Electric Bill

**munu** · 01-18-2021, 10:39 PM

@pmiller $35 per night or for the months of December? It sounds like for the month since you said 'bill'. So far all numbers were pretty reasonable, i.e. $100 more is significant but not too bad (not sure what the kWh price is as in our area it's pretty high so I would expect more). But then @uncledan mentioned $30 per NIGHT which is almost $1,000 for December. Either the display, I or both would be dead. Probably both...;)

**jchuchla** · 01-18-2021, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by munu

@pmiller $35 per night or for the months of December? It sounds like for the month since you said 'bill'. So far all numbers were pretty reasonable, i.e. $100 more is significant but not too bad (not sure what the kWh price is as in our area it's pretty high so I would expect more). But then @uncledan mentioned $30 per NIGHT which is almost $1,000 for December. Either the display, I or both would be dead. Probably both...;)

It's important to note that UncleDan described a show that's over 100k pixels. That's a very large show. If you have a show that big, you're likely already over $100k in Lights, props, wire controllers, etc... With that kind of show budget, $30/nt is par for the course.

**munu** · 01-18-2021, 11:33 PM

100k pixels is insane... If I get to 1/10th of that it will be huge! So I guess then it is about $3/day or $100 for December. That puts it back into the range others mentioned. It looks like many of the "professionals" use 5V pixels to reduce electricity cost and I assume UncleDan does the same. So if I get to 10k 12V (instead of 5V) pixels I am looking at $200 assuming the same kWh price (mine is probably higher).

**jchuchla** · 01-19-2021, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by munu

100k pixels is insane... If I get to 1/10th of that it will be huge! So I guess then it is about $3/day or $100 for December. That puts it back into the range others mentioned. It looks like many of the "professionals" use 5V pixels to reduce electricity cost and I assume UncleDan does the same. So if I get to 10k 12V (instead of 5V) pixels I am looking at $200 assuming the same kWh price (mine is probably higher).

Uncledan said above that he's using 12V. As am I.

Seriously though, for what you're talking, you'll be less than $30 in power increase for the month. You'll spend more in giveaway candy canes than you do electricity.

**munu** · 01-19-2021, 02:25 AM

Thanks. I just checked my electric bill history. It increased by about 15kWh/day during Christmas time. That includes lanterns along the yard, icicles along all roof lines, inflatables, etc. So it's close to $2/day (rounded up) or about $25/month. This is just with static displays using incandescence lights. If I switch to LEDs (I just bought a bunch of LED icicles to replace my existing ones) and use animation with pixels (less on-time) then I think I will end up in the same range despite having a lot more lights. I was worried about hundreds of dollar bills but clearly that doesn't seem to be the case even when using 12V pixels (vs 5V pixels).

**dim bulb** · 01-19-2021, 03:44 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk

5000 pixels, 1000 dumb nodes, leavemy psu's and co trolleys in 24/7, my bill may go up 10 bucks a month.

**BrentD** · 01-28-2021, 12:22 PM

This was my first year doing a pixel show. Before that we did LED's and inflatables. This year a HinksPix Pro, 2 Meanwell 350/12's, 32 ports, ~2700 lights with all that left on 24/7. FM transmitter was the only thing I had on a timer to cut power. Our power bill this December vs. last was only 13 cents more per day, and that's with my wife teleworking from home full time this year as well.

**algerdes** · 01-28-2021, 01:22 PM

Here at home, we turn on the lights from a week or two before Thanksgiving till the end of December. Comparing bills over our 34 years living here, when we went to AC-LEDs (from incans) our bill dropped to 1/3rd of what it was. When we went to an animated display, it dropped another 1/5th. Note that we more than doubled our number of lights! At this time we consider the cost of turning them on as a non-issue, thanks to the changes in technology.

**ukewarrior** · 01-28-2021, 02:05 PM

Ditto.
LEds and animation just don't use much power.
It maybe costs me $25 to run my show for a season.

Originally Posted by algerdes

Here at home, we turn on the lights from a week or two before Thanksgiving till the end of December. Comparing bills over our 34 years living here, when we went to AC-LEDs (from incans) our bill dropped to 1/3rd of what it was. When we went to an animated display, it dropped another 1/5th. Note that we more than doubled our number of lights! At this time we consider the cost of turning them on as a non-issue, thanks to the changes in technology.

**munu** · 01-28-2021, 09:32 PM

It seems like this is no issue. I am not even sure why my wife complained about the bill. I guess measured in percentage it did go up a lot (our bill shows graphs so a big percentage change stands out). So this also means I will go with 12V pixels instead of 5V pixels.