"Ampilizer"

[SAC]

Actually, it's not fair to categorise prospective customers that way. Those of us in the electrical field can see it for what it is. It isn't reasonable to expect those outside our are of knowledge to understand the nature of the scam. But it seems that's how they expect to sell their product. Bogus claims aimed that those who don't have the knowledge to challenge them.

I've seen some better worded "scams" take in EE's, as well. I heard an EE down the hall from at work me talking to his buddy about some great PFC device his electrician was going to install for him. I stopped by and told him "scam scam scam" and pointed him to some info. A few days later he came by and thanked me for saving him $$$, and that his electrician had also stopped suggesting them to his customers. Sometimes the desire for that "easy fix" and some smooth talking can even win over those who really could know better.

 

[Besoeker]

I am still waiting for my ivory E-Stop button. I know my check bounced, but we can work something out.

I've been around the globe a bit. Ivory for an E-stop just doesn't hack it. The white keys on a piano can be ivory, the black ebony (Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder) if anyone is wondering or wandering...

But Mr E-stop is universally red. Even for those of a right wing hue or have green credentials, or simply in a blue mood.

 

[Besoeker]

OK.

My emails finally got a human response I think.

I apologize for the automated reply. What that simply means is that rather these amps returning to the transformer outside to heighten kWh, these 'amps' are now being drawn from our device (AMPilizer)

That is our guarantee, we will remove and refund the costs with proven utility records over 90 days if the device isn't saving the guaranteed minimum of 10%.

Doesn't really add anything of substance to the "how it works" link.

My response:

Dannielle

Thank you kindly for taking the time to send a response to my query.

However, it still doesn’t entirely explain your figures. If the motor without the Amplizer in place takes 100A total current and the active part is 60A, then the reactive or electromagnetic component would be 80A thus:

Iq = sqrt(100^2 – 60^2)

= 80A


That said, I can sort of understand that you might wish to make it appear simpler for those less familiar with electrical theory.

But what I don’t understand is how you equate that to less power. The motor is doing the same job. The speed and torque are the same as before so the output power, being the product of speed and torque, remains the same. So input power remains the same.

Perhaps you can explain what I’m missing, please?

 

[gadfly56]

OK.

My emails finally got a human response I think.


Doesn't really add anything of substance to the "how it works" link.

My response:

You are a very evil person with far too much time on your hands! :lol:

 

[jumper]

You are a very evil person with far too much time on your hands! :lol:

I agree and if I ever meet him, I'm buying. :thumbsup:

I am still LMAO about a resi fridge pulling 100 amps.

 

[charlie b]

(From the vendor): What that simply means is that rather these amps returning to the transformer outside to heighten kWh, these 'amps' are now being drawn from our device (AMPilizer).

That is almost a true statement. If they changed "to heighten kWh" to instead say, "to heighten KVAH," they would have it right. That is exactly what power factor correction devices do. Before you install the device, there will be an energy exchange between the magnetic field of the generator (or service transformer) and the magnetic field of the motor. That energy exchange is the source of "reactive power." After you install the device, assuming for a moment it is sized to the exact requirements to get a power factor of 1.0, there will be an energy exchange between the electric field of the PF correction device and the magnetic field of the motor. Thus, upstream of the device, there is no reactive power being exchanged, and the KVA being supplied by the utility is reduced. Downstream of the device, the motor itself never notices the difference.

The scam that is inherent in this (and similar) devices is all within the marketing campaign. The thing their web site falsely claims is that a reduction in the KVA supplied by the utility also comes with a reduction in KW being drawn by the loads within the building. Since the utility does not charge the homeowner for the reactive power, they get the benefit of the reduced KVA, and the homeowner does not save any money.

 

[Besoeker]

I agree and if I ever meet him, I'm buying. :thumbsup:

I am still LMAO about a resi fridge pulling 100 amps.

Indeed. And I was tempted to make a comment about that but resisted.
Trying to keep it simple and direct rather than accusatory.
As yet, no response.
And you, or gadfly ever come to UK I'll be glad to buy. My bis sister runs a nice traditional hostelry in central London. Good food, good beer, and a landlady you wouldn't want to cross swords with....that's my sis...
I know I have already extended this invite to Charlie but he previously declined. CB, that invitation still stands.

 

[I^2R LSS]

Gents!

Gents!

Gentlemen,

Give it a rest for a number of reason's:

Investigate a little more into a product before you post your comment and get UL involved. The Ampilizer is backed with an ETL listing which also conforms to the UL 810. But even without the UL 810, The US recognizes ETL. Each box is high pot tested under 2500 volts before it leaves the factory. IF we weren?t allowed to sell this product we would not have been approved to sell it. If you have access to the NEC Handbook hardcover you can learn a little more about capacitors and how important they are under section 460, plus there is a picture of the box opened up.

We have been in the PFC business for many years mostly commercial but we found an industry in residential too. We are helping them as well. If it did not work we wouldn?t have a customer base that we do and we have cities and states that are pushing these products. We have the proper sizing equipment to temporarily introduce capacitance into the system then customize boxes for each individual load.
Energy Start had some concerns in the past as well and when we sent them the data they requested they took the ?bad press? off their website. You are much smaller than Energy Star I can promise you that.

I understand your concerns about the technical page on Amplilizer?s webpage and that is understandable but we are in the business of sales not confusion. It is hard to describe to people what intrinsic and extrinsic line losses is, voltage drop, reactive current, real current, btu loss, and when we do face to face sales and talk about it, the customer usually just says, ?I don?t want to hear that crap!? ?Is this going to save me money and if not will you refund it?? The website is designed for leads not sales. You don?t need to make a cringe in the industry because someone didn?t spoon feed it to you.

Now it is common sense not to get FPL involved because if you are driving down any major road and looking up upon their poles and see these banks that are not transformers. Those banks are capacitors designed to free up capacity. Anytime you free up capacity you reduce heat. Heat and light is watts. FPL is in business to sell power and they are a private company. They have more money than you can count, and they will tell you that. FPL won?t tell you this though, our boxes plus the other companies that are in the PFC business, easily found online, are hurting their bottom line.

Again I understand your concerns about the technical page but there are many published documents with formulas that would satisfy even the most educated of you. My goal is not to make you believers but we would like to save you money. Be nice to Danielle she is trying her best. She?s in sales, not in some classroom, and we appreciate her.

Best,

I^2R

 

[zog]

You are selling snake oil, PF correction does nothing to save a homeowner money becuase it does not reduce watts used, which is what the utility uses for billing. You are however saving the utility money by decreasing the VAR's, same reason they use correction caps and why some utilities even promote these scams to homeowners that do nto know any better. Being UL listed and tested means it is a safe product, not that it does what you snake oil selling website claims to do.

NIST busted this magic box a while ago, don't suppose you share thier investigation with your customers
http://www.nist.gov/pml/quantum/power_121509.cfm

And quit talking down to us like we are one of your sucker customers, most of us are Electrical Engineers with decades of experience with power systems, including power factor correction (To facilities that gfet penalties for poor PF). There are members here from companies like Square D, Eaton, GE, etc...you may have just motivated some of us.

 

[Twoskinsoneman]

You are selling snake oil, PF correction does nothing to save a homeowner money becuase it does not reduce watts used, which is what the utility uses for billing. You are however saving the utility money by decreasing the VAR's, same reason they use correction caps and why some utilities even promote these scams to homeowners that do nto know any better. Being UL listed and tested means it is a safe product, not that it does what you snake oil selling website claims to do.

NIST busted this magic box a while ago, don't suppose you share thier investigation with your customers
http://www.nist.gov/pml/quantum/power_121509.cfm

And quit talking down to us like we are one of your sucker customers, most of us are Electrical Engineers with decades of experience with power systems, including power factor correction (To facilities that gfet penalties for poor PF). There are members here from companies like Square D, Eaton, GE, etc...you may have just motivated some of us.

+1! Great post Zog.

Listen if you want to start swaying the electrically educated on THIS site you best start by addressing the actual technical arguments laid out in the various post against your claim of saving residential dwellings money by using your capacitors. You probably don't realize you just shat in the most well educated/experienced electrical forum on the planet.

 

[Besoeker]

Gentlemen,

Give it a rest for a number of reason's:

Investigate a little more into a product before you post your comment and get UL involved.

I, for one, have neither the inclination nor interest to involve UL.

We have been in the PFC business for many years mostly commercial but we found an industry in residential too.

In which case you ought to understand at least the fundamentals of why PFC is used and what it does. It reduces the upstream supply current to lagging loads. It reduces kVA, not kW except in the very second order respect of conductor losses upstream of the PFC or Amplizer. It is shown on the "how it works" is just following the distribution board. If 10% of your energy use, the guaranteed savings, is dissipated between your incoming supply and your distribution you just might be alerted to this in a rather more attention grabbing manner than than your monthly electricity bill.

Then what what happens when the lagging load, he fridge motor, it's correcting for turns off? And the capacitor (Amplizer) remains in circuit? You then have 80A when you would otherwise have zero. That's a matter of fundamentals. There are other issues that I'll come back to.

We are helping them as well. If it did not work we wouldn’t have a customer base that we do and we have cities and states that are pushing these products. We have the proper sizing equipment to temporarily introduce capacitance into the system then customize boxes for each individual load.

I'm an old fellow and I've been in the electrical field for more than four decades so I have some experience of applying power factor correction. I routinely have to commit to performance figures, including PF, at the bid stage.
Because of my experience, or maybe notoriety for getting that right, I sometimes get invitations to to a bit of consultancy.

If it conflicts with my day job, I decline.
But a while back, one came up that didn't and I took it on.
It was the same as the Amplizer. Power factor correction and claims of energy savings.
A kit was delivered to me and I spent quite a a good many hours collecting measuring and recording data and waveforms.
There was no energy saving whatsoever. And some downsides. An 11% 5th harmonic content - and multiple higher orders.
If you'd like,I can post some of the waveforms and seek your comments on them.
Seem fair?

I understand your concerns about the technical page on Amplilizer’s webpage and that is understandable but we are in the business of sales not confusion.

That I understand. And I commented to that effect. But claiming something that simply isn't true doesn't sit well with me.

Be nice to Danielle she is trying her best.

I hope, for your sake, that Danielle doesn't see that post.

 

[Microwatt]

The worst part is the $15/month after the customer paid $50 for the unit. Kinda like rubbing salt in the wound. And their "technician" installs it. I don't know about Florida but around here you would need a license to install some thing like this. I'm guessing it's fed by a 2 pole breaker, but what size?

 

[jumper]

You are selling snake oil, PF correction does nothing to save a homeowner money becuase it does not reduce watts used, which is what the utility uses for billing. You are however saving the utility money by decreasing the VAR's, same reason they use correction caps and why some utilities even promote these scams to homeowners that do nto know any better. Being UL listed and tested means it is a safe product, not that it does what you snake oil selling website claims to do.

NIST busted this magic box a while ago, don't suppose you share thier investigation with your customers
http://www.nist.gov/pml/quantum/power_121509.cfm

And quit talking down to us like we are one of your sucker customers, most of us are Electrical Engineers with decades of experience with power systems, including power factor correction (To facilities that gfet penalties for poor PF). There are members here from companies like Square D, Eaton, GE, etc...you may have just motivated some of us.

+1! Great post Zog.

Listen if you want to start swaying the electrically educated on THIS site you best start by addressing the actual technical arguments laid out in the various post against your claim of saving residential dwellings money by using your capacitors. You probably don't realize you just shat in the most well educated/experienced electrical forum on the planet.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


Even a slow, no-nothing, wild eyed grunt like me ain't falling for this crapola device.

 

[Little Bill]

I, for one, have neither the inclination nor interest to involve UL.


In which case you ought to understand at least the fundamentals of why PFC is used and what it does. It reduces the upstream supply current to lagging loads. It reduces kVA, not kW except in the very second order respect of conductor losses upstream of the PFC or Amplizer. It is shown on the "how it works" is just following the distribution board. If 10% of your energy use, the guaranteed savings, is dissipated between your incoming supply and your distribution you just might be alerted to this in a rather more attention grabbing manner than than your monthly electricity bill.

Then what what happens when the lagging load, he fridge motor, it's correcting for turns off? And the capacitor (Amplizer) remains in circuit? You then have 80A when you would otherwise have zero. That's a matter of fundamentals. There are other issues that I'll come back to.


I'm an old fellow and I've been in the electrical field for more than four decades so I have some experience of applying power factor correction. I routinely have to commit to performance figures, including PF, at the bid stage.
Because of my experience, or maybe notoriety for getting that right, I sometimes get invitations to to a bit of consultancy.

If it conflicts with my day job, I decline.
But a while back, one came up that didn't and I took it on.
It was the same as the Amplizer. Power factor correction and claims of energy savings.
A kit was delivered to me and I spent quite a a good many hours collecting measuring and recording data and waveforms.
There was no energy saving whatsoever. And some downsides. An 11% 5th harmonic content - and multiple higher orders.
If you'd like,I can post some of the waveforms and seek your comments on them.
Seem fair?

I understand your concerns about the technical page on Amplilizer’s webpage and that is understandable but we are in the business of sales not confusion.

That I understand. And I commented to that effect. But claiming something that simply isn't true doesn't sit well with me.


I hope, for your sake, that Danielle doesn't see that post.

Now why did you go and tell him the truth and scare him off for?:lol:

Seriously, great response. Oh and you too Zog!:thumbsup:

 

[bphgravity]

Mr. I^2R,

Please be aware that your statements and the true FACTS of this product have been forward to an agent at the Florida Division of Consumer Services & the Florida Attorney General's office.

It is obvious that you are complicit in this fraudulent advertising or you are willfully negligent. It is my duty to protect the citizens of SW Florida from products such as this & people such as you.

I have nothing else to say on this matter...

 

[Besoeker]

Seriously, great response. Oh and you too Zog!:thumbsup:

Thank you kindly.
I'm just an old fellow. You pick up things over the years.

 

[charlie b]

Gentlemen,

Please don?t insult the ladies who participate in this forum by excluding them from your greeting.

The Ampilizer is backed with an ETL listing which also conforms to the UL 810. But even without the UL 810,

A listing gives the customer confidence that the product is safe. It says nothing about whether it will accomplish its advertiser?s claims.

IF we weren?t allowed to sell this product we would not have been approved to sell it.

Nobody needs approval to sell anything other than controlled substances.

If it did not work we wouldn?t have a customer base that we do

Yes you would, if your marketing efforts were good enough. ?There?s a sucker born every minute,? P. T. Barnum is credited as saying.

It is hard to describe to people what intrinsic and extrinsic line losses is, voltage drop, reactive current, real current, btu loss. . . .

But it is easy to throw technical-sounding words like that on the table, and pretend you know what they mean, and expect the clueless customer to believe your sales pitch.

Anytime you free up capacity you reduce heat. Heat and light is watts.

But very few watts. And most of the reduction in line losses appear upstream of your device, so it is the utility that benefits from even that small savings. That is the lie that your web site is telling.

FPL won?t tell you this though, our boxes plus the other companies that are in the PFC business, easily found online, are hurting their bottom line.

Another lie. Power factor correction saves the utility money, and does not save the residential customer money, since the utility does not charge homeowners for poor power factor.

Again I understand your concerns about the technical page but there are many published documents with formulas that would satisfy even the most educated of you.

And I learned them all during my programs of study for my BSEE and MSEE degrees. I know what they are telling the world: that power factor correction helps the utility, and can only save money for a utility customer that is presently paying extra for reactive power.

Here is a challenge for you. Send me a copy of your guarantee. I want to know how the savings are to be measured. I want to know the exact information and documentation that a customer of yours would have to present to you, in order to demonstrate to your satisfaction that your product is not saving them money on their utility bills, and in order that you would grant them a full refund.

 

[jumper]

Thank you kindly.
I'm just an old fellow. You pick up things over the years.

Your modesty is refreshing, I am just a tad long in the tooth but as we say in the USA:

"You done forgot more than I will ever know".

Please don?t insult the ladies who participate in this forum by excluding them from your greeting.

And us fellas who ain't gentlemen either.

 

[Twoskinsoneman]

Here is a challenge for you. Send me a copy of your guarantee. I want to know how the savings are to be measured. I want to know the exact information and documentation that a customer of yours would have to present to you, in order to demonstrate to your satisfaction that your product is not saving them money on their utility bills, and in order that you would grant them a full refund.

This is probably what you are looking for. It is tucked neatly into the miscellaneous section of the lease agreement

(j) Service Performance Commitments. CRE makes no express or implied warranty as to the exact performance a Customer will experience due to the fact that each installation will be uniquely affected by any number of variables such as the number and age of Customer?s major appliances, electric usage patterns and subject property characteristics.

 

[bphgravity]

Here is a response I received today from this I^2R person. It's really too bad that he doesn't know who he is dealing with...

Mr. Holland
There are test that were done with a competitors box and NASA found it to work. I would like you to forward this as well but I have the actual document when we here from them. You are not the first OR last old school inspector to be confused about our product. Electrical theory is a hard concept to grasp and it is a shame that educated people like you are only as smart as the people that taught them. The NIST Paper is full of holes and UL cannot say it doesn?t work because they haven?t tested but thanks for the laugh. I would like to see the FPL comments and information as well because they are in the same boat as UL. The references from the NIST paper are from the 60?s. Let?s get something a little more up to date and the Energy Star reference was removed. Again FPL is in the business of selling power!

NASA TESTING
AVO

To: DE-TPO/C.Griffin

From: IM-WEL/J.Weeks

Subject Response to TTA-K517.(KVAR Electrical Optimization
System)
Attached for your disposition are the results of our test on the KVAR Electrical
Optimization System. Approval of test format was received by Gregory Taylor of KVAR
Energy Savings, Inc. on 11/19/96. The test was performed at the prototype shop (building
M7.581) on a 10 H.P. compressor motor on 11/22/96. Both initial and final values were
recorded from a Dranu Power Monitor PP1 (NASATag #1382136) while connected to the
distribution panel DPA.C2 (see attached diagram). The KVAR switch settings were
determined by a KVAR representative. All values pertinent to motor efficiency have been
recorded on the attached electric motor performance evaluation form. As shown on this
form, the real power draw by this motor decreased from 5.63 kw to 5.14 kw after
optimization. This corresponds to a power reduction of 8.7%.

Because your blog is out of date I was unable to attach the actual document. You should not need more proof than this, and if so you will never understand power factor correction and you need to retire. I will say that I do understand that this is not for everyone and with any device proper Due diligence should be exhausted.
Best,
I^2R