10 cents per hour - PINBALL

[Caveoftreasures]

I had a fellow come over this morning as part of a government incentive to lower peoples electricity costs.
It cost me $50 and i recieved apx 18 new smart light bulbs, and a electricity "smart" meter. (This is not the rip off meters that companies change your entire meter box readers over to, but simply a wireless reader of what electricity you are using every second of the day).

I turned EVERYTHING off in the house, except 1 X PINBALL MACHINE, and it read that it was costing me between 8 and 10 cents per hour to run a pinball machine.
I tried various pinball machines, and they ranged from 8 cents sitting idle but turned on, to using ten cents per hour when i was playing them. So, the hobby of pinball is no where near as costly $ as I would have thought.
The smart meter is portable, and is wirelessly connected to the main switch board. Certainly a smart idea. A picture of it is in the website link below.

To run all 30 machines will be $3 an hour. Seems like a cheap pinball party to me.  

NOTE - Call 13 20 40 or visit www.climatesmarthome.com IF U WANT A SMART METER. QLD website, but each state has its own climate initiative.

[Wotto]

That is VERY useful information to have available.

I thought it would have been quite a bit more than that to be honest AND I am sure a few of us have had the 'potential costs' entering our minds from time to time considering the ( cough - rip off ) cost of electricity that is getting torn out of our incomes AND assumed to get worse over the next few years ( Thanksto  Al Gore and the other idiotic tree huggers )

[Marty Machine]

Yep, if you look at the stats in your electrical bill, you will see a "kilowatt-hour" charge....

Last time i looked at mine, it was 18cents per kilo-watt-hour, which means you can use 1kilowatt (1,000 watts) of power for 1 hour and it only costs 18cents.....(fee's vary with peak and off-peak discounts too).

Since a pinny uses substantially LESS than 1,000watts, your figures of 8-10cents seem more quite accurate.


On another note, as a nuffer who fills my lawn with xmas lighting each year...people often comment "gee, that must skyrocket your electricity bill" and i just laugh, because i worked out that *IF* i left all my xmas lights on 24/7 for the entire 2-3 weeks of december/xmas season, it's cost me an absolute maximum of $300 !!

However, since my lights are only on 3 hours per night, over 3 weeks roughly, it only costs $40 max....

Hope that helps...
MM.

[goodolddays]

Interesting .. wonder if it costs around the same to run an EM pinnie ?

[Marty Machine]

You can buy a plug-in power meter (dick smith, jaycar etc) that plugs into the wall, then you plug your pinny into it....

It shows you how much power a device uses...and the display can be switched between Current(amps), Power(watts), or co$t(once you enter your $rate into it).

food for thought....
MM.

[Caveoftreasures]

I have been considering, for the past 3 months, of OPENING a pinball parlour on the Gold Coast. One of the biggest considerations was the amount of ELECTRICITY that all the machines would use. After seeing first hand the power usage of one pin today, the costs can now be worked out and budgetted for over a day, week and month.

After playing with the smart meter all day, I have found the following

oven usage works out to be around 60 cents per hour
hot water (shower) works out to be 80 cents per hour (as the hot water service reheats for many many hours after a shower)
large 42 inch LCD TV works out to be 3 cents per hour (note- plasma TV is 2.5 times worse usage than LCD)
26 inch LCD computer monitor is 1 cent per hour
fridge works out to be 5cents per hour etc

By becoming a electricity nazi, I have taken my bills from $650 per quarter to $350 per quarter.
How did I do it ? TURN EVERYTHING OFF, incl all lights, and pretend everything is costing you stupid money, so nothing gets used electricity wise, unless it is absolutely needed.  Therefore, I can put $300 per quarter away to buy pinball parts from Mark C instead of some dam electricity company.  Long live cheap pinball running costs !  

[Marty Machine]

or you could use solar power, charging up a nice invertor ;-)

[Redback]

Heading back to the garage to turn the juke box off,

Red