“Anyone having issue with excessive power usage? We're seeing it draw 2 amps even when cooktop is turned off and just the breaker is on. Already replaced cooktop once, have had electrician out to check panel / breaker / wire to cooktop.”
Answer This Question
1-8 of 8 Answers
As someone else posted - this is NOT an issue. I have a second post below with a photo of my clamp meter thinking this was a huge problem. It is NOT A PROBLEM at all! I purchased the little meter shown below for $25 from you know where. You can see it measures "Power Factor". This is the important piece, and not understanding this caused me some alarm and expense. There's a great article from the blog greengumption dot co dot uk slash 2013/03/induction-hobs-the-question-of-standby-and-the-power-factor/ that explains what is happening. I'm disappointed I didn't find this before I put up my original post. So - here's the correction. Due to this concept called Power Factor, your induction stove (and a lot of other technology) may register an amp load on a standard clamp meter wildly different than what it is actually using. This is the "Apparent Power". Without knowing the Power Factor, you are unable to calculate the "Actual Power" used. Setting up this little meter below, you can see my cooktop was on for 10 hours overnight in it's idle state. It looks like it's pulling 2.215 amps, but with a Power Factor of 0.01, it is only using 3.5 watts. This is the actual power. If it were really using 2 amps at 240 volts, this would be over 500 watts. But the proof is in the kWh used shown on the photo, just 0.032 kWh over 10 hours. Since this is a 240v appliance, that's actually 0.064 kWh, or 0.0064 kWh for every hour the stove is on. Let's math that out: 0.0064 kWh x 24 = 0.1536 kWh per day 0.1536 kWh x 30 = 4.6 kWh per month 4.6 kWh x $0.12 per kW = $0.55 per month $0.55 x 12 months = about $6.65 a year I also validated this by pulling meter usage from smartmetertexas dot com which has 2 years of historical data in 15 min usage increments. I looked at midnight to 6 am usage (when the household is sleeping, so everything should be "idle") for the same period year over year before I installed the cooktop and after. Did the same for when I had the wireless timer setup (photo below) installed. After a lot of calculations, I came up with about 4.5 kWh a month difference with the cooktop installed... almost exactly what the little meter with Power Factor is telling me. So - 2 different data collection methods that match outcomes. Now, we could quibble over whether an "off" appliance should be drawing any electricity. Regardless of that, this is well within the realm of reasonable, and about 100X (literally) less than I thought with my very misunderstood first reading with my clamp meter. I hope this helps some folks that consider themselves handy and have some tools like a clamp meter. Don't freak out like I did! Your cooktop is operating quite normally and NOT sucking an enormous amount of electricity when it is off!
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.I, too, have this problem. The technician just left my home and said there was nothing to be done, that it is working as designed. That's insane as it is costing me over $800 per year to have this stove top off and the circuit breaker on. Here's the math. I'm pulling 2.14 amps per leg when off. At 240 volts that's 513.6 watts (2.14A times 240V). 513.6 watts time 24 hours equals 12,330-watt hours per day or 12.33 kWh per day. 12.33 kWh times $0.18 per kWh (my approx electric rate in Indiana) equals $2.22 per day. Multiply that by 365 and you get over $810 per year. And that is before even turning it on to use it. If I had known that it was going to cost me over $8,000 over the next 10 years just to have that stove sit there turned off I never would have purchased it. It is a total waste of power. It's like having a 500 Watt light bulb on all day. To be told that it is working as designed is nuts. This past month this stove was more than half of my monthly electric bill just to have it off. I will be contacting Samsung to insist on letting me return this unit. I paid approx $2500 for this stovetop but in point of fact it is costing me $12,500 for the next 10 years before even turning it on. Run, don't walk, from this unit.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.I just went through this on my Samsung stove with induction cooktop. The problem is both you and I thought we could just take a clamp on ammeter, measure the current, and multiply by the voltage to get power usage. This doesn't work for AC circuits that are any more complicated than a simple resistive load. There are filter capacitors in use that that appear to draw current, but because they cause a phase shift between the voltage and current, the current at its maximum when the voltage is at it's minimum, very little power is used. In my case my stove top was drawing 0.64 amp with everything off. At 240v this would appear to be around 150 watts, but when measured with a power use meter it's only about 3.9 watts.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.The true/real power used is very small, what the power company sells but because there are large capacitors in the circuit to offset the induction coils they have a very small power factor. Look up these standard terms instead of me trying to explain. The clamp meter reads current as it goes in and out of the capacitor which simply stores it and gives it back, but does have current flowing both ways which the meter detects. You are assuming power is going away from resistor heat but most of it is not.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.This seems nuts... is there any documentation from samsung on what the "idle power draw" is supposed to be... 2A would be surprising.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Confirmed my Samsung 36" Induction Cooktop Model NZ36K7880US also does this. Fully powered off, including wifi disconnected, it draws about 2.15 amps (at 240V = 516 watts) all the time. Checked several times over the course of the day to ensure it wasn't a cooling fan running. Made sure it had been idle for several hours, and checked first thing it the morning before it had been used. All the same readings when powered off. We have the Samsung combination microwave/oven and it draws about 27 watts with the wifi on, which makes sense with the touch controls and clock (although even that seems a little high). This is definitely excessive power draw for a completely idle device. Not sure exactly what to do about this just yet. Definitely a disappointing problem for such an expensive investment.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Has anyone else experienced this as well? Am debating purchasing this stove but would like to know if this kind of parasitic power draw is normal for this model? Thanks.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.If you have a problem with parasitic power draw when the cooktop is not being used, you could have an electrician install a disconnect switch in your kitchen near the cooktop to eliminate that draw.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.
