Author Topic: Television review (Read 401 times)

Volvo farmer · « **on:** December 23, 2009, 08:14:14 PM »

OK, I know that nobody on this site watches television, or plays games on a television, because wind turbines are much more fun to watch. However, my wind turbine is out of commission temporarily and it is the dead of winter, so I have no other choice :-)

We have an '06 or so Sanyo 32" LCD. Plugged into the Kill-a-watt, it shows a pretty consistent 150W. Not bad for a 720p HD television, but it was a little small for our living area. So I cruised into Sears with Kill-a-watt in hand and found a juicy Samsung 40" for $699 that only drew 135W on the showroom floor. Almost bought it and then spotted the Sony Eco series with a low-wattage backlight. On the floor, I was measuring 110 watts, so I bought it, even though it was $260 more than the Samsung.

Well I got this thing home and set it up for home use and I have yet to see 70W out of the kill-a-watt in bright scenes. I think the retail setup consumes more power than the home setup. Sure the backlight is a little dimmer, but the screen is HUGE compared to a 32" , and the HD is 1080p 120hz, pretty nice.

So this is a review that rates power consumption higher, and picture quality and sound quality and longevity lower in importance, because I am living off batteries when it is dark (as it is now). It is just astounding to me that I can get a LCD television that measures less than half on my meter than one made 3 years ago and has a much larger diagonal area!

Cheers, and Merry Christmas!

GeeWiz · « **Reply #1 on:** December 23, 2009, 08:33:57 PM »

Interesting that it showed more watts on the retail floor than at home. Can I ask if you are running it on a modified or true sign wave. We've been discussing a new LCD for new years.

dnix71 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 23, 2009, 08:34:48 PM »

My laptop is that way, too. If the room is bright, the backlight has to be brighter to make it viewable.

I just wish they would hurry up and make inexpensive LED home lighting so I can get rid of CFL's for good.

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #3 on:** December 23, 2009, 09:17:31 PM »

There are two settings "retail" and "home" Obviously, one looks better and one saves energy. We are running true SW on an Outback inverter. I saw an online review that guessed about 90W average, but I observed less than that all night. I just shut the TV down, it is supposed to have a zero-watt standby mode. My trimetric dropped from -13.1 to -10.0 at about 24.4v so it seems it really only consumes 70 watts or so, which is truly amazing in 2010 for a 40" LCD television. I wonder if technology can double energy efficiency like they have been been doing with computer memory and processing speed in recent years?

adaml · « **Reply #4 on:** December 24, 2009, 04:39:48 AM »

Interesting findings Volvo. Have a slightly older Sony 40" and been wondering whether to link it into my system even if just as an experiment. Will pursue it further now so thanks for the insights.

One thing I have noted with my set, despite being an older model (18 months?) is that is has an automatic back light compensation function on it - I don't know whether this can be disabled.

Someone else will know but when I used to be involved with TV's if you knew the correct key combination you could get into the manufacturing setup screen (service mode?) that enabled far greater fine tuning of functions than was available through the normal menu's. (This was with old CRT sets so may have all change now?)

Good luck.

Airstream · « **Reply #5 on:** December 24, 2009, 08:29:39 AM »

The State of California just passed a television power consumption reduction requirement for sets sold there that is strict enough that only 1 of 10 current model sets can pass so look for more models to be available with low power ratings.

Also noted in that news byte notice is they estimate 15% of a Californian homes power is consumed in video devices!

richhagen · « **Reply #6 on:** December 24, 2009, 01:02:59 PM »

That is a nice review Volvo. It is interesting to see the improvement in so little time. Had you compared energy consumption of models when making your prior purchase? You may have just pushed me over the edge towards purchasing a new set. Rich

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #7 on:** December 24, 2009, 01:51:45 PM »

I shopped a little. I found it's a little hard to find exactly what you want in the local stores sometimes.

Here's a really nifty list of televisions and power consumed with mention of the New California Tier 2. Pretty recent too.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/appliances/List_of_TVs.PDF

Rabrsniver · « **Reply #8 on:** December 24, 2009, 02:07:53 PM »

Here's another site that gives a lot of info on power consumption of LCD Tvs.

http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-consumption-chart/?tag=contentBody;nextPage

Also, this series of Sharps uses LED for the backlighting. Supposed to be one of the lowest wattage Tvs. Kind of a LED/LCD hybrid.

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/sharp-lc-32le700un/4505-6482_7-33674124.html?tag=mncol;txt

This review is for a 32", but they have larger which also use the same LED setup.

Opera House · « **Reply #9 on:** December 25, 2009, 12:05:30 AM »

Check the menu for a backlight setting. I have a couple year old 27 inch and I can adjust mine to draw from 110W down to 65W by gong to the darkest setting. Remember not brightness, but backlight. There is a big light behind the LCD. Store likely had it set to bright.

Jon Miller · « **Reply #10 on:** December 25, 2009, 04:52:57 AM »

Of topic a little but this site is good for looking at claimed consumptions.

http://www.sust-it.net/

richhagen · « **Reply #11 on:** December 25, 2009, 06:22:13 AM »

That is a pretty good list to start with for someone looking to buy a new television and wishing to consider the energy consumption. I like the taking of the Kilowatt meter to to the store too. I have bookmarked the list for future reference. Rich

Opera House · « **Reply #12 on:** December 25, 2009, 06:42:13 AM »

A little off topic, but I gave a small MSW inverter to a friend of mine. He converted this small bus for trips and put a brand new LCD TV with a DVD player in it. First couple of times he turned on the TV, the converter went into overload and shut down. He brought the TV inside the house and ran it in regular AC for an hour. Then he decided to try it back in the bus. It ran fine there and has never faulted since. I believe this fault was due to excessive current as the new capacitors started to "form." I know this forming problem happens with motor drives that are stored for long periods of time. Manufactures actually have instructions in the drive manuals giving a procedure to reform the capacitors. That is the only thing I can figure happened.

Tink · « **Reply #13 on:** December 25, 2009, 10:02:45 AM »

Opra House,

That reforming caps does sound like what did happen.

Volvo Farmer,

I wonder what the voltage is at the store compaired to the voltage the Outback inverter is set to deliver? As per ohm's law the voltage will change the watt usage. As for lower power usage in TV's over a few years just look what they've done with refrigerators? Those old Sunspot refers are energy hogs by today's standards. I work at Walmart and sell a lot of TVs. Many people here in the white mtns are on solar and wind power. We were looking at one of the Sony TVs 40" and it stated 165Watts on the label on back of the set. By my calculations that would consume 1.38amps AC so would be about 6.19amps DC. I may be wrong on my conversion to DC since I've not found an exact ratio between AC and DC. If there is one I'd like to know it.

Tink

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #14 on:** December 25, 2009, 12:09:36 PM »

I discovered something. This thing adjusts the backlight according to room brightness. So in a bright room, I'm seeing 110-120W consumption, and in a dark room, about 70-80W

Now the 90W average consumption advertised makes more sense.

Your interpretation of ohms law seems correct, but you need to take into consideration that no inverter is 100% efficient. If you want the low power Sony, you need the KDL-40VE5.

Opera House · « **Reply #15 on:** December 25, 2009, 01:03:28 PM »

Sounds like you need a little black tape over the sensor!

TomW · « **Reply #16 on:** December 25, 2009, 01:49:52 PM »

Tink;

Watts is watts.

Volts times amps is watts. That is it. AC or DC.

Elementary electrical theory does not distinguish between the two.

There are losses in every step from battery to receptacle also so it will never be the exact same figure but as with all theories we are discussing perfect world figures which never actually work out precisely in the real world but numbers and math are the language we use to describe the theory.

Tom

PS. VA and Power Factor not included for simplicity.

oztules · « **Reply #17 on:** December 25, 2009, 11:07:51 PM »

Hmmm, If Tink comes from an area with predominatly 24v power systems.... his conversion is actually pretty close.

" By my calculations that would consume 1.38amps AC so would be about 6.19amps DC. I may be wrong on my conversion to DC since I've not found an exact ratio between AC and DC. If there is one I'd like to know it.

Tink"

I suspect that is how they think up there.....

1.38A x 110V= 152 watts.

6.19A x 25v = 154 watts.

From this I figure that Tink and the folks up there equate their DC battery draw directly to the wattage of their equipment.

Tink, Tomw is correct. If you take the amps x volts you get watts....AC or DC... But it is interesting how local usage has used this odd idea for rule of thumb calculations.

As a roughy, divide the wattage of your appliance by the nominal battery voltage.... ie 150watt TV/48v or 150W TV/24v will get you the ball park current draw from the batteries in DC to drive the converter and power the device.

In this case the 150watt TV would draw roughly 150w/48v=3 Amps DC or so from a 48v bank For the 24V bank we get 150w/24v = 6 and a bit amps DC from the battery....

This can only ever be rule of thumb stuff, as the SOC of the batteries and the converter efficiency will alter the figures... but should be close enough to work in the ball park.... thats why there is no exact conversion for you to find. (SOC = state of charge... were they 23, 24, 25,or 26vdc at the time?)

Now for some messy queer stuff...(and get ourselves into trouble)

The power factor will change the VA.... but not the wattage....which is odd as watts = VxA, but not in the case of power factor things. The extra amps in the VA as compared to the Watts figure (worked backwards), do not have any in phase voltage attached, and so cannot do any work (read watts). The extra current will appear in your fuses and current meter, and wiring... but not a watt meter.

How the converter deals with this will depend on the topology I guess, and be different for each type. I haven't tested mine in this configuration, so it would be interesting what the DC VxA was compared to the VxA of a poor powerfactor load.... are they far apart or close (less a conversion factor calculated with a resistive load). I suspect apart.... ie the poor power factor device VA figure will be much larger than the DC VxA watts to drive the converter.... but I've messed this PF stuff up before too.

...... anyone tried this sort of thing?

...........oztules

Tink · « **Reply #18 on:** December 27, 2009, 09:17:16 AM »

Oztules,

I may be the only one up here who thinks like that. I'm mostly self taught and it makes more sense to me to watch the battery amp hours used than to worry about watt usage. So when I see a generator putting 20 amps AC into the inverter/charger and at the same time see the battery meter read about 84amps DC that is how I reason there must be a ratio between AC and DC amps. I know this is maby a silly way to look at it but it makes sense to me. I never thought of equating it the way you stated using 24volts or whatever your battery is wired at. I've only ever worked with 24 volt systems and a few 12 volt ones. Thanks for the input. All that other stuff I have to think about....

Tink

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Author Topic: Television review (Read 401 times)