Fullscreen HTML5Med Res (??MB)HTML4

Net Work Alan Winstanley This month’s column goes in search of vampires – not the blood-sucking variety, but the electrical power-consuming type. For the enlightenment of our many overseas readers there’s an insight into the mysteries of the British mains plug, plus Alan discovers more uses for his Ecowitt Wi-Fi weather station. L ast month’s Net Work column had a power-related theme, suggesting a compact power supply in the form of a 12V mains adaptor that, thanks to its built-in Li-Ion battery, would enable a router, IP camera or similar smaller device to continue operating during mains power cuts. I also explained how the UK’s electricity distribution network is divided into ‘Rota Load Blocks’ and how you could check the coverage of your own block using an interactive map on the 105 website: www.powercut105.com In today’s economic climate, saving energy (and money) is more important than ever, so I’ve been using a plugin power meter to check the energy consumption of various electrical appliances dotted around the house. As I explained last month, I’ve already unplugged or discarded some legacy electricals which will knock £100 or more per year off the fuel bill, and I’ve been surprised to find how some supposedly benign electrical appliances are actually wasteful ‘money sinks’, sometimes called ‘vampire appliances’ because they silently sink their teeth into electricity and cost you hard cash even when they’re not in use. As a rule of thumb, something consuming six watts on standby 24 x 7 will swallow one UK electrical unit or kWh a week, costing about 30p, adding up to £15 a year at current UK prices. In electronics, we’re often eager to know a circuit’s quiescent current but when it comes to household electrical appliances, something that’s rarely highlighted by manufacturers is a product’s standby power. It’s typically buried on the back page of a user manual or PDF somewhere, so you have to dig deep to discover how much electricity an appliance is using when it’s doing nothing useful at all – just being ‘on’, even if it’s only ‘standby mode’. Some empirical tests with my digital power meter uncovered a few surprises: I found a remote-controlled tower fan, when on standby (which is most of the year), silently consumed nine watts of electricity or £23 a year; an old clockradio cost about the same, as did an ultrasonic pest repeller as well as a coffee pod machine. Disconnecting or scrapping these items will save about £100 a year alone at current prices. I found a 300W electric blanket still drew 12 watts on standby (£30 a year, pro rata), while a small 1kW kettle with digital controls was found to use 7-9W on standby, or another £20 or so annually for doing absolutely nothing. That’s entertainment On the home entertainment front, I was gratified to find a Humax PVR only drew a watt or two on tickover, while TP-Link’s Tapo smartphone app displays power and usage data for electrical equipment connected to their TP110 smart socket. 1556 FR ABS IP54 enclosures Learn more: hammfg.com/1556 uksales<at>hammfg.com • 01256 812812 10 Practical Electronics | January | 2024 (not tested by the author) would be the upgraded backlit version of the pricier KETOTEK Power Meter Plug (Amazon UK, item B0BZYN6544) which also shows VA, frequency and power factor and other data. Finding and clobbering those ‘vampire appliances’ is quite a rewarding exercise, for ourselves if not the utility companies – and furthermore, no vampire-repelling garlic, silver crosses or wooden stakes are required! Getting plugged in A plug-in power meter like this Ketotek model offers an insight into an electrical appliance’s running costs. Available from Amazon. a Panasonic Blu-Ray DVD player drew negligible standby power provided I disabled the ‘Quick Start’ option. I found a Chromecast dongle used 3W (say £8 a year) while a Devolo PLC Wi-Fi/Ethernet adaptor supposedly has an auto power saving mode that switches it down from 9W to 1W, but it seems pretty warm all the time; perhaps the Chromecast keeps it awake, hence it consumes more power. Meanwhile the TV set is connected to the mains through a TP-Link Tapo smart socket that’s on extended test (see Net Work, December 2022), and an Amazon Echo Show 8-inch LCD display (itself using a 30W power supply) controls this with a few voice commands. Usefully, an energy monitoring feature is included with the Tapo P110 smart socket. It can also be managed through an app, and by tapping in your electricity tariff, the running costs and usage of connected equipment can be displayed. The app tells me that the TV has used 67kWh so far this year (£20). Incidentally this smart socket also has a useful time switch and an ‘Away’ mode, that switches, for example, a light on and off randomly. Choose carefully as other Tapo sockets (the Tapo P100) come without this energy monitoring feature. Plug-in power meters are readily available from the usual websites for as little as £6. A backlit LCD type makes life easier, but reviews of cheap identicallooking white-label Chinese devices are very mixed, so maybe treat those as consumable items. Worth considering Practical Electronics | January | 2024 Still on the topic of connecting electrical equipment and saving money, one everyday piece of hardware familiar Inside a typical British ‘Type G’ mains to us all, or so I thought, is the mains plug, fitted with a ceramic cartridge fuse plug. I discovered in a forum that many and cable grip. American constructors and electricians which needs no earth, sometimes comes had never come across the British mains fitted with a 3-pin plug that has a plastic plug and, when compared with US twoearth pin! prong types, the British one seemed The British mains wall outlet also huge, clunky and grossly over-engineered has two key design features: a sprung (all true). Our so-called ‘Type G’ plugs shutter that only opens when the plug (also called ‘plug tops’ in Britain) also is pushed in (which is why the plug’s appear in a few overseas countries, and earth pin is longer), and (often a surprise it’s generally recognised that the British for visiting Americans) wall outlets BS1363-standard 13A plug design is that have an on-off switch. Some of my the best mains plug in the world, bar outlets, located in dark corners, also have none. It has several key safety features power-on neon lights. A deep freezer or including sleeved live and neutral pins aquarium might be connected to an outlet to safeguard against fingers curling that has no switch, though, to prevent underneath when it’s being inserted, and it from being accidentally switched off. a longer earth (ground) pin that ensures To d a y ’s g e n e r a t i o n m i g h t b e that the apparatus is grounded before dumbfounded to learn that, until the the mains supply itself is connected. 1990s, hardly any electrical gear bought Every British plug has a hidden in Britain came with a mains plug, so surprise because it contains a 1-inch you had to fit your own, stripping the colour-coded ceramic cartridge fuse, insulation to the right lengths and wiring red for 3A, black for 5A and a brown them correctly to the three terminals, one denoting a 13A fuse, suitable for sorting out the cable grip and fuse along appliances consuming up to 3kW. My the way. Until factory-fitted plugs were photo shows the interior of a typical plug. mandated by law, householders grappled What’s less obvious is the reason for the with P = IV to figure out which fuse fuse in the first place. It ‘oversees’ the mains power cord rather than simply protecting against appliance faults or overloads. Such a fuse is needed because of the British way of installing ‘ring’ mains wiring, daisy-chaining one outlet to the next as part of a loop, rather than using a radial design. The plug’s fuse will disconnect the mains supply if, say, you slice through the cable accidentally; without a fuse, consumers would rely on the main circuit breakers (say 32A) in the residential fuse box, creating a fire hazard. Believe it or not, double- Fake UK moulded mains plug supplied with IT gear sourced insulated equipment, on the web. Note unsafe shrouded earth pin and lack of fuse. 11 This traditional good-quality Britishmade mains plug had a built-in neon indicator. The BSI ‘Kitemark’ logo signifies testing and compliance with relevant British Standards. rating to use, mindful of the product’s power consumption. No doubt there were countless instances of electrical fires or accidents (or worse) caused by the incompetent fitting of electrical plugs. False economies Another reason that fitted plugs became compulsory was that poor quality, counterfeit types were sold that were clearly hazardous. Unfortunately, fake plugs are still seen today on low-grade imported goods sold online, often bundled with mains power packs. They are instantly recognisable as being small mouldings with no fuse, or having insulation covering the ground pin as well as live/neutral. The cable insulation can sometimes be stripped off between finger and thumb, the wire cores themselves may be steel wire, and any BS 1363 (British Standard) or CE marks will be fake as well. They should be thrown away in electrical waste, after cutting off the plug. One thing you won’t find anywhere these days is a mains plug with a simple neon or LED pilot light, such as the traditional BSI ‘Kitemarked’ type shown in my photo. These were handy reminders that something was switched on, but they fell by the wayside many years ago. Back to my energy-saving topic: to save electricity, vampire devices can be unplugged or switched off at the wall socket, but if they share, say, an extension lead (power strip) with other always-on equipment instead, then one option is to use a mains plug with builtin rocker switch and, usually, a neon or LED indicator. A large plug, moulded in black or white, seems to be the only one widely available and these are sold online. They are onerous to wire up but they just about do the job. Surfing around, I spotted a neaterlooking UK-style plug with built-in 12 Two types of foreign-made UK plugs with rocker switches and power indicator, sourced online. The one on the right looks neater, but it does not have a compliant 1-inch ceramic fuse. rocker switch and LED, originating from An alphabet of storms China. They seem impossible to come With winter firmly upon us, Britain’s by as far as UK sales are concerned, so weather system has entered its stormy I suspect they are intended for Asian season as Atlantic weather fronts batter markets such as Singapore. One reason the country with gales, rain and floods. might be that the fuse carrier holds a In 2015 the UK’s Meteorological Office 20mm type rather than a standard 1-inch joined their Irish and Dutch counterparts cartridge fuse. Even so, I’m tempted in giving major storms some beguiling to use them on small appliances – names, and an A-Z list of names is agreed my photo shows examples of both of upon annually. You can suggest a name these plugs. yourself, and the full list and timetable Another option is to find a power strip is published by the Met Office at: having individually switched sockets https://bit.ly/pe-jan24-met for ultimate control and, unusually, a Storm Babet in October caused a few small number made by Brennenstuhl problems in Britain, including at the also have cable exits at either end for non-working isolated farm where the convenience – see the data sheet at: author lends its owner a helping hand. https://bit.ly/pe-jan24-bren Babet blew down an overhead power line Last, an interesting energy-saving socket is produced by Ansmann that isolates an appliance completely one minute after it goes into standby mode. The Ansmann AES-3 uses zero standby power and can be restarted by pressing a 1.8m corded button. A zerowatt countdown timer, the Ansmann AES-1 switches off after 15m / 30m / 1hr / 2hrs /4hrs or 8hrs in case you forget to switch an appliance off. These money-saving products are sold by all the major online electronic retailers. Readers who would like to learn more about the evolution of British plugs and sockets will find lots of interesting details at: https://bit.ly/pe-jan24-ukplug There’s an excellent explanation of worldwide electric plug standards at: The Ansmann AES-3 is a zero-power standby shutdown https://bit.ly/pe-jan24-plug switch with a restart button on a 1.8m cord. Practical Electronics | January | 2024 which blacked out the farm, taking the farm’s telephone system with it. As the farm relies on cordless big-button phones that have no battery backup, when the power goes off, the base station stops working so the phones are cut off as well. For reasons explained in earlier columns, the farm’s residents have no need for broadband and can’t be expected to use a mobile phone either, let alone grapple with a smartphone full of apps. Forget all about email, WhatsApp or even text messaging! Eventually, another cottage owner called me, and I duly headed out in the rain, only to find live power lines strewn across rainsoaked hedgerows on both sides of the country lane. I could think of better ways of spending my milestone birthday, I mused, but I set about calling the power authorities on ‘105’ and we were grateful to have power safely restored later that evening. As a workaround in the farm’s ‘digital desert’, I returned with an old analogue phone and plugged it into the farm’s BT phone socket as a standby, which can only help in case the power goes off again. An LPG cooker is also installed so we’ll get by somehow, as we run through the alphabet of storms. Action weather stations! As I write this piece, Storm Debi has just been announced by the Met Office and regular readers will recall that I’ve been using an Ecowitt HP2551 weather station since the start of the year. I’ve enjoyed comparing weather forecasts with actual events recorded by my own set-up. I can also tell if there’s been a frost or whether it’s rained in the night, at what time and how much. The indoor TFT colour display is crystal clear and the outdoor 868MHz-based sensor array, lashed firmly to a concrete post in the garden, has performed perfectly so far. I’ve had no problems with communications apart from a brief interruption caused by my own Wi-Fi going down, and the Ecowitt website and smartphone app have been commendably troublefree too, uploading and displaying the data captured by the various weather sensors. Overall, I’ve found it a very rewarding experience so far, with nothing to dislike at all. Bundled with the weather station is a single stand-alone transmitter (type WH32A) that displays temperature, humidity and barometric pressure on its LCD. This data is the ‘Indoor’ readings seen on the main console, while the outdoor array transmits wind, rain, s o l a r, t e m p e r a t u r e and humidity data. This model also has a multi-channel o p e r a t i o n w h i c h The Ecowitt WN30 sensor has a waterproof temperature a c c e p t s d a t a f r o m probe on a 3m cable, designed for their Wi-Fi weather up to eight external stations or gateways. Its dip switches have been set to show wireless sensors that °C and use channel 4. can monitor conditions in various locations. The main display sensors are not weatherproof though, and can scroll through these sensor readings should be sheltered from the elements. automatically, in a multiplexing fashion, Unfortunately, the dip switch settings and data can be read on the smartphone printed in the manual are actually upside app or uploaded to the cloud. (You can down compared with the correct ones keep your Ecowitt website data and shown on the plastic case! location private, or share it using links The multi-channel feature of the Ecowitt or a QR code: this works really well.) weather station gave me another idea – how about an in-home monitoring system as well? Some time ago, the author’s Freezer meltdown Samsung deep freezer suffered a calamity A wireless transmitter (type WH31 or when the refrigerant leaked – while the WN31A – same thing) is sold separately freezer’s digital display showed −18°C which displays temperature, humidity on the door as normal, it turned out that and channel number on its LCD. Adding this was only the ‘set point’, and the a new sensor is commendably hassle-free: freezer interior was silently thawing out, it merely involves setting the desired reaching +5°C, resulting in an expensive channel (1-8) and scale (°C/°F) and fitting total loss. Apart from the self-contained some batteries. The main console detects WN31A transmitter already mentioned, the new sensor without a problem. These Terrington Components • Project boxes designed and manufactured in the UK. • Many of our enclosures used on former Maplin projects. • Unique designs and sizes, including square, long and deep variaaons of our screwed lid enclosures. • Sub-miniature sizes down to 23mm x 16mm, ideal for IoT devices. MADE IN BRITAIN www.terrington-components.co.uk | sales<at>terrington-components.co.uk | Tel: 01553 636999 Practical Electronics | January | 2024 13 transmitters to monitor refrigerators, attics, loft spaces and basements this way. You can rename the various sensors to something more meaningful on the main console (eg, ‘Pond’, ‘Freezer’, ‘Attic’, ‘Greenhouse’ and so on) and the weather station can ultimately be set up to send email alerts or sound an alarm, though the console’s built-in piezo alarm is quite timid. I now have five wireless transmitters monitoring their environment, but if you don’t need an allsinging and dancing Ecowitt’s GW1100 Wi-Fi weather station gateway uses LCD weather station, their range of wireless sensors to display data on a web page or smartphone app instead of an LCD console. Ecowitt offers a smaller Wi-Fi gateway, the Ecowitt produces one with a waterproof GW1100 which uses a smartphone (IP65) wire probe sensor (WN30) that is app instead. It is 5V USB rechargeable. fitted with a 3 metre cable terminated in The comprehensive accessory range a probe. The temperature range is quoted includes a floating pool thermometer (for as −40°C to +60°C (−40°F to +140°F). fishpond keepers), a soil moisture probe, This offers the prospect of wirelessly a pricey PM2.5 particle sensor, lightning monitoring, say, a fridge or deep freezer, detector, water leakage sensor and a leaf checking a horticultural propagator, water wetness sensor – all equally compatible tank, aquarium or terrarium, or measuring with the larger weather station. A very soil or water temperature. I learned that useful sensor compatibility table is at: other customers are indeed using Ecowitt https://bit.ly/pe-jan24-eco GET T LATES HE T CO OF OU PY R TEACH -IN SE RIES AVAILA BL NOW! E Order direct from Electron Publishing PRICE £8.99 (includes P&P to UK if ordered direct from us) Many of these items are sold online by Amazon, but the prices do vary wildly; I recently spotted the HP2551 for just over £170 all in, but I have seen it listed at £100 more than that, so my previous advice remains – monitor prices very closely and use the ‘Cameliser’ web browser plug-in to alert you to price drops. Ecowitt accessories are also sold on AliExpress, and I recently bagged a WN30 and WN31 transmitter, a spare anemometer wind cup and a debris guard for the rain gauge, all at less than half price. It seems that AliExpress and China’s Temu are slugging it out for trade: if you have an AliExpress account, try logging into AliExpress using a different email address and see if new-user discount offers pop up. Remember that VAT will be added to the dollar prices shown. The UK website is also worth a look: https://weatherspares.co.uk That’s all for this month – remember that the above hyperlinks are readymade for you to click on in the Net Work blog on our advert-free website at electronpublishing.com, which also has a special page for each month’s free-toenter Microchip competition. See you next time! The author can be reached at: alan<at>epemag.net EE FR -ROM CD ELECTRONICS TEACH-IN 9 £8.99 FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF GET TESTING! Electronic test equipment and measuring techniques, plus eight projects to build FREE CD-ROM TWO TEACH -INs FOR THE PRICE OF ONE • Multimeters and a multimeter checker • Oscilloscopes plus a scope calibrator • AC Millivoltmeters with a range extender • Digital measurements plus a logic probe • Frequency measurements and a signal generator • Component measurements plus a semiconductor junction tester PIC n’ Mix Including Practical Digital Signal Processing PLUS... YOUR GUIDE TO THE BBC MICROBIT Teach-In 9 – Get Testing! Teach-In 9 A LOW-COST ARM-BASED SINGLE-BOARD COMPUTER Get Testing Three Microchip PICkit 4 Debugger Guides Files for: PIC n’ Mix PLUS Teach-In 2 -Using PIC Microcontrollers. In PDF format This series of articles provides a broad-based introduction to choosing and using a wide range of test gear, how to get the best out of each item and the pitfalls to avoid. It provides hints and tips on using, and – just as importantly – interpreting the results that you get. The series deals with familiar test gear as well as equipment designed for more specialised applications. The articles have been designed to have the broadest possible appeal and are applicable to all branches of electronics. The series crosses the boundaries of analogue and digital electronics with applications that span the full range of electronics – from a single-stage transistor amplifier to the most sophisticated microcontroller system. There really is something for everyone! Each part includes a simple but useful practical test gear project that will build into a handy gadget that will either extend the features, ranges and usability of an existing item of test equipment or that will serve as a stand-alone instrument. We’ve kept the cost of these projects as low as possible, and most of them can be built for less than £10 (including components, enclosure and circuit board). © 2018 Wimborne Publishing Ltd. www.epemag.com Teach In 9 Cover.indd 1 01/08/2018 19:56 PLUS! You will receive the software for the PIC n’ Mix series of articles and the full Teach-In 2 book – Using PIC Microcontrollers – A practical introduction – in PDF format. Also included are Microchip’s MPLAB ICD 4 In-Circuit Debugger User’s Guide; MPLAB PICkit 4 In-Circuit Debugger Quick Start Guide; and MPLAB PICkit4 Debugger User’s Guide. ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY: www.electronpublishing.com 14 Practical Electronics | January | 2024