CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Like as if id care what power i use anyway, i have solar power and havent paid a cent in five years

[redfox001]

My old VW100 had a xenon lamp that took 400 Watt. The electronics added another 100 so that is the same as the Cine Max. These UHP lamps take only 200 Watt. But I remember that when I stopped with CRt my total electricity use in a year dropped significant but I suspect that was because I always let it run on standby. I push the power button now because the SMPS is said to live longer when the unit is not in standby all the time. Hope that is true.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Youd have to pay alot per unit for standby to cost you enough to notice...

[redfox001]

You are right checked it only uses 20/30 Watt standby.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

So itll take 500 hours of standby before youre even at 1 unit of electricity, which is going to take years to get to be worth any effort at all.

[gjaky]

Case 1000/20=50 hrs. not 500, and that's not that funny IMO: 175kWh a year.
When I measured my NEC in standby I also measured around 15W, but with 0,2 power factor, I guess the barco is similar there.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Standby should be more like 2-5 watts. Maybe 20 VA, last i checked the meter with my Barco and a few other items on standby including two sleeping PCs ( suspended, not turned off ) it was under 100 watts. I never turn anything off, standby is there to save me effort. All my equipment in two rooms totals under 100w instant.

I will go and get the meter model for you in a sec so you know what sort of standard we're talking here, but its no kid's toy.

And how do you figure on 175kWh a year? You planning on never ever turning you standby devices on to use? Or did you keep counting as standby while they run as well?

[gjaky]

I measured both my PG xtra and XG a while back with power meter, and also with the conventional U and I meter. The PG xtra measured 40VA in standby and was 15W (with the power meter) with bad power factor of course, with powered up the PFC kicked in and the power factor was around 0,96, while the consumption was around 450W avg.
My sleeping computer consumed around 4 Watts.

I guess they are consuming the standby current even under 'on' condition, because basically only the CPU board that is powered in standby mode that is working anyway, only the power supply working in a more efficient mode, but when the projector is on it consumes 400+ Watts anyway, so +/-10 watts don't really care. I just did a quick calculation if you never switch on your projector and always in standby it consumes 175kWh/year "for nothing", of course the more you use the more the consumption, even if it isn't sonsuming the standby power during power on state.

I always switch off my NEC's main switch and also set the auto power on function, so as I switch on the mains switch it switches on automatically, I find this the best way to use.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Ok, i took a photo of the actual supply authority meter showing instant kW on the apropriate phase:



You see there it reads 95 watts, a list of all standby items on that phase:

Barco CineMAX
NEC XG via a 230-100 iron core stepdown transformer
H/K AVRs x2
Panasonic 3D bluray player x2
Panasonic NV-FJ600 VHS
3x powered subwoofers.

The following are known to be running:
24port L2 Switch
3x UPS
2x computers on suspend mode.
Small bar fridge, compressor not running, no internal fan.

If i bring up instant amps on that same meter, im looking at 606mA, with the 241.659v measured by the same meter, gives a total of 146.45 VA.

Now when i fire up the CineMAX, the white warmup screen going is this:


And no signal, blank screen is this:


So its not nearly as bad as you may have thought

[gjaky]

Why not? I'm pretty sure the barco and nec together consumes more standby than all the rest (assuming the fridge's compresson isn't running).
Barco white screen: 633W-95W=538W, blank screen: 399W-95W=305W, this is about what I expected, though I'm a bit surprised on the 538W, as the NECs never hit the 500W mark, but the 300W idle is the same, with a normal movie nontent you'll find yourself in the 400W range.
But of course who has personal solar farm don't have much to worry about. On the other hand I pay 0,18USD for a kWh, so if I eliminate a 175kWh standby consumption it saves me roughly $30 in a year, which is exactly the price of a new fancy neckboard for my XG

[CasetheCorvetteman]

NECs are an 8" machine, not a 9", so the difference is going to be there with the extra current required for larger tubes and bigger coils.

The price here is 30cents per kWh, which is always purchased on that phase because the solar inverter in on C phase ( which was in the minuses when i took those pics )

$30 a year to you is probably a fair amount of money, but to me here it wont even get you a decent hot dinner with an ice cold beer.

[redfox001]

Great these measurements and calculations! I check the power company meter, it should only bill me for the Watts but as these digital meters get smarter I am not very sure. But my measurement could have been affected by a fridge kicking in or something

Interesting to read that the powerfactor corrector only corrects reasonable when the unit is on. I didn't think of that.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

In the NEC it does, there wont be enough to correct when there is no load. Youll probably find it is in the capacitive range rather than inductive while it is in standby anyway.

What type of meter in your supply authority using?

[redfox001]

On the first the unit is totally off. On the last it is on without a picture. 300W.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

That meter will be pretty darn accurate, but it probably wont tell you which way the phase angle is going. Problem in your instance is youre likely on a single phase installation, and you probably didn't wire the entire home yourself, where as I did here

[redfox001]

Yesterday I noticed that fastening the screws on my cork modified fans seemed to cut the amount of sound in half. I was very glad with that and watched a movie with even less noise than usual but still I was not totally satisfied with it. So I opened the back once more and noticed that one fan was completely silent and the other was making all the noise. After careful inspection it turned out that I had to adjust the cork layer to fit around the plastic that was there for the boards. Tightly fastened so the cork really came under tension, be careful with the screws! But now both fans are almost inaudible and finally I can say the Max is almost as quiet as a digital. Fitting the cork in the right way can really dampen the lower case vibration. Now I do notice the fan in the convergence tray No I will not modify that one

[redfox001]

I must add the Max is not so inaudible as Francisco's split pack as that one was totally without any sound but I might be able to live with it this way. I mean I am forgetting the sound most of the times but sometimes in very quiet scenes I still hear it.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

Youre really going all out with this thing!!! You should hear an AC XG in full flight!

[redfox001]

True I wondered how far I could go with this. Now back to the image. I got a reply from Mike Parker asking what the board numbers where but nothing after that So still don't know if I can try the modified driver.

[CasetheCorvetteman]

When you say modified driver, what are you refering to?