Talk:Phantom power reducing power bars: Difference between revisions

Appropedia Page Review

This page seems to a compilation of articles with brief explanations of what the reader will find if they follow the links. It should be set up as a summarization and explanation of the page topic.

There is lots of good sourced information, but very little of it has been summarized on the page itself.

I recommend more of an executive summary be written for each article so all the immediate necessary knowledge, data and theory is available to the reader. If the reader feels the need to find more information on the subject, then they could access the links.

The Peer Reviewed and Published Literature Section is an unnecessary section of the page, all literature should be referenced at the end of the page and associated to the page section it pertains to with an endnote.

Overall, the Appropedia Page needs major restructuring and more information directly on the page.

ECM Review

Corrections for "Phantom Power Consumption - Replace When Needed"

- Spelling error, cell C40 of Savings Projections sheet. "Cash"
- Formatting error, cell A1 & A2 of the Input Devices sheet cannot be read with current formatting.

(Same corrections to second worksheet Phantom Power Consumption - Immediate Replacement)

It is very unclear the difference between the two different ECM excel worksheets. The only difference found is a new cost for the power bars which could just be made an Input and then allow both worksheets to be combined into one. The difference between "Additional Cost per Power Bar ($)" and "Cost per Power Bar ($)" is not stated an therefore is not understood. Some explanation is required.

The worksheet is very well organized sheets with explanations and equations very obvious. All of the information is well laid out.

Very little work is required for the ECM with the exception of making it a single worksheet or explaining thoroughly the reason for the second one.

--Ken MacDougall 23:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello Gang,

Your layout is very clean and easy to follow. In general I was able to grasp the concept of your savings model quickly and for each input I altered, I was able to track the changes in savings. The simplicity of your sheet adds tremendously to its effectiveness. In particular, it was nice to see each formula spelled out in the savings projections. Very useful.

Cosmetically, I have a few minor suggestions. In the name of causality, your Input Suggestions sheet should perhaps be placed ahead of the Savings Projections so as to eliminate any chance that a user would be confused when ‘following along’ and mistakenly think that inputs were to be entered directly in to the savings projection.

Secondly, I’m still struggling a bit to understand why you need two spreadsheets. The two descriptions you have linked to the sheets in your article seem to say the same thing, and the only difference between the two seems to be the cost of the power bars. Couldn’t this be accounted for by having some sort of toggle in the input between their different options? I’m sure there is strong reasoning behind your choices here, but to someone who stumbles across this tool, it might cause confusion.

You should probably try to give some references for the phantom power consumptions consumed by each device you provide an input for – whether you used your Kill-a-Watt meters or averaged data from several sources, it’s only fair to let us know where you got the numbers.

Thinking about your model, there was no explanation given anywhere in the spreadsheet about how many devices would share one power bar. In the Savings Projection you have assumed that each power bar has 6 plugs and that 4/6 are in use. Obviously full use can be achieved in a desktop setting if you had six devices to plug in, but there are many scenarios I can imagine where either the office layout or number of devices will vary significantly. Although this complicates matters thoroughly, rearranging the sheet to allow the average use of power bars as an input would provide a more accurate cost savings estimate.

The only other feature I can think of that would be useful is a space for an advanced or savvy user to add additional devices in to the calculations – an easy way would be to add a few lines at the bottom. Your article, while informative, could be fleshed out a bit more. Many people do not have the time or attention span to peruse your sources and if someone were to arrive on your page, they might be frustrated to find a literature review more than an actual summary of what’s going on.

Cheers,

John

Hamilton.john

Introduction

• I found the introduction awkward. "Phantom power is the power consumed by electrical appliances when they are switched off or not in use, but remain plugged in to an electrical socket" is a great definition, but "Although the phantom power consumption of one individual appliance may be trivial, many appliances within a home or business draw power when not in use, and this power consumption can accumulate" seems redundant and misleading. You don't need to restate that appliances draw power when not in use; just end up with how these loses accumulate.
  
• I really liked the vampire diagram; it was simple and informative.

Example

• This sub-section mentions that replacing current power bars with energy-saving bars would result in a payback time of 4.16 years. The math is there for how much energy is saved, but how do these special power bars do this? How do they go about cutting down phantom power use? "How to Reduce Phantom Power" in you "Overview Articles" section and the summaries in the "Device Options" section touch on it, but I need a simple explanation more readily available - preferably right beside the claim on how much they can save.
  

Device Options

• "Device Options" should have a more informative title. Also, since one of your device options is not a power bar and your wiki page title is "Phantom power reducing power bars", your title should reflect that some of the devices aren't power bars (i.e. "Watt's Up?").
  

Overall a nice wiki page. A lot of referenced material and helpful links, but more of said material on the actual page rather than just linked to would be better.

--SVickers 23:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]