Electric Bill

[munu]

So far I only had static displays using mostly incandescent lights. My wife is always "complaining" about the electric bill for December. She actually likes the display but not the bill. I am just wondering how many kWh do you invest into your lights and how many pixels do you have?

[rstehle]

If you are using Pixels, you will hardly see any increase over normal usage on your bill.

[jchuchla]

The switch from incandescent to LED is huge on the power bill. It's well worth the cost to upgrade.
Then when you get into blinky, it gets even better. An animated display that blinks and changes will almost always use less power than a static show. When you're blinking, the lights are usually off more than they're on. Even if you're the type who likes to use all the lights all the time. Some will be full bright, some won't be. So it will still be less than full all the time.

[Stormyblade]

Now I'm curious what your electric bill difference is for December. I think our difference is about $20...what is yours?

[ezellner]

I run about 4350 pixels and a 32 by 128 matrix and there is no noticeable difference in the power bill.

[Hockeyhunter1956]

The switch from incandescent to LED is huge on the power bill. It's well worth the cost to upgrade.
Then when you get into blinky, it gets even better. An animated display that blinks and changes will almost always use less power than a static show. When you're blinking, the lights are usually off more than they're on. Even if you're the type who likes to use all the lights all the time. Some will be full bright, some won't be. So it will still be less than full all the time.

+1 on what Jon said.

There are many variables that affect your cost of running lights be that iincandescent, LED, or pixels. In addition to that, things like cost per kwh can have a serious impact. (and electricity is not cheap where I live) Next year I'm actually going to use a Kill-a-Watt meter to measure my usage at each of the outlets I'm using during the show season out of curiosity. I generally expect my cost to go up about $100.00 during show season. 10,000 LEDS and 15,000 pixels. We have some form of lighting running about 11 hours a day during the show season. Even as I write this, we still are operating about 2500 pixels about 8 hours a day. Even if my cost to operate doubled, I still would run the lights. I just figure it's the cost of enjoying this hobby and the joy it brings. It's an investment that the wife likes to see during out short daylight hours.

[jchuchla]

Here's my actual power usage for the last two years:
Screenshot 2021-01-18 102221.png
Screenshot 2021-01-18 102047.png

One thing that skews the results a bit is that we always are at home for a good 10 days in December. And we tend to entertain at home more too. (even this year) So we're running more heat and lights and cooking more than we would in other months when we're at work/school all month.

[NDNS00ner]

Our bill is about $50 higher...

[uncledan]

Before going solar my 100% pixel display cost me about $30 a NIGHT to run. Wife wasnt happy because my main selling point on pixels was energy consumption. 100k+ incans cost about the same as 40k pixels and P5/P10 panels etc. After going solar doesnt cost me a penny. I'm a 12v guy, but the savings and ease of setting up the display offsets any cost of going 5v.

[pmiller]

Bills will be higher when you let your controllers and power supplies run 24/7. I had about 6,000 pixels, a 4x4 P10 and LED's and my bill went up around $35. If I turned everything off after each show I bet I could save 1/4 - 1/2 of that.

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