lead)
Available soon (August 2010)
