How much does it cost to run 25,000 lights

fasteddy

I have C.L.A.P
Global moderator
Joined
Apr 26, 2010
Messages
6,648
Location
Albion Park NSW
Back in the old incandescent days people used to get the consumer mains power line upgraded from the street and their power boards upgraded to cope with the extra current needed to run a large display using incandescent. Many used to suffer strobing lights in their house as when the lights would come on and off then this would create a voltage dip in the supply that caused your lights to dim. I had this issue originally before I went to LEDs
LEDs allow us to have massive displays using our existing power systems of our houses
 

denno020

Apprentice elf
Joined
Nov 22, 2016
Messages
85
Location
Adelaide
I wonder what the comparison would be to using 25,000 pixels.. I guess the obvious answer would be 3 times as much as the LED price?
 

Boof63

Senior elf
Joined
Nov 7, 2011
Messages
585
Location
Kadina
Running approx 16,000 leds, haven't noticed power bill go up much at all, only on for 2-3 hours and mostly running at 60% power or less and then only half on at any one time (flashing.changing etc) so minimal draw.
cheers Boof63
 

Simey

New elf
Joined
Aug 18, 2017
Messages
20
I have a mix of led and pixel around 5-7k roughly and have a kw meter on them.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_20181206-162500_Kasa.jpg
    Screenshot_20181206-162500_Kasa.jpg
    228.2 KB · Views: 22

damo1271

Full time elf
Joined
Oct 12, 2011
Messages
202
Location
Adelaide
By my estimates, if you had 25,000 pixels then the cost would be as follows:
Each pixel draws 60mA when fully on (3 colours = white ie 20mAx3)
25,000 pixels will draw 1500 amps if all are fully on and white. If they are 5V then this equates to 7.5kW.
With the current electricity tariffs of around 40cents per kWh this means the price is around $3 per hour to run. (Assume our power supplies are 100% efficient!)

Now of course an all-white pixel display is pretty boring! Assume a 50% on/off duty cycle (ie only half the pixels are on at any given time) and an average of 1.5 colours when they are on. Then we get:
$3*50%*(1.5/3) about 75 cents per hour. 3 hours per night x 30 days gives roughly $67 for the season.
 
Top