Show power draw and possibility to add power costs

There’s Zigbee models on Amazon. There’s actually Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wifi, and stand-alone ones. Interesting.

And the screenshot you posted shows power factor, apparent, and reactive power. Do those readings show values when power is applied?

Yes, here is what it looks like when the printer is idle - I just turned it on but haven’t printed anything today.

I don’t know if it matters to you or not, but basically all smart plugs on the market will come requiring you to use a cloud service to access them - this is necessary to enable most users to access the device by smartphone when they are not at home. In this case I flashed an alternative firmware called Tasmota which does not use a cloud service so it’s easy to access from the same network but not remotely unless you have a more advanced setup (like I do). Not all devices even from the same manufacturer are compatible with Tasmota so if this is important to you you need to choose carefully. If cloud service access is fine with you then you can pick almost anything. Also note that installing Tasmota usually involves opening the device, temporarily soldering some wires to pads, using your computer and a USB adapter to flash the new firmware, then desolding the wires and putting the unit back together. If you’re comfortable with that sort of thing it’s pretty easy after you do the first one, I’ve done a bunch now.

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Use the smart plug idea. In order to show power draw, the printer would have to be equipped with both a volt meter, and current meter at the incoming power, than an analog to digital converter to convert the signal, then code for the calculations, then more code written in the interfaces, BL studio, or BL app to display the values. And to add logging- more memory in the printer and more code. All of this burns CPU time in the printer.

It’s NOT as simple to get the printer to do this as the OP may have been thinking.

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This is wonderful information - thank you so much for sharing. I built a monitoring system for every circuit in my house and wrote all the software to support it, so this should be a fairly simple task. Some circuits have multiple loads that I would like to monitor individually, and this seems like a great way to do that without having to disaggregate the loads some other way.

I’ll stop replying so we don’t continue to hijak the OP’s thread… but again, thank you!

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It’s NOT as simple to get the printer to do this as the OP may have been thinking.

It rarely is. If I had a Sudbury Big Nickel for every time someone has told me something they needed me to do would be ‘easy’… I’d have a 20 spot.

Fellow Canuck I see. Cheers!

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Cool! I sent you a PM, we probably have a lot to talk about.

Um… folks… perhaps we are overthinking this.

:thinking:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=kill-a-watt&rh=n%3A6369370011&dc&ds=v1%3AsemX2SrvUmSL9KWFXlKqW2s0n4QLLYSXDRRPVagGYk4

As someone who builds systems for both hobby and sport. I can tell you that I have yet to find any internal system cant accurately measure current draw without influencing the draw itself. That’s why in data centers, we use intelligent Power Distribution Units which measure the power draw at the outlet.

There are devices out there and algorithms that can “estimate” a computer’s graphic cards power draw as an example, but at the end of the day my own measurements have proven to that these are wildly inaccurate. That can mean anywhere from 5% to 20% off.

Why do I know this? Because I didn’t read the brochure or marketing BS. I actually plugged one in and graphed the data in a spreadsheet. The data that every system I’ve ever measured vs what was coming out of the wall, was all over the place as far as accuracy.

I have four of these devices kicking around in my home integration lab and one that I keep on my P1. My primary use is not because I’m trying to measure cost, although they are used for that, but rather a system’s power draw can say a lot about what may be going wrong when certain operations ensue. But only if it’s accurate. When I mean system, I mean microprocessor based platforms.

Here’s a model with lots of “blinky lights” and graphing capability. I have the smaller USB cousin from the same company and it’s mostly hype. It also has a cell phone app if you want to show off in front of your friends. :grin::sunglasses:
https://www.amazon.com/Backlit-Overload-Protection-Kilowatt-Electrical/dp/B0B7LHSCS9

And then the other end of the spectrum at $10
https://www.amazon.com/WILAWELS-Meter-Calculator-Electricity-Consumption/dp/B0CLDFX882/

Both do the same thing.

Or if you like to buy off Ali Express, they can be had for $5.
https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-wattmeter.html

It’s no fun if the measurement isn’t available for network monitoring.

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:rofl: :crazy_face: :laughing:

Ain’t that the truth. When I worked in the Instrumentation & Controls group at a power plant we considered calling something easy a curse. Seemed it would always go south when the “E word” was used.

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I do all my printing off-grid, so low power consumption is important to me. I just use a regular in-line power meter I plug the printer into. This is how I ended up with a bambulab printer. They print really fast, keeping power consumption low!