Heard on the radio this morning
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Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowThe charger contains a voltage transformer. That transformer has two coils which transfer magnetic energy from one to the other through the process called magnetic induction. The variation of the magnetic field induces an electrical current in the second (output) coil. However, like all processes in nature, it's efficiency is below 100%. That's why the charger heats up when it's working. When it's offline, there's no electric current produced in the output circuit, but the loss of energy from the magnetic induction is still present.
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Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowWhere does the power go? Heat. Go around your house/office now, and look for any devices with external power supplies. Even if they're off, I'll bet the power supplies are warm. The transformer inside most power supplies still seems to operate even when the PSU itself isn't connected to anything!
-- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowgo back and read your books leppie. A phone charger dependant on design converts AC votage 120/240 volts into DC votlage anywhere between 3 and 12 volts DC. The conversion is primary by a transformer which steps the high voltage down to a smaller voltage by transfer of an eletro-magnatic field. This field transfer incures loss through heat and inefficient transformers. So now we have an AC voltage of 5 volts say; this is then clipped so the negative voltage is lost(more heat loss) and the voltage is smoothed a bit using capicators so it near a constant voltage to charge your phone. All eletronics product heat and the cheaper they are the usually more wasteful they are. AC: Alternating Current a sine wave and changes on a based frequency 50-60 hetz (times per second)A 120 volt AC goes between -120 and +120. DC: Direct Voltage is a constant value ie like a battery.
Grady Booch: I told Google to their face...what you need is some serious adult supervision. (2007 Turing lecture) http://www.frankkerrigan.com/[^]
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Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowFunnily enough I read this on the britishgas.co.uk website this morning! It says that you will save £4 over the course of a year if you unplug your phone charger when not in use. Hardly substantial, but worthwhile nontheless.
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Funnily enough I read this on the britishgas.co.uk website this morning! It says that you will save £4 over the course of a year if you unplug your phone charger when not in use. Hardly substantial, but worthwhile nontheless.
I don't understand why anyone wouldn't turn off appliances they weren't using anyway - why pay money to the electricity company for no benefit? My TV, UPS, microwave, just about everything is turned off completely when I'm not using it.
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I don't understand why anyone wouldn't turn off appliances they weren't using anyway - why pay money to the electricity company for no benefit? My TV, UPS, microwave, just about everything is turned off completely when I'm not using it.
Correct me if I am wrong but most appliances don't like when they are turned on/off.
[My Blog]
"Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
"Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe -
Correct me if I am wrong but most appliances don't like when they are turned on/off.
[My Blog]
"Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
"Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfednh wrote:
Correct me if I am wrong but most appliances don't like when they are turned on/off.
I am the Master; they do as they are told.
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I don't understand why anyone wouldn't turn off appliances they weren't using anyway - why pay money to the electricity company for no benefit? My TV, UPS, microwave, just about everything is turned off completely when I'm not using it.
Why not relocate the isolator switch near your front door, then you can throw the switch to the 'off' position when you leave the house, simple! (Think of all the pennies you'll save).
WPF - Imagineers Wanted Follow your nose using DoubleAnimationUsingPath
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Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowThis idea was discussed on the news programs of late; the amount of energy lost per person/household is small, but, when you factor in millions or billions of people/households/devices, the energy loss is significant. Tim
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Correct me if I am wrong but most appliances don't like when they are turned on/off.
[My Blog]
"Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
"Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe -
Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowThere's always some resistance in any circuit, resulting in power converted to heat. Transformers are a very efficient way of converting power between different voltages, but they're not 100%. Switched-mode power supplies are more efficient on load than linear regulators but still have losses when not loaded. To stop the losses, you have to actually switch in a very high resistance such as an air gap ;) One of the problems in electronics is the difference between the idealised circuits that our maths tells us will work, and the flawed components we actually have to build the circuits out of. Real wires have finite small resistances - the reason that power lines are high-voltage is that the loss in them is proportional to the square of the current (I-squared times R), and increasing the voltage allows the same amount of power to be carried by a smaller current. The higher our working frequencies become, the larger these problems tend to be. People have had problems with circuits which were fine in analysis and when synthesised, but failed in practice due to coupling of traces and RF pickup. Indeed many small Wi-Fi devices simply use a trace on the circuit board as the aerial.
DoEvents: Generating unexpected recursion since 1991
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Why not relocate the isolator switch near your front door, then you can throw the switch to the 'off' position when you leave the house, simple! (Think of all the pennies you'll save).
WPF - Imagineers Wanted Follow your nose using DoubleAnimationUsingPath
Provided I don't have any food in the freezer or fridge and don't want to record anything off tv while I'm out, why not? :) Seems a tad extreme though... :P
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go back and read your books leppie. A phone charger dependant on design converts AC votage 120/240 volts into DC votlage anywhere between 3 and 12 volts DC. The conversion is primary by a transformer which steps the high voltage down to a smaller voltage by transfer of an eletro-magnatic field. This field transfer incures loss through heat and inefficient transformers. So now we have an AC voltage of 5 volts say; this is then clipped so the negative voltage is lost(more heat loss) and the voltage is smoothed a bit using capicators so it near a constant voltage to charge your phone. All eletronics product heat and the cheaper they are the usually more wasteful they are. AC: Alternating Current a sine wave and changes on a based frequency 50-60 hetz (times per second)A 120 volt AC goes between -120 and +120. DC: Direct Voltage is a constant value ie like a battery.
Grady Booch: I told Google to their face...what you need is some serious adult supervision. (2007 Turing lecture) http://www.frankkerrigan.com/[^]
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Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowChargers will have a no load current , both the transformer and switch mode type will draw some current when the load is disconnected , quite how much will vary tremendously . Without having a circuit diagram infront of me the only real test is : If it gets hot or warm then its possibly significant , if it doesn't it isnt significant .
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Funnily enough I read this on the britishgas.co.uk website this morning! It says that you will save £4 over the course of a year if you unplug your phone charger when not in use. Hardly substantial, but worthwhile nontheless.
That works out about 4W ( say 10p per KW/h) . That would be quite warm to the touch .
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I understand that. What I dont understand is the claim that a lot (or any non-nominal amount) of energy is lost on an open circuit.
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out nowI guess it depends how you quantify alot. Per transformer the electrical power used may be very small but when you take into account the fact that many people have a charger at work and one at home and the number of people who own mobile phones, the savings could be vast if every person just took the fraction of a second it would take to flick that switch.
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Why not relocate the isolator switch near your front door, then you can throw the switch to the 'off' position when you leave the house, simple! (Think of all the pennies you'll save).
WPF - Imagineers Wanted Follow your nose using DoubleAnimationUsingPath
I am going to spend several thousand $$$ to maximize efficiency in my home office, making sure that all electical outlets are controlled from a master console that will detect if I am using any electical apparatus. I figure to break even on my electric bill savings right about the time the sun goes supernova. :-D All that being said, most eletrical appliances do have some draw even when turned "off" The "Energy Star" certification here in the US has led to "low standby energy use" and the new rating in 2007 requires 80% power supply efficiency. BobP
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Apparently, a cell phone charger still uses a substantial amount of electricity even it is not charging the phone. (this was received by the radio host by email, from a person in the UK). Now I only did 1st year engineering electronics, but that smells a lot like cow dung to me. The logical question is, where is the energy going if the phone is not charging? I can understand energy loss while the phone is being charged, but how is energy drained from the charger if it not charging?
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 1 out now -
go back and read your books leppie. A phone charger dependant on design converts AC votage 120/240 volts into DC votlage anywhere between 3 and 12 volts DC. The conversion is primary by a transformer which steps the high voltage down to a smaller voltage by transfer of an eletro-magnatic field. This field transfer incures loss through heat and inefficient transformers. So now we have an AC voltage of 5 volts say; this is then clipped so the negative voltage is lost(more heat loss) and the voltage is smoothed a bit using capicators so it near a constant voltage to charge your phone. All eletronics product heat and the cheaper they are the usually more wasteful they are. AC: Alternating Current a sine wave and changes on a based frequency 50-60 hetz (times per second)A 120 volt AC goes between -120 and +120. DC: Direct Voltage is a constant value ie like a battery.
Grady Booch: I told Google to their face...what you need is some serious adult supervision. (2007 Turing lecture) http://www.frankkerrigan.com/[^]
Frank Kerrigan wrote:
this is then clipped so the negative voltage is lost(more heat loss)
It's only actually clipped in old very cheap power supplies. By using 4 diodes instead of one (full bridge rectifier) you can flip the negative peak of the input into a second positive peak. This almost doubles efficiency (the almost comes from extra voltage drop from passing through 2 diodes instead of one) and allows for the use of a smaller capacitor to smooth the output.
Otherwise [Microsoft is] toast in the long term no matter how much money they've got. They would be already if the Linux community didn't have it's head so firmly up it's own command line buffer that it looks like taking 15 years to find the desktop. -- Matthew Faithfull
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go back and read your books leppie. A phone charger dependant on design converts AC votage 120/240 volts into DC votlage anywhere between 3 and 12 volts DC. The conversion is primary by a transformer which steps the high voltage down to a smaller voltage by transfer of an eletro-magnatic field. This field transfer incures loss through heat and inefficient transformers. So now we have an AC voltage of 5 volts say; this is then clipped so the negative voltage is lost(more heat loss) and the voltage is smoothed a bit using capicators so it near a constant voltage to charge your phone. All eletronics product heat and the cheaper they are the usually more wasteful they are. AC: Alternating Current a sine wave and changes on a based frequency 50-60 hetz (times per second)A 120 volt AC goes between -120 and +120. DC: Direct Voltage is a constant value ie like a battery.
Grady Booch: I told Google to their face...what you need is some serious adult supervision. (2007 Turing lecture) http://www.frankkerrigan.com/[^]
Frank Kerrigan wrote:
A 120 volt AC goes between -120 and +120.
Actually 120V AC means the root mean square is 120 Volt, therefore the peak voltage is sqrt(2) times larger. :)
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