Kilowatt Buster?

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bkludecke

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Location
Big Bear Lake, CA
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Retired Electrical Contractor
I was asked to meet with some people last night. They are trying to market a product called Kilowatt Buster which they claim is a device that attaches on or near a conductor and lowers the resistance of the entire sysem or circuit. Needless to say my BS detector went off the scale and I left the meeting with an idea of how I was going to put one of these devices to a real test.

But hey, I'm no scientist or even an engineer so I thought maybe some of y'all may know more about the science these folks are trying to push.

My idea was to measure the heat output of two identical transformers (with no other load), one with the device and one without. I could just measure the current or voltage or watthours with a meter also. They claim a 10% KWH savings.

Or am I just wasting my time?
 
If they're claiming to lower the resistance then the resistance is what you should be measuring. Hook up a load, doesn't matter what it is. Measure the resistance of the whole circuit, then install the 'Kilowatt Buster' and see if the resistance changes.

My little pea brain thinks the resistance could actually get lower since that's what adding parallel resistors does. If your circuit has X as a resistance value before you add the device, and you add the device which is just a load in parallel with the original load, your total resistance will be less than X (what you started with).

That, however, does not mean the circuit is more efficient. You just have another load that is doing nothing but wasting energy by creating heat.

Whatever the outcome, I assure you that the device does nothing useful. I wouldn't be associated with it if I were you.
 
bkludecke said:
They are trying to market a product called Kilowatt Buster which they claim is a device that attaches on or near a conductor and lowers the resistance of the entire sysem or circuit.
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If I have a 20 amp breaker on a branch circuit of 12/2 NMB going to a resistance heater 50 feet away, . . . there is only one thing that will lower the physical resistance of the circuit, and that is a certified science fiction anti-Ω. You know, like anti-matter, you put an anti-atom together with an atom and they cancel each other out.

The copper of the NMB is still copper, the nichrome heating element is still nichrome.

The Kilowatt Buster is pure flummery.
 
I agree with all of you guys. See this is what always happens when I get slow and bored. Since I have an ideal setup here at my shop to test this thing and the company wants to come here and prove it to me at no cost to me, I'm inclined to let them try.

I've looked at the website and the pictures and explaination remind me of the TV adds for weight loss pills or Pepto Bismal. Kinda like the old J.C. Whitney "Super Fire Ring" spark plugs that reduced gas mileage and gave you 25% more horsepower to boot.

Thanks for the verification of my initial skepticism.
 
Their test results are valid, perhaps, but they do not represent any actual installations. For example, they test a small motor, and get a 25% savings with their device installed. Then they proudly announce that the test showed a 25% savings. What they don't bother to say is that that particular motor might represent one tenth of one percent of a household's overall loads. You save 25% on that one load, and you get a net savings (in view of the household total load) of three one hundredths of a percent. That will never pay back a $395 investment.

So if you let them perform a test at your location, be sure to force them to measure all the normally operating loads, with and without their device. Don't let them just connect a small load and test only that load. I'll wager they will not allow you to perform a test in my suggested way. They know it will fail to show any measureable savings.
 
bkludecke said:
Since I have an ideal setup here at my shop to test this thing and the company wants to come here and prove it to me at no cost to me, I'm inclined to let them try.
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I would bet that their proof is to hook up a small motor with very poor PF, and measure the current. Then they will install their device which will improve the PF (which any capcaitor could do). Then they will measure a smaller current, and call that proof that the device works.

If you let them, they will ignore the fact that you get billed for KW, and not KVAR's.

Also, if you let them, they will ignore the fact that very large motors are not the same as a small fractional HP motor. The savings for a 10 HP motor will not be 100 times the savings for a 1/10 HP motor.
 
I love guys like this.
The Kilowatt Buster? synchronizes the motion of electrons in the conductor. The resulting reduced resistance improves electrical efficiency.
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I am totally against unsynchronized electrons. I think this is a bigger deal than we have been led to believe. In fact, I'm thinking there is a grand conspiracy to hide the fact that our electroncs are unsynchronized, probably put forth by Big Supreme Power Infranstructure Leadership Establishment (B.S.P.I.L.E.). We must all fight the effects of unsynchronized electrons.
Fight the BSPILE! STAND UP and reject Unsynchronized Electrons NOW!
 
My Take... It's a complete scam and waste of money...The "theory" does not actually work in the field.

Listen to your common sense. If a claim sounds too good to be true, that?s because it probably is. For example, adding a magnet to your car's fuel line is not going to increase the fuel efficiency by 30%. You have to ask yourself - if such a claim were true, why isn?t everyone using such a device. Why isn?t the government mandating that such devices are added to all cars? Why aren't automoble manufacturers using them in their fuel system designs? Imagine the savings if we could reduce the fuel consumption of our automobiles by 30%!:roll:

Adding capacitors to an electrical system will reduce your total current, but only if you match the capacitance to the size of the corresponding inductive loads in your house, these being things like the motors in your fridge, dryer, air conditioners, etc. Now, realize that these things don?t run 100% of the time. So unless you have equipment to detect what your inductive load is and automatically adjust the amount of capacitance to add, you?ll probably overcompensate as often as you are improving things. The net result is that there will be essentially NO measurable benefit from such device.

These power optimizers are nothing more than snakeoil tactics to get money out of your wallet.:mad:
 
The Kilowatt Buster? is a device that improves the conductivity of metal, increasing electrical efficiency between 10-25%.*
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Snake oil par excellence.
Improve the conductivity of a circuit and it takes more power.
 
drbond24 said:
Could we train them to do tricks and then have an electron circus?

:grin::grin:
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I know, train them to swim, THEN synchronizie them!
user1680_1177150196.jpg
 
Jraef said:
I love guys like this.
I am totally against unsynchronized electrons. I think this is a bigger deal than we have been led to believe. In fact, I'm thinking there is a grand conspiracy to hide the fact that our electroncs are unsynchronized, probably put forth by Big Supreme Power Infranstructure Leadership Establishment (B.S.P.I.L.E.). We must all fight the effects of unsynchronized electrons.
Fight the BSPILE! STAND UP and reject Unsynchronized Electrons NOW!
Click to expand...

Even worse than unsynchronized electrons, are errant electrons. Now if you could eliminate those, you could really save on your power bill!!

"Several errant electrons jumped when they shouldn't have at a place they shouldn't have, resulting in what shouldn't have. In short, a short." - Bloom County.
 
I checked out the web-site.

185 hits. woo

No physical business address.

Inquiries to blablagbla.yahoo.com

Run, Forrest, Run
 
broadgage said:
English electrons should be easier to train than American ones, because they go to and fro only 50 times a second instead of 60.
That gives them more time for learning, before they change direction
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Yes, but they would have to take time out to get their teeth fixed... you can't have trained synchronized swimming electrons with bad smiles can you?
 
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