The Insatiable Power Hunger of Home Electronics 340
An anonymous reader writes "A Wall Street Journal columnist recently got his hand on a power meter and decided to write about his findings, the resulting article being discussed here on Slashdot. That author concluded that gadgets are getting a bad rap, and are relatively insignificant power consumers in the grand scheme of things. A rebuttal has appeared, arguing that not only are modern electronics significant power consumers already, while everything else is becoming more efficient, home electronics seem to be getting worse. This echoes the Department of Energy's assertion that 'Electricity consumption for home electronics, particularly for color TVs and computer equipment, is also forecast to grow significantly over the next two decades.' Are gadgets unfairly maligned, or getting an unearned pardon?"
Things are getting more efficient... (Score:5, Informative)
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http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=1
According to this link, a CRT uses 3x as much electricity in a year as an LCD. Which is, of course, the same as saying '2x more'.
Inflation (Score:2)
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This is irrelevant, as long as the new devices still consume more power than its older counterparts.
How much power does a machine with, for example, a pentium III compare with a core 2 duo machine?
Yes, they are getting more efficient, but this isn't enough. They need to consume less power than previous versions in order for actually mean something.
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Re:Things are getting more efficient... (Score:4, Interesting)
About a half of a year ago, I measured some Athlon64 3200+ desktops in order to size out UPS systems. These measurements included the 19" LCD panel, which alone uses about 40 watts during use. The systems used Abit motherboards, stock AMD coolers, and GeForce 6200TC video cards. Through booting, using, and shutting down the systems, I found that an average draw during usage was about 100 watts - which included 40 watts for the monitor, putting draw from the wall at around 60 watts. Peak draw never got above 143 watts during those trials.
I didn't even bother measuring the Pentium-D systems that we had - the amount of heat alone that those things pumped out told me all that I needed to know.
Of course, the laptop that I'm typing on right now has a 1.8 GHz dual-core chip (Core Duo), and has a "measly" 65-watt power adapter. The 65 watts (which is what it draws from the wall, I measured) is enough to run both cores at a pretty good load, the 12" display, and burn a DVD at the same time - and still have a little power left over to charge the battery. That's a bit unfair, as it's an extremely power-optimized system, but it shows what can be achieved.
As an interesting side-note, I have a couple of Via's C3 systems, which are supposed to be low-power setups. Measuring power draw from the wall, I get 55-70 watts being pulled, depending on the machine. While the CPU is very low-power, system fans and hard drives still take power, and the cheap power supplies in them are extremely inefficient.
steve
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It's regional (Score:4, Interesting)
Humidity is another climate-related factor that affects electricity consumption. Households in more humid regions tend to use air-conditioners and dehumidifiers to remove humidity. Households in arid regions, such as the Mountain States, are able to use evaporative coolers instead of air-conditioning for space cooling.
Color TVs? Is that really necessary to specify? (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh good, all my black and white TVs and computer equipment are okay...
I know that was meant to be a snark, but...,/P>
Monochrome CRTs use remarkably little energy.
Re:Color TVs? Is that really necessary to specify? (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously! None of them have been plugged in for 20 years! ;-)
Trends vs Actual consumption... (Score:5, Insightful)
The article referenced talks about the trends for energy consumption. And, in that respect, the consumer electronics win hands down, since more and more people buy computers, flat-screen TVs and assorted electronic gadgets. On the other hand, the WSJ is right, since the overall energy consumption of these gadgets is still a very small fraction of the total.
One thing that I'd personally like to do soon would be to compare the electricity used by all my computers (6 and counting, including a big Sun workstation, 3 laptops, a modem/router, a wireless access point, a laser printer, etc) vs the overall electricity usage in my home. I have relatively modern equipment, and I am currently switching everything to low-power equipment.
More efficient and More Prolific (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they might run instant on feature that takes some current drain 24x7 so they can do a warm start. Or a clock.
Chase down the Off-Grid living web sites and you'll soon find that one of the biggest problems people have when they first try to do off grid is all their appliances that drain just a little power all night long, leaving insufficient power for the morning routines.
I have three digital clocks in my kitchen, two in my entertainment center... I don't own a watch anymore because I realized that there is no place except the bathroom that I can stand in my house and not see a clock face. And I don't own any clocks!
The need for everything to have a digital clock and instant on takes up a lot more power then you think. Turn everything off and go look at your meter. it's still chugging along rather nicely. We could do much better if we dropped the clocks and dropped the instant on. Tube televisions took minutes to warm up. Solid State televisions take a few seconds to warm up. Instant On only saves me 3 seconds at most.
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I've always suspected that the audio defaults were finalised by a senior engineer who was a little bit deaf from years of working on TV and hifi equipment.
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st
Re:More efficient and More Prolific (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like a leaky faucet. Sure it's only 1/10 gallon a minute, but it adds up and doesn't benefit anyone. Why not minimize it? I know manufacturers could lower standby power use if consumers demand it.
Save the freaking information. (Score:2)
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I do like your idea of having all devices recognize all other devices, though. Bluetooth would be perfect for that.
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The tech exists, studios and CE killed it (Score:3, Interesting)
The studios HATED it, because it meant their content was moving around the network digitally (in MPEG-2), which was the point. Want to record something to D-VHS or AVHDD, just choose to record it. The devices tell everyone that they record. No more PVR, or if you
Its good to see the few key things called out... (Score:5, Interesting)
These days lighting design is all the rage, and its common to have 4 or more fixtures in a room, often R30 can lights at 65w each projecting downward so you need 4 or more to light a room. The room I'm in right now visiting my parents has 4 can lights, a light with 4 60 watt bulbs in it, and two recessed spot lights of unknown power. Ignoring those, its still 500 watts to light this room.
My house is 60+ years old, but was renovated six years ago -- most of it is can lit as well. It has 24 65 watt R30 can lights in it, among all the other lights.
I saw a nearly $30 a month drop in my electric bill switching the entire house to CFL. Dimmable R30 bulbs are pricey, $12+ each, but they will have payed themselves off in a year. I typically am facist about keeping lights off, too... I'm sure the savings would be double that if I had kids leaving them on all the time.
On a geek note, I also got a $30 savings a month by making changes in the data center in the basement. An old HP rack server was replaced with a much less power hungry desktop box which was faster... that saved 75% of the electricity it used to use. Three other desktop boxes which were slower were replaced with two free laptops with broken screens I got from friends who tend to break their laptops. The upside as well is that one small UPS can power everything for almost an hour.
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Re:Its good to see the few key things called out.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The NEC has constantly revised the electr
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My apartment has some narrow light fixtures from the 30s or 40s. Even the "small" CFL lights Just Don't Fit. It's not a matter of diameter so much as of length. If someone can find me a short CFL, I'd be thrilled.
-b.
Shameless plug for my instructable... (Score:2)
http://www.instructables.com/id/EE62QUOM31EUOJJVA
saves a few pennies here and there.....
Remotes + Sleep mode (Score:4, Interesting)
When we first got a TV (1988), the TV had a power switch, five channels and definitely no remote. So, whenever we didn't need the TV, we just switched off the power and turned it on when we needed it.
When 1999 dawned, the TV was a flat screen 25" with a remote. And lo, we would turn off the power for the TV only when we left the house (locked up) or at night. And that was just because my house was on the very top of a hill and power lines were often hit by lightning (yeah, I had my modem explode once).
And finally, now in 2006 (in a different city), I have six things plugged in - from DVD player to the TV itself. And it is such a big mess that nobody ever unplugs anything at all - just use the remote to turn it on & off. That sleep mode does take a fair bit of power (well, tens of watts) which is just going to an absolute waste (well, heating the room).
It is these un-noticed devices which suck a constant, but econonomically neglible drain - which could be avoided. The things you can fix aren't always the biggest consumers (water heaters, refrigerator) but small things like these - in a global level.
It is not just such permanently on stuff that you have - the average geek still has more connectors than you'd think. I realized this when I was in the high himalayas - and we were charging [flickr.com] stuff before we left human habitation. (Oh, took the laptop to 18,000 feet).
Re:Remotes + Sleep mode (Score:5, Insightful)
That last bit is critical. Guys, we're not wasting ANY energy, at least during the heating season. The heat put out by the wall warts and other always-on stuff, helps heat your house. If you have electric heat, it's exactly a wash. If you heat with natural gas or propane, well, this is that much less fuel you'll burn. The cost per BTU even comes out in favor of electric, sometimes. For me, the on-peak rate is 5x as high as the off-peak rate, so during nights and weekends, electric heat is cheaper than propane.
For off-peak heating, I use a 4500W water heater, piped into plastic tubing cast into the concrete slabs in my basement and kitchen. I can get a 1 degree (f) per hour temperature rise in the slabs, which doesn't sound like much but in practice is more than enough. The electric heat, in this case, saves me quite a bit in propane costs, somewhere around 20% in heating costs savings last time I calculated.
Point is, that heat isn't wasted, unless you're running an air conditioner at the same time.
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Circuit breakers, believe it or not, are designed for a limited number of on/off cycles. Using them as switches isn't a good idea - they may later jam and not turn off when you need them. Far better to install wall switches for each outlet they you need controlled if you want to go that route (but keep in mind that you'll be losing settings on some devices without flash RAM).
the same verdict is being reached all over (Score:4, Informative)
Standby estimates (Score:2)
of our power bill was so much greater (he now has a meter). Turns out his standby
power on all his devices is half of his total average power draw. They are on all the
time, after all, whereas the bigegr items are used mkore rarely. He also has more
gizmos than you can shake a stick at. To sum thar up: when he's away from the house
on vacation or whatever, with TVs and compuetrs off, his power draw is still at 50% of
the noraml am
two simple things would totally fix it (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Manufacturers should be obliged to make low-voltage devices have transformers internal(and wired after the power switch), and make those really annoying power bricks you now get with everything illegal.
Apart from usually being a ridiculous single-piece design that occludes several other sockets in a power strip, they cause massive cable tangles and practical use requires that they be left permanently powered-on.
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Re:two simple things would totally fix it (Score:5, Interesting)
Powered off: 0.035A
Booting: 0.250A - 0.320A
On, but idle: 0.180A - 0.250A
Sleep mode: 0.050A
Unplugged: 0.0A
So booting isn't that much more power than idle, and it's for a short period of time.
I find it interesting that powered off isn't really powered off, so you are better off using the switch on your power strip than relying on the mac "off" mode, which isn't a whole lot better than sleep.
Someone who wants to play with math more than me can figure out the break-even points, but it's clear that you are far better off unplugging your mac and rebooting overnight than leaving it in sleep mode. It's a no-brainer for a week. This basically says, unplug all your crap when you go on vacation, because with modern electronics, off isn't off.
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This is like that prevalent myth that turning a fluorescent light on and off uses up more energy than running it all day.
If your Mac takes 1 minute to boot, for your claim to be true it would have to draw 60x24x7 times as much power as it does when "sleeping", i.e., if it draws 5W when sleeping (surely it would be more) then booting would draw over 50kW.
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Has the manufacturing of power bricks become so efficient that they are in effect "free" and device designers simply assume a DC power source?
Does the extra space/heat/complexity of including the transformer within the device and the larger power connector required to actually plug it in make the devices that much more expensive to manufacture or somehow less attractive to cust
Re:two simple things would totally fix it (Score:5, Informative)
Glad you asked. The main reason is safety regulations. Devices that plug in to your household power need 3rd party certification (e.g. UL approval in US). Power supply design is a specialty, and although any EE could do it, not all can do it well, quickly and cheaply. If you (as designer) spec an external transformer, then you don't have to worry about the approval. You just buy an approved transformer and design your device to work on low voltage. This saves you thousands of dollars and many man-hours of time per design by not having to hire an independent lab to verify your safety compliance.
As an additional benefit, you can sell you product to work with different AC voltages just by supplying the appropriate transformer for each market. Plus, when you buy an external transformer, you get economies of scale because it can power not only your devices but many others built by thousands of other firms.
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Manufacturing costs: you get economy of scale on the power supply circuits.
Liability: if the power supply blows up, *you* didn't design or build it. Also, users of the circuit can't be directly exposed to 120VAC.
Size: yes, the circuit can be smaller, and the extra parts are out of the way on a floor or wall.
The problem with many wall wart bricks is that their transformer
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This is true to an extent, but the amount of power drawn in "zero load" conditions is quite small. The more load placed on the secondary, the more load seen on the primary. Some energy is wasted as heat. IIRC, a typical iron-core transformer is around 85% efficient at 50/60 Hz line current.
Switch mode power supplies can be much more efficient (such as a laptop "brick" or a PC s
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What I'd like to do is to power peripherals with the efficient power supply of my PC instead of having to independently manage a myriad of said annoying bricks.
USB maxes out at 2.5W, which is at least good enough to power a scanner, but not much more.
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That'd be bloody silly, after all, different circuits need different voltages to work.
I'm pretty sure... (Score:2)
Gadgets using more power, lights can use less powe (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Replaced heat pump with a more efficient model and installed set back thermostat. I lucked out, the compressor crapped out and I had a service policy. The impact on quality of life is nil, I had to learn the new thermostat.
2. Replaced refrigerator with a more efficient model. It was expensive but the old refrigerator was about 30 years old and was reaching the end of it's service life. It is a nicer refrigerator than the old one and it is quieter.
3. Replaced commonly used light bulbs with compact fluorescent. This was an inexpensive change and it had the most impact on quality of life. The color and light quality of the new compact fluorescents compares to the old lights but they take a few minutes to produce full light output. They remind me of a tube type radio warming up.
I think that the most interesting replacements were the night lights. I replaced the 6 night lights that used to draw about 4 watts each with LEDs. I connected a wall wart to an unused wire pair in my home telephone wiring and I use the phone wiring to transport power to my night light LEDs. I had the wall wart, LEDs, and other parts in my junk box -- and they work great.
The light conversion is both saving power used for lighting and reducing the summer air conditioning load. Someday I might even figure out how long it will take to save any money by replacing those lights. The main light in the living room was a 300 watt halogen torchiere which I replaced with three fluorescent flood lights which cost $35 for a new floor lamp and bulbs, rated power consumption went from 300 watts down to about 75 watts; and I frequently don't turn on all three of the bulbs. This summer I noticed that the living room was much cooler with the new lights. The kitchen is saving a similar amount of watts but the lights in the kitchen are not used very often.
Not the problem, but not ignorable (Score:2)
Consumer electronics do increasingly contribute to a home's electric budget, but only by virtue of quantity. Except for PCs and TVs, most products draw a pittance. For PCs, they did draw more and more power from the mid-80s to a year or two ago, but newer CPUs have finally addressed that problem (and power supplies have gotten more efficient as well). For TVs, larger means more power, but the tech has drastically improved... A 50" plasma draws comparable to a
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Are you saying that my PC XT with a CGA card, a dinky little power supply fan, and a 150 watt power supply was less power hungry than my Athlon 64 X2 Dual with 2 top of the line video cards, SIX fans, and that REQUIRES (I know this cos I have already burned 2 out) at least a 550 Watt power supply to run? Computers were more efficient a few years ago around the 1990's, but now they
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New definition to always on (Score:2)
I guess it's no worse than the "Wake on Modem" that's enabled by default in the co
Idle usage (Score:2)
So what you think is the big user (kettle) is about the same as the microwave.
Wastage here and there from small devices adds up (Score:2)
Re:Wastage here and there from small devices adds (Score:2)
What really hit me was when
Re:Wastage here and there from small devices adds (Score:2)
I always tried to remember to turn off my AC. When I left the apartment, the power company mistakenly sent me a bill some time after I left - and I noticed the next p
Lost in the noise (Score:2)
I'd venture that LED lighting in the home will become mainstream within the next 10 years. Given that lightbulbs make up about 33% of a home's power consumption & they will be going from 40-100 watts a piece to 2-6 watts, isn't the complaining about gadgets power draw a little
So long as our power generation is cyclical when it comes to CO2, it really doesn't matter what we spend the energy doing. Getting to solar, wind & biofuel generation is a real target, not making a phone recharg
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Enough: show me the $ savings (Score:2)
Sure, I replaced incandescent bulbs with CFLs when I moved in. So where is the savings? I optimized things like computers and then "insignificant, low-power" devices.
I'd love to see this journalist's KWHs per year over the past 5 years. I've love to see how many KWH he consumes a month. Perhaps given his waste, a savings of 100 KWH/month is insignificant.
Some people think that
Gadgets smadgets (Score:3, Insightful)
Save the earth quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
We could probably save the Earth a little more if we didn't do one to two loads of dishes a day, and if we didn't wash a dozen loads of laundry a week, but hey, that's modern life with small children. These are luxuries of modern living that I'm going to clutch onto until the ocean is lapping at the door.
I wonder if his kids and grandkids will feel similarly about Dad's attitude?!
Don't get me wrong, the guy seems to be doing more than most people. My point is that we are not "entitled" to lives of such "luxuries" (his word) as we kill off species and, indeed, the entire planet.
We have a helluva lot of change to do -- either willingly or it'll be forced on us -- and most of that change needs to occur between our ears.
PC can run 24/7 with little power usen, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
After 10 minutes in sleep mode it all consumes 5W.
1. PC It runs 24/7, and consumes 43kWh or $6 a year.
2. Clothes drier runs 6 hours a week at 4kW thats 416kWh or $60 a year
3. PC when CPU doing actual work sucks 147W thats 1300kWh or $206 a year. When I discovered this, I immediately disabled the protein folding project my PC was participating in.
household low voltage bus (Score:2, Insightful)
the horribly stupid situation we've gotten ourselves into is that now we have a myriad transformers in our houses. i can think of five that are currently plugged in right now in this room. put your hand on one of these -- that heat i
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Many, Many Mistakes... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, that computer isn't *remotely* power effecient.
The ridiculously high 130+watt idle numbers are probably due to the S2K Bus Disconnect bug/issue AMD had before the switch to 64bit CPUs. Running a program like VCool or FVcool would likely reduce that number by 20-60 watts.
The trend in CPUs (still the biggest single power drain in modern computers) is for MUCH more power-effecient models (especially when idle). A newer CPU and motherboard would be using significantly less power than that old Athlon, despite vastly outperforming the older chip.
The recomendations are probably due to the ridiculous power consumption of Pentium 4 CPUs (which are thankfully behind us now) and $5 "500w" PSUs, which can't possibly deliver half the power advertised. Stay away from those two issues, and a 300W power supply is more than enough for modern systems.
Additionally, 80% effecient power supplies like Seasonic's units are becomming more common, and more widely available, helping to significantly reduce power consumption as well.
With all of this, many people are putting together new towers that use less power than their notebooks.
That's not a fair comparison. Those 19" CRTs probably have a "viewable" size of 17.9".
Besides that, a jump of approx 50% power savings is still huge, and better than you'd get trading-in your old refridgerator for a new one... And with other improvements on the horizon, I predict computer displays will continue to out-pace refrigerator effeciency gains for many years to come.
I fail to see how a DC motor is inherently more effecient than an AC motor. For one thing, it comes into your house as AC to begin with.
I sincerely doubt most people watch TV with a surround-sound amplifier on, 40 hours a week.
I don't see the majority of TV programming (things like news, game shows, soap operas, etc.) getting any more exciting when played over 6 speakers instead of the two built-in to the TV.
I don't know why anyone would leave their TV on to listen to digital music channels for hours a day, when it has already been established that the person in question is using a seperate amplifier for their TV viewing already...
But that didn't stop him from using this in his calculations, not to mention claiming that he's trying to save the earth...
No, it isn't. As I've repeated on /. many times before:
"An electric heater will be a purely resistive load, giving you a nearly perfect power factor of 1.0, whereas your VCR probably has a cheap power supply with a power factor as low as 0.4. So the VCR is causing a lot more power loss [line losses], even though it's the same 5watts."
No doubt this test was done on the same 32-bit AMD Athlon system (without S2K Bus Disconnect enabled) WHICH DOESN'T IDLE P
Sacre Bleu (Score:2)
Reminds me John Stewart's coverage of how Fox News uses "Questions": "Does John Murtha's push for withdrawl encourage terrorists and insurgents to increase the number of attacks on our troops in Iraq?"
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Re:My results (Score:4, Informative)
Two comments:
First, these are Volt-Amps, not necessarily Watts. National Grid is going to charge you for Watts. The "Watts=VoltsxAmps" formula only works for 100% resistive loads or DC. On AC, you have to adjust for reactive power.
Second, what is going into your power converter that you are using to run your Canadian appliances in the UK? In other words, how much have you increased the insanity?
On a side note, don't you just love those British 3-prong plugs? Just be careful not to step on one in the middle of the night barefoot! :-)
Re:My results (Score:5, Funny)
Or, more generally, don't step on anything pointy barefoot. Time of day and intended purpose of the pointy thing are not important.
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> plugs? Just be careful not to step on one in the middle of
> the night barefoot!
IMHO there is at least a master's degree in psychology awaiting the person who performs an analysis of national character as revealed by the UK, French, US, Italian, and Australian electric plugs/sockets.
One thing I will say about the UK plug: at least there is no question that you have a ground (earth).
sPh
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The wonderful insanity continues in the US with polarized plugs - one blade larger than the other, but not all appliances use this. The European 2-prong plug reminds me of a fisher price toy, but they sure are easier to plug in and pull out.
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I am wondering if this "over-engineered" plug is the result of very conservative design or a fundamental misunderstanding of electricity). Either way, it's a pain to have to carry these huge plugs when travel
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There are actually several different kinds of British plugs. The giant square prong plug is only the most recent incarnation. There are the "lighting" plugs that have round prongs and are more akin to a US plug in size. They were actually the standard until the 70s or so. There are also shaver sockets with two prongs spaced similarly to US sockets. Some even have a voltage switch to select 115V or 230V.
UK plugs are ridiculously overengineered, but I can
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If that leaves you with some question as to whether you will have an operable earth ground when the ground prong is plastic, you are not qualified to plug appliances into the wall. Please contact a trained professional.
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Yes, they do hurt to step on, but I do like the design, apart from their size. If they were about 2/3rds of their current size, they'd be great.
One aspect I really like about them is that the ground terminal is longer than the other two, which is used to slide a shutter in the socket out of the way to allow the live and neutral pins to plug in to the socket. This makes
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When My younger brother was about 5 my mother was rewiring a plug to a vacuum cleaner.
She turned around to do something else leaving the plug in parts. For those of you who have no experience with British plugs most of them can be unscrewed and reconnected by hand. the fully molded ones that are common in the US have only started to show up on British equipment in the last 15 years or so.
So my little brother ever the curios little brat picked up the separate prongs.
He was smart enough to work out that
Consumers need to shop for efficiency. (Score:2)
Do you know that Philips makes some of the most efficient LCD monitors? I have a 19" model that consumes 34W of power.
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I was sure the UK uses 225/240 Volts, not 125.
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Yeah was about to say your missing a 2x multiplier if your in the UK. None of the equipment complains about running on 50hz instead?
A lot of equipment is completely oblivious to this shift in frequency. Most affected are appliances with AC motors and clocks. If the first thing an appliance does is convert AC to DC (as with almost all electronic appliances) then no difference will be noticed. If there is a transformer before the first rectifier, then there may be a slight loss of power.
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I moved from the US to the Isle of Man and have a large transformer to run the US stuff that won't run on 240 volts (most stuff will - computer monitors and computers have switch mode power supplies that will take any voltage from about 90v to 250v, the regulation on the SMPS taking care of the output voltage reg
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And the watts it DOES consume are taken from the telephone company line, not your house's power.
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Ahh - there is nothing like the smell of a troll in the morning! That statement is just so ridiculous it's not worth responding to.
My polycom 601 (a high-end business phone) only takes 6.21W. If your IP phone REALLY takes 20W, I would consider replacing it. That, or your meter is whacked.
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To be honest, for most adults I have met, the main difference is age.
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Only if they generate less than 10M V...