P3 P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor

works great and as intended. I could measure what amperage I was pulling from my speaker amps.

UPDATES at end of the review.Several reviews show the receptacle melted after using them with appliances that draw a fair amount of current. This should not be happening because these units are fused with a SEFUSE Thermal cutoff (at least mine is). I found out by using the device in a manner I knew was a little risky. Temp environment was over 106*F ambient and knew I was using it potentially at its upper limit. Well, it did fail and instead of throwing it away, took it apart to see if it was beyond repair.My rating is based on my experience with it over the last 3 years or so and the great service it has given me. I should probably add that the fact it failed under extreme use without melting the receptacle is also testament to its safety design and warrants some credit.The SEFUSE has a TEMPERATURE rating in addition to in this case, a 15 AMP current rating. For replacement parts, I have seen these rated between 128*C to 240* C. I guess the theory is that it can be used up to it max rating as long as the temperature rating of the installed SEFUSE is not exceeded. If this thing starts to go above the SEFUSE rating, the SEFUSE should fail well before the monitor's receptacle starts melting! I would guess that the Kil-A-Watt folks *might* have used a SEFUSE with a higher temp rating in some production runs than the original design called for. It might also be possible that the SEFUSES received by the mfr were faulty or mislabled. There might be some warranty wiggle room here for those where the monitor started melting. It was designed not to do that!My SEFUSE is *open* indicating that it did its job to prevent overheating the plug/unit. I have to look closer at it to see if I can determine the rating, otherwise I will have to take the new 4440 I just ordered apart and look at that one. There are ways to test to see if replacing the SEFUSE is the problem, but won't go into it here for liability reasons. SEFUSES are available on Amazon at a pack of 5 for under $10. Looks like a stout soldering iron will be needed to effect the repair if you want to pull the old leads from the board. I have done similar repairs by cutting the leads of the failed component and installing the replacement matching its lead length to the original installation. A much lesser wattage soldering iron will do the trick.I like mine and needed a second one anyway. I am fairly certain replacing the SEFUSE in mine with one of the correct rating will restore original safety design and operation. I do not encourage user replacement of any components in this monitor. This review serves only to explain my experience and what I plan to do to try to correct it.UPDATED 9/19/2019The SEFUSE was in fact the issue. If one does a search on Disassembly and Repair of the Kil-A-Watt meter, a video will likely be available on the topic. The SEFUSE in this instance was rated at 99C (210F) in addition to its current rating. A word of caution here. I have seen this component with temp ratings spanning 77C to 240C at 15 amps. It is available with the same rating at 10 amps. The closest one I can find on Amazon is 94C (201F) at 15 amps. If you decide to take this on, be SURE you do not exceed 99C for the replacement component. Since it is available in such a broad range, it reinforces my theory somewhat that some production runs were using the wrong value on the low end (causing early failure) as well as perhaps on the high end (causing the case to melt). This doesn't excuse the failures, but offers some explanation as to what might be occurring. As long as the case is not damaged, this is likely an easy repair for someone with this type of skill. The 94C component is close enough for me.UPDATE 9/23/2019New meter arrived and the SEFUSE checks out at 15A/99C. Back of meter rated @1800W. MAX Power on packaging states 1875W. Would use the meter only for a quick measurement and NOT for sustained use much above 50% of its rating. Will just order the 94C SEFUSE from AMZ. to repair the old one.

Don't bother buying the more expensive models of the Kill-A-Watt. The P3 model is more than enough. It will give you how many watts your device is drawing, as well as the number of amps, number of volts (at the outlet), and frequency (60 hertz). It also keeps track of the total number of kilowatts hours your device has used during the length of time you have been monitoring the device. To calculate how many kilowatt hours your device will use in a month, you just need a bit of simple math:(Watts/1000) x (number of hours device is turned on per day) x (31 days) = Kilowatt hours per monthExample for a 100 watt light bulb that is left on continuously for a month:(100/1000) x 24 x 31 = 74.4 kwh per monthNote that a kilowatt is 1000 watts and 1 kilowatt hour is the equivalent of ten 100 watt light bulbs burning for 1 hour.Electricity is billed in kilowatt hours so you can find out how much each kilowatt hour costs by contacting your electric company or looking on their website. Your electric bill should tell you how many kilowatt hours you used in a given month. It is easy to calculate how many tons of CO2 your electricity use produces. The EPA website estimates 6.8956 x 10-4 metric tons of CO2 per Kilowatt hour. I pay for 100% wind power through my utility, which only adds about $1.80 per month to my electric bill and we use a lot of electricity (about 1200 kwh per month). Part of this large number is the fact the landlord installed an electric water heater (a gas water heater would be much more efficient).I finally ordered a P3 Kill-A-Watt and wish I had ordered one 10 years ago because it would have paid for itself many times over. If you check various items in your home, you will be surprised at how much electricity things use. Many electrical devices draw 2 to 5 watts or more when they are turned off but left plugged in! When you count how many things you have plugged in in you home, this adds up. I now unplug things I am not using.One of the biggest energy wasters is the common light bulb, which wastes 98% of its energy as unwanted heat. For comparison, I have an old style Sony 32 inch TV (picture tube, not flat panel) that draws 150 watts. A single reading lamp with a common 150 watt bulb uses the same amount of electricity as this large TV. You are much better off using compact fluorescent bulbs which use FAR LESS electricity. Amazon sells GE compact florescent 100 watt (equivalent) bulbs that actually use only 26 watts. (Type "compact fluorescent 100 watt" into Amazon search). The compact florescent GE 60 watt (equivalent) bulbs actually use only 13 watts. These bulbs screw right into your existing lamps and light fixtures and will pay for themselves many times over. The downside of compact florescent bulbs is that they contain a significant amount of mercury (about 5 grams). There are special cleanup procedures you should follow if you accidentally break one inside--open a window, do NOT vacuum--see the EPA's "Cleaning Up a Broken CFL" article for the full procedure [...]Because compact florescent bulbs contain mercury, they must not be disposed of in regular trash. Call your local municipality to learn how to dispose of items that contain mercury--many municipalities have recycling programs for mercury containing items. A much better alternative to compact florescent bulbs are LED bulbs (do not contain mercury) which are a new technology and consequently expensive at the moment but prices will come down with time.A final note on the Kill-A-Watt regarding computer power supplies. I build computers and, prior to owning a Kill-A-Watt, ended up buying much larger (and more expensive) power supplies than I really needed because of some misleading information on the web. For example, the computer I am typing this on with a good Intel CPU and an expensive video card draws 130 watts at idle and 270 watts with both CPU and video card fully loaded (running Prime95 and 3DMark simultaneously). Unfortunately, I put a 750 watt power supply in this computer, which was totally unnecessary. It is important to purchase a high quality power supply, but you definitely don't need a 750 watt power supply for a computer that draws 270 watts at full load.