Vending miser (two)

[BryanH]

2 Vending Miser units.  They don't have the motion detector part... yet.  I bought a set of three and assume (hope) that I can just plug in a standard motion detector. Info at their site here.

Yeah, I've heard of those before and thought they seemed pretty cool, but I don't quite understand them.

[Skeleton Man]

Quote (Markito @ May 01 2005,12:40)

Yeah, I've heard of those before and thought they seemed pretty cool, but I don't quite understand them.

My understanding:

It powers the machine up long enough to keep stuff cool and vend when someone approaches.  The rest of the time it powers down.

[BryanH]

Right - also lets you keep a machine with a lighted sign running inside the house without it being a huge nightlight.

[BryanH]

Ran a little test on the effectiveness of the VendingMiser.  Used it on the VMC77 on the back patio.  Ran the machine with and without the VendingMiser for 5 - 10 days each.  Unadjusted savings with the unit was 21.4%. Adjusting the numbers to account for temperature differences (it was hotter during the time period the vending miser was used) raises the savings to 22.6%.  

Given electricity prices in AZ (~ 8.5 cents per KW) it would save roughly $27 per year.  I was surprised that it made that much of a difference.