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meter

enireh said:
a customer today said she has heard of devices that will slow the meter down

input anyone?
Click to expand...


what if everything electrical is giving a once over and tightened down like it should be? if connections are not tight that can cause more current to be drawn?
 
enireh said:
a customer today said she has heard of devices that will slow the meter down
Click to expand...
That seems vaguely familiar. I believe it only would work in a much older style of meter, perhaps many decades older than the meters used today. It would interfere with the proper operation of a meter through a magnetic interaction. It would cause the meter to report a lower usage of energy than the building was actually using. It was, of course, illegal to use.

 
enireh said:
what if everything electrical is giving a once over and tightened down like it should be? if connections are not tight that can cause more current to be drawn?
Click to expand...
I don't think that would have a significant impact on the meter reading. Loose connections can cause heating, which in turn can cause fires. Loose or disconnected neutral wires can cause the voltage on one or more devices to be far higher, or far lower, than normal, leading to equipment failures. But neither circumstance would result in a higher current flow.

 
meter

charlie b said:
That seems vaguely familiar. I believe it only would work in a much older style of meter, perhaps many decades older than the meters used today. It would interfere with the proper operation of a meter through a magnetic interaction. It would cause the meter to report a lower usage of energy than the building was actually using. It was, of course, illegal to use.

Click to expand...
gracias
 
enireh said:
what if everything electrical is giving a once over and tightened down like it should be? if connections are not tight that can cause more current to be drawn?
Click to expand...
Not enough to be really noticeable.
Only motor loads and some power supplies and lighting ballasts will react to reduced voltage by drawing more current. The losses in bad connections would have to reach the point where they are smoking before the lost power will noticeably affect your meter reading.

Some people will try to tell you that adding in Power Factor Correction capacitors will slow the meter down. It will not.
 
enireh said:
a customer today said she has heard of devices that will slow the meter down

input anyone?
Click to expand...

I know of a hotel in Mexico where a former owner had put some sort of device in the meter can that slowed down the meter. It was magnetic in design, I believe. It was there unbeknownst to the friend of mine who bought the place, and years later when the utility came to upgrade the service they found the device. They were not amused and the fines and recovery fees were huge.

In a related story...

I had a roommate in college who (after I had moved out) discovered that he could pull the meter out of its base and turn it upside down to make it run backwards. He did this for a few days every month. One month the meter reader came by a few days earlier than usual with the logical result. He did manage to stay out of jail but it was expensive.
 
ggunn said:
I know of a hotel in Mexico where a former owner had put some sort of device in the meter can that slowed down the meter. It was magnetic in design, I believe. It was there unbeknownst to the friend of mine who bought the place, and years later when the utility came to upgrade the service they found the device. They were not amused and the fines and recovery fees were huge.
Click to expand...


The disk is a conductive aluminum disk that is moved by the "drag" of induced currents and external coils, and has a damping mechanism that makes the the speed of motion proportional to the driving force.
By adding a strong external magnetic field (DC) in the right orientation you can increase the drag beyond that of the normal damping mechanism and so change the proportion between power and rotational speed.

An external magnet will have no effect on a purely electronic meter, but the POCO will still get bent out of shape if they see a magnet.
 
Old School

Old School

You can drill a hole in the meter cover and put a wire through the hole to drag on the disk of a mechanical cable. However someone may notice.

I saw a picture of this somewhere. The hole was drilled through the label explaining the legal penalty for meter tampering.

Years ago (statute of limitations has expired) when:

1) fuses were placed in the hot and neutral leads
2) fuses were placed ahead of the meter
3) services were 110VAC

my sainted father reversed the hot and neutral on each side of the meter. The meter only had a single current winding so the neutral current flowed
through it rather than the hot current. And some of the neutral current was bypassed around the meter by the earth connection.

It used to be that if you successfully "took over" the computer at a computer center they would hire you as a systems programmer. In my father's case they hired him as a metering tech at the POCO.
 
Quicky Inspections

Quicky Inspections

A local inspector decided to make the inspection process faster. He would drive up, the electrician would come to the car, and the inspector would give him the "Passed" signed sticker.

Later the POCO found that some of the meter sockets so inspected had continuous service conductors passing through the socket with hot wires stripped and placed in LINE and LOAD lugs, but not cut between the LINE and LOAD lugs.

The Inspector was "struck off the list" by the POCO, but I don't know if he kept his license.

I also don't know if he got a "cut" from the lack of "cut".
 
Well...by the name I use (meternerd), you may suspect I know a bit about meters. Well....the times they are a changin' The old mechanical meters were a bit more easily tampered with....magnets, wires, etc. New solid state meters are not. They will record + Kwh even when inverted (they will also record reverse power and send alarms to the POCO). There are still ways to "cheat", but I'm obviously not going to go into details. Most require cutting seals, which POCO's check on a regular basis. Many require removing the meter from the socket, which will cause a "meter removal" alarm to be transmitted to the POCO. Billing records are also monitored for unusual usage patterns, which can cause the POCO to send out a tech to investigate. Bottom line is....better just to turn things off to save power, rather than try to "cheat the system". Depending on the utility, prosecution for "theft of services" is becoming more common, and judges tend to side with the utility. Why risk it for a few bucks? I had at least several dozen files on tampering that resulted in back-charges, penalties and prosecution. They don't call them "smart meters" for nothing. Devices which say they'll cut the power bill by reducing "power factor" are useless for most installations, since most residential power factors are near 1.0 anyway and residential are not charged for poor power factor. We test residential meters at 50% power factor and they must still test within +/- .2%. But...hey...if you want to spend the money on the "Miracle Power Machine" that the power companies are "terrified of"....go ahead.
 
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meter

GoldDigger said:
Not enough to be really noticeable.
Only motor loads and some power supplies and lighting ballasts will react to reduced voltage by drawing more current. The losses in bad connections would have to reach the point where they are smoking before the lost power will noticeably affect your meter reading.

Some people will try to tell you that adding in Power Factor Correction capacitors will slow the meter down. It will not.
Click to expand...



thank you much!
 
charlie b said:
That seems vaguely familiar. I believe it only would work in a much older style of meter, perhaps many decades older than the meters used today. It would interfere with the proper operation of a meter through a magnetic interaction. It would cause the meter to report a lower usage of energy than the building was actually using. It was, of course, illegal to use.

Click to expand...

It works on old style meters. We tried it in the w/shop with two meters in series and a fixed load.

Get it wrong and the meter speeds up ;-)

No, I’m not saying how it’s done.


The East Midlands Electricity Board training college had a “black museum” of some of the tricks customers got up to. The classic was a carving knife through the front of the meter jambing the disc.
 
charlie b said:
I don't think that would have a significant impact on the meter reading. Loose connections can cause heating, which in turn can cause fires. Loose or disconnected neutral wires can cause the voltage on one or more devices to be far higher, or far lower, than normal, leading to equipment failures. But neither circumstance would result in a higher current flow.
Click to expand...
Exactly. A watt is a watt is a watt.

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk
 
GoldDigger said:
Not enough to be really noticeable.
Only motor loads and some power supplies and lighting ballasts will react to reduced voltage by drawing more current. The losses in bad connections would have to reach the point where they are smoking before the lost power will noticeably affect your meter reading.

Some people will try to tell you that adding in Power Factor Correction capacitors will slow the meter down. It will not.
Click to expand...
Heat is current. And heat is hard on devices. So the old torque once over is a great idea!

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Tapatalk
 
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