Ever wonder how many amps a space heater pulls?

[John Connor]

Wonder no more. Made this long and boring video just for you. LOL

 

[herm0016]

What's to wonder?
Power (watts) = volts * amps

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[John Connor]

But I measured it! 12 amps on the dial. Impressive little current sucker. I made a FLIR vid of the space heater, but upon editing the video I noticed my damn UTM was embedded in the damn vid. Don't want anyone knowing where I live FFS!

 

[Red Squirrel]

You missed an opportunity to say "FOCUS YOU FAK!" while you take it apart and see how she chooshes. I got a clamp meter from same company as well, and an Ideal one too, the Ideal one is not True RMS though, at least I don't think. Actually I don't even know where that one is... in my basement or in one of my many disorganized toolboxes somewhere. Also recently bought a Greenlee multimeter, decided to splurge on that one. Mostly going to keep that one for playing with electronics stuff where I want more precision and what not. I have not used it much yet but it's nice to have when I need it as it can do lot of stuff most DMMs won't like capacitance and frequency, and even duty cycle, of course you can do that visually with the scope too but it's a nice touch to have it in a DMM.

 

[Humpy]

Nope.

 

[John Connor]

Here's what the heater looks like under infrared. I just noticed that the top part with the dial stays warm when not in use. Probably because of the potentiometer. I also saw that the heater draws about 150 mA when off. So I will keep it unplugged when not in use.

 

[cbrunny]

Nope.

Also nope.

 

[lxskllr]

I also saw that the heater draws about 150 mA when off.

That's about 18W, right? That sounds like a lot for something doing nothing. You sure you measured right?

 

[John Connor]

Pretty sure. I'll check it again.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wonder if it has a micro controller rather than being hard wired to the controls. Though are you measuring with the clamp meter? I find clamp meters arn't that accurate once you get below 1 amp. They're good to measure 1 amp increments and maybe a bit in between but for very low loads I find they tend to read high. Does it have a "delta" function? You wnat to make sure you hit that before you measure so that it reads zero before you clamp it on.

 

[John Connor]

It has a zero key. I've clamped onto other things and it really never measured anything turned off that I can remember.

 

[shortylickens]

That's about 18W, right? That sounds like a lot for something doing nothing. You sure you measured right?

Thats not a surprise. Most things nowadays going into standby but still draw a small amount of current.

 

[lxskllr]

Thats not a surprise. Most things nowadays going into standby but still draw a small amount of current.

Maybe I'm unreasonable, but I consider a small amount a watt or two. For 18W I could run a led spot(~65W equiv), *and* a led bulb(~40W equiv). It sounds especially high considering it's just a space heater, and not a computer left idling for quick startup. Dunno, it just sounds high to me.

 

[Rubycon]

What's to wonder?
Power (watts) = volts * amps

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

For a DC heater, yes.
Purely resistive loads are close.
Ceramic heaters aren't resistive as old school nichrome wire radiant heaters.
As a matter of fact, they have huge inrush currents. Not instant, near short pulse like a large incandescent lamp, but ramping up to a high value then tapering down. The late 80s designs did this. (Pelonis Disc Furnace)

And yes, 18W quiescent state is considerable.
Bolometrics is an interesting way to catch phantom suckers. GFCI outlets show nicely and use a few watts too.

 

[John Connor]

And yes, 18W quiescent state is considerable.

I thought that too. Especially since you can see the top there with the dial produce heat at around 80F. Though I can't feel anything.

Never the less. That sucker is staying unplugged unless I need to use it. LOL

 

[Red Squirrel]

Bolometrics is an interesting way to catch phantom suckers. GFCI outlets show nicely and use a few watts too.

I never even considered GFCIs as power usage but I happened to touch an unused one once and realized how warm they get. If you have a lot that just sit there unused all the time that can add up as a lot of waste power. Though wall warts are probably a bigger draw as there are more of them throughout the house. Could be interesting to start adding up all the phantom loads, probably over 100w of stuff in a typical house.

Cable boxes are pretty bad too. They're basically small computers and still running even when "off". You could cut the power to it each time but then you have to wait for the channels to sync up.

 

[shortylickens]

Maybe I'm unreasonable, but I consider a small amount a watt or two. For 18W I could run a led spot(~65W equiv), *and* a led bulb(~40W equiv). It sounds especially high considering it's just a space heater, and not a computer left idling for quick startup. Dunno, it just sounds high to me.

I think the reason you consider that is maybe you dont know much about electricity. As the above person stated, do the math.
150 milliamps times 120 volts gets you 18 watts.
150 milliamps of current is VERY little. And thats all it takes to keep something in standby.

18 watts wont do much work in the real world. I'm pretty sure your hand pushing things around a desk is that much work, or more.
Actually I'd have to check the math on that.
But anyways, 18 watts wont keep you warm or run any mechanical device. It can charge a laptop battery, slowly, over a long time. It wont run any desktop computer. Its more than enough for a modern smartphone CPU but not enough for a smartphone display (I think).

 

[stormkroe]

I think the reason you consider that is maybe you dont know much about electricity. As the above person stated, do the math.
150 milliamps times 120 volts gets you 18 watts.
150 milliamps of current is VERY little. And thats all it takes to keep something in standby.

18 watts wont do much work in the real world. I'm pretty sure your hand pushing things around a desk is that much work, or more.
Actually I'd have to check the math on that.
But anyways, 18 watts wont keep you warm or run any mechanical device. It can charge a laptop battery, slowly, over a long time. It wont run any desktop computer. Its more than enough for a modern smartphone CPU but not enough for a smartphone display (I think).

18 watts is MUCH more than you're guessing.
And 18 watt led light is approx 1800 lumens.
A 15 watt soldering iron will burn all the way through your hand with little problem.
A 15 watt guitar amp (peavey rage 158 for example) will go crazy loud.
You don't generate that kind of horsepower by waving your arm.
Also, most smartphone batteries are around 9 watt-hours, so the screen and soc usually take less that 3 watts together under heavy load.

 

[shortylickens]

You cant translate wattage directly to lumens.

The soldering iron thing is a huge fuckin lie and you should be ashamed of yourself.

LIAR!

 

[stormkroe]

You cant translate wattage directly to lumens.

The soldering iron thing is a huge fuckin lie and you should be ashamed of yourself.

LIAR!

Ahh I forgot, lumens/watt isn't an industry-wide, important metric.
So you've never used a soldering iron before, but I notice you didn't mention the amplifier.
Do you rock, shorty?
DO YOU ROCK?

 

[RLGL]

You cant translate wattage directly to lumens.

The soldering iron thing is a huge fuckin lie and you should be ashamed of yourself.

LIAR!

Mlting point for solder from Wikipedia:
183 °C

Alloys commonly used for electrical soldering are 60/40 Sn-Pb, which melts at 188 °C (370 °F), and 63/37 Sn-Pb used principally in electrical/electronic work. 63/37 is a eutectic alloy of these metals, which: has the lowest melting point (183 °C or 361 °F) of all the tin-lead alloys; and.

 

[stormkroe]

Mlting point for solder from Wikipedia:
183 °C

Alloys commonly used for electrical soldering are 60/40 Sn-Pb, which melts at 188 °C (370 °F), and 63/37 Sn-Pb used principally in electrical/electronic work. 63/37 is a eutectic alloy of these metals, which: has the lowest melting point (183 °C or 361 °F) of all the tin-lead alloys; and.

Is that a for or against?

The melting point of most solder is in the region of 188°C (370°F) and the iron tip temperature is typically 330°C to 350°C (626°F to 662°F).

 

[disappoint]

Maybe I'm unreasonable, but I consider a small amount a watt or two. For 18W I could run a led spot(~65W equiv), *and* a led bulb(~40W equiv). It sounds especially high considering it's just a space heater, and not a computer left idling for quick startup. Dunno, it just sounds high to me.

No you're not being unreasonable.

I think the reason you consider that is maybe you dont know much about electricity. As the above person stated, do the math.
150 milliamps times 120 volts gets you 18 watts.
150 milliamps of current is VERY little. And thats all it takes to keep something in standby.

18 watts wont do much work in the real world. I'm pretty sure your hand pushing things around a desk is that much work, or more.
Actually I'd have to check the math on that.
But anyways, 18 watts wont keep you warm or run any mechanical device. It can charge a laptop battery, slowly, over a long time. It wont run any desktop computer. Its more than enough for a modern smartphone CPU but not enough for a smartphone display (I think).

150 milliamps is indeed a small amount of current when you're dealing with low voltage say below 12 volts, or 5 volts which most people are more familiar with. At 120 volts the power is much greater, at least 10 times more.

If it were 150mA after the power supply of typically low voltage electronics, you'd be right, it's a small current and it's a low power device, but if it's 150mA before the power supply then it's a different story.

 

[Thebobo]

Wonder no more. Made this long and boring video just for you. LOL

Yea you mentioned you were bored the other day so this long and boring video is what you did?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah a watt is a decent amount of energy. Keep in mind that all electricity usage also translates to heat, and a couple watts in a small enough area can actually hurt to touch. So something that is using 15w is not any different than a 15w soldering iron, it's just that the heat is not focused as much, but it's the same mount of heat. That could also be why with that heater they did not bother to make the standby very efficient, because it's a heater anyway, so if it's plugged in chances are you're going to want to produce heat with it at some point, so what's an extra little bit of heat while it's off. If you heat with electricity you also don't really need to bother changing to more efficient light bulbs. 100w bulbs are just going to add to the heat of the house, since you're paying for it either way when you fire up the baseboard heaters. Can't imagine heating with hydro given the prices these days though. yikes.