Pentair VS Watts Mystery Not Equal to Volts x Amps Why?

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The motor might have a high power factor.

However, there is a power factor for the motor and a different power factor for the input power.

You have two different power factors.

Which power factor are you referring to?
 
In any case, there is a significant difference between what the pump drive is reporting and what the Vue is reporting.

So, one or both have to be wrong.

The only way to tell for sure is to use the proper test equipment.
 
In my opinion, the Vue is not measuring the power factor.

If they were, why can't they show that?

Why don't they show the voltage?

Maybe they are just using a standard voltage of 240 and they are not actually measuring it.

You need a written data sheet from the manufacturer and not just an opinion from someone who answers the phone who probably has no idea what they're talking about.
 
JamesW said:
The motor might have a high power factor.

However, there is a power factor for the motor and a different power factor for the input power.

You have two different power factors.

Which power factor are you referring to?
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Yeah I was wondering about this too, but does that really make sense? The inductive load is in the motor, not the rectifier. And could you actually advertise robust power factor correction if the correction did not apply to the input power?
 
EnoughToBeDangerous said:
And could you actually advertise robust power factor correction if the correction did not apply to the input power?
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Marketers can say almost anything they want as long as they have even the tiniest shred of truth.

You would have to ask Pentair specifically if the power factor correction applies to the drive input or output power.

They're not going to try to adjust the power factor of the input power. That really wouldn't make sense.

Almost definitely, the power factor correction applies to the drive output.

If you want to know for sure, you should get the right test equipment.

Maybe Pentair or Vue can provide more information.
 
JamesW said:
In my opinion, the Vue is not measuring the power factor.

If they were, why can't they show that?

Why don't they show the voltage?

Maybe they are just using a standard voltage of 240 and they are not actually measuring it.

You need a written data sheet from the manufacturer and not just an opinion from someone who answers the phone who probably has no idea what they're talking about.
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Here's an excerpt from my chat with them:

(03:03:03 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: By the way, you're confirming that the vue
(03:03:05 PM) Gary: thanks for your information
(03:03:10 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: takes the power factor into account right?
(03:04:50 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: You are reporting the true power not the apparent ?
(03:04:51 PM) Gary: yes we do, but at low power factors their is an issue
(03:05:17 PM) Gary: correct we measure power, but when the power factor is <.60 we are overstating
(03:05:20 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: Ok so we need to determine if the power factor is below .6
(03:05:33 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: and the other thing someone mentioned on trouble free pool
(03:05:46 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: "Also, a variable frequency drive distorts the waveform and unless you have a True RMS meter, it will not be accurate."
(03:06:00 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: is that something you've heard about?
(03:06:38 PM) Gary: I have not but will share with the engineers as i'm sure they did

Gary also had the exact voltage readings. The don't share all the information with the users because I believe they are planning to monetize the data. But they do have the voltage on both sides of the transformer. And when I rigged I connected the unit to boths sides of a double pole breaker so it would have a reference to both phases, which is required by the vue gen2.

(02:46:52 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: if I pull 1 amp at 120 with a multiplier of 2x
(02:47:03 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: I'd expect to see 240 watts
(02:47:32 PM) EnoughToBeDangerous: But you can see in his video that the pump only reads 150 watts
(02:48:12 PM) Gary: you actual voltage is 120.4 and 123.5 ....so about 121.95 X 2 243.9
(02:48:21 PM) Gary: = 243.9
 

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JamesW said:
Notice that he says that they measure "power", not "real power".

They don't have any idea what they're talking about.

They're just reading a script that autopopulates the form.

It's probably a chatbot and not even a real person.
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True, we'll have to wait to hear back from the engineers. I was not able to get in touch with anyone at pentair who knew what a power factor was. If any pentair reps post here I'd love to hear it would be great if theyr could help us out.
 
People who really know what they're talking about don't usually answer the phone or chat.

Most phone or chat people are minimum wage people who just read from a script and they don't have any idea what they're talking about.

They are probably working from home and answering calls for 100 different companies including phone psychics as well as remotely working the drive through at McDonald's and making outbound calls to sell Auto Warranties.
 
JamesW said:
Does it do power factor?
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Extremely unlikely, the sense uses only one current transducer on each service lead, and none on the circuits. It uses an algorithm to guess which circuits are in use with mixed results. It would have to look at the power factor for the entire system and assign it to different circuits to get it right, but since they don't even always get the load right, I doubt they could be this accurate.

I can say this of the makers of emporia, they believe they are calculating real power. This was a specific goal when they revised the gen1 to the gen2. Whether they are actually getting it right it is a fair question.
 
JamesW said:
People who really know what they're talking about don't usually answer the phone or chat.

Most phone or chat people are minimum wage people who just read from a script and they don't have any idea what they're talking about.

They are probably working from home and answering calls for 100 different companies including phone psychics as well as remotely working the drive through at McDonald's and making outbound calls to sell Auto Warranties.
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Let's reserve judgment until we see what their engineers say.
 
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JamesW said:
Probably not a real wattmeter. Probably a volt-amp meter, which is different from a real wattmeter.
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There is another system called iotawatt which definitely calculates and reports the power factor using CTs, it costs a little more and is more DIY/hacker oriented than the emporia vue or the sense. But I'm not sure if it can capture the true rms or not.

At the end of the day the goal is to get a decent estimate of how much of the power bill is attributable to the pump, so if it's proportional to the ct readings by a simple multiple, that may be good enough for my purposes.
 

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