Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Fun Photos : Saving Electricity Tip#21...

This is how Vaibhav gets Makku to save electricity, money (lower electricity bills), and the world (indirectly)!
(They're flatmates.)


One would think that in today's hi-tech world, we might have geysers that have a timer telling them to go off 30 mins after putting them on... I know I would buy one of those!


Business Idea : The simplest thing I can think of is to have a small timer circuit that goes off after 30 mins.[1] One can plug the geyser into that, and the timer into the main source.

I forget to switch off the geyser about once in about 2 months... But every single day, one part of my brain is paranoid about remembering to switch it off.
I would definitely use this, not as a replacement for switching the geyser off everyday, but as a back up, in case I forget.

Apart from the saved electricity, it would be worth it for me just for the peace of mind.

Would you use this? Would you buy this for 50 bucks? Maybe I can convince someone to build these!

[1] The time could be configurable with a dial so one can set it to 15, 30, 45, 60 or 120 mins.

9 comments:

Sasidhar said...

Most geysers do have a auto-timer.
Actually, now that I think of it, they have one of those auto-switch-off modes when the water is fully heated. But the bad thing is they come back ON again within 15-20 mins, and the cycle continues...

Pratik Stephen said...

You're talking about "thermostats" Shashi.
All (or most) geysers have them... But like you said, that's just to regulate/maintain the hot water temperature.

The electricity is still getting wasted.

So you think you would find this timer thing useful for yourself?

Sasidhar said...

I guess I would. Would this go between the plug on the wall and the geyser?

I can imagine something really small that fits into the plug point, has a timer, and would allow the geyser plug to fit into.

It sounds like a great idea man. Wanna make a prototype as a weekend project? :)

khushboo said...

these photos remind me of Ghajini - please help !

Kartik said...

Hi Pratik,
I'm glad to discover I'm not the only one bothered about why Geysers can't shut themselves off after 20 min! I had the same idea too, and would have built one myself had I known a little more about electricity than the facts that it co$t$ and shocks.

I volunteer as the second customer if someone builds this :) And I'm sure there will be a market for it.

Similar applications for: Mosquito Repellent machines (no more overpowering smell if you leave them on too long), Modem/WiFi (will switch itself off after you and the laptop hibernate), Chargers that you don't want to leave on all night...


Cheers

Kartik said...

In case anybody is interested, this should do it: Frontier TM-619 Electrical Timer, apparently available at esuppliers India and alibaba.com

Cheers

Business Energy said...

I agree with your Blog and I will be back to check it more in the future so please keep up your work. I love your content & the way that you write. It looks like you’ve been doing this for a while now, how long have you been blogging for?

Pratik Stephen said...

Thanks Business Energy! : )
I started bloggin in mid 2008, and its been 3 years now! (Though I haven't been too regular lately.)

Pratik Stephen said...

Thanks Kartik! :)
I'm going to think about this again! Will definitely let you know if I get around to (finally) doing something about this idea!