On 2015-06-15 05:10, Anton Aylward wrote:
On 06/14/2015 05:56 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
But they should be used to get a factor of one, not to pull it the other way... is that what they are doing?
Close to 1. My PowerCo assumes a 1.0something
Motors present an inductive load.
By comparison, fluorescent lights presents, to a 50/60Hz signal, a capacitive load. (To a kilohertz signal it's another matter! Tesla powered some of his at 20kHz.)
Compact fluorescent bulbs do this as well, to reduce the size tremendously. I don't know at what frequency.
So there is a 'choke' or inductive power factor correction. We take that for granted and don't think about it.
In the case of fluorescents, there is another reason: the tubes have "negative" resistance. If you connect them directly and you manage to light them, they explode.
Hmm. Reality is most people don't think about power factor at all.
No...
When I explained to the restaurant owner what he'd bought as 'power saver' he simply didn't follow and the salesman who wanted in on this became annoyed when I 'trivialized' the matter. To EEs and the like this is "Bleedin' obvious, ain't it?"
I know what power factor is, but I have difficulties understanding where the "savings" come from, for the client. It must be a commercial trickering. If the power factor is, say, 0.8, the actual current has to increase 20% for the motor to move the same load. The resulting power is the same, but the current is not. Thus the cables have to be thicker, and the load on the electricity supply network and generators increase. Not the power, the energy used, but the resources needed to transport and generate it. Thicker cables, transformers, generators, switches. Heavier towers to support the heavier cables. So what they do is penalize customers which do not compensate their power factor to close to one. But, if there is no penalization (and at homes they don't install equipment to measure the power factor (or reactive power)), I don't see the gain in money to the small client. Maybe I'm missing something obvious... :-? -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar)