Power Efficiencies - batteries, wall warts etc.

Switching power supplies are nothing new, but it's only within the last decade that the electronics have gotten cheap enough to enable such supplies to be incorporated into low-cost consumer equipment. Besides saving energy(which is inarguably a good thing), there is less waste heat to get rid of with switching power supplies. For example, suppose you operate an LED array consisting of 50 LEDS drawing 20 ma each directly off a 5V battery using a linear regulator. LED forward voltage is ~3V, so the linear regulator must dissipate 2V times the current of 1 amp(50x20ma). This is 2W of power that must be gotten rid of somehow, usually via a heat sink. Now try doing the same thing with a 93% efficient switching power supply and the waste heat drops from 2W down to 0.226W, a factor of nearly ten, while the power drain on the batteries drops from 1 amp down to 0.645 amps, which is over a 35% reduction. As another example, if I made the power supply to my thermoelectric freezer linear instead of switching, I may have had 300W of waste heat instead of only about 35W or so(and a future redesign may reduce that further). Getting rid of 300W makes for a pretty nasty problem in heat transfer, so in this case I never even considered a linear regulator.
 
I read in the second link that plugged-in but off devices ("sleeping" printers, instant-on TVs, set-top boxes, etc.) consume 4 Billion watts of electricity in the U.S. a year. If true, that's staggering. It really irritated me when printer mfrs. dispensed with the on-off switch and went to "automatic wake-up". If I print 3 pages at-a-time once in 10 days, that's a phenomenal waste of electricity converting to heat in the inefficient power transformer. In my previous home, I use to physically yank out the power cord when the printer was not in use; I'm unable to do that now (congestion, with wires running all over, with the printer sitting on the carpet).
 
Devices that are off but on "standy" may only draw a fraction of a watt, or they may draw up to a few watts. Add it up nationwide and you have the equivalent of a few power plants producing electricity for...nothing. A terrible waste, and one that has caused the EU to mandate a maximum current drain for devices in standy. You can help by putting everything you use occasionally on a power strip, and turning the strip off when not in use. I do this. When I know I won't be using my PC for more than about 6 hours I turn it off, and turn the switch off on the power strip. I also turn off the monitor whenever I'm not sitting if front of it, although I leave the PC running most of the time to save the hard drives from excessive power cycling. When solid-state drives are the norm, I'll have no reason to leave my PC powered when I'm not using it, although if the standy power is very low(<<1W) I will do so.
 
blakerwry said:
jtr, what does your electric bill look like? gas?
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Since I still live with my parents I don't pay the bill directly, but it generally tends to run $200 to $300 per month in the summer(higher usage for A/C combined with a higher base rate during the summer). In cooler months it can be between $100 and $150. Don't forget this is for three people who are home pretty much all the time(I work at home). Base rates in the winter tend to be around $0.12 per KW-hr and in the summer $0.16/KW-hr. Our electrical usage is usually around 1500-2000 KW-hr monthly in the summer and about 1000 KW-hr in the winter. The gas portion of the bill is around $20-$25 I think. A good portion of the usage is for the refrigerator all year round and the hot water circulator pumps in the colder months(we have an oil-fired hot water system). As I've mentioned in other threads, I'm seriously contemplating converting to solar if/when I buy the house. With the high KW-hr rates here, the payback time should be far less than in most other areas, and I may be able to sell surplus power back to the power company.
 
I also meant to add that all areas in which lights are on a good portion of the time are fluorescent. We have linear T-12 tubes in the entire finished basement, garage, and my bedroom, and T-8s in the kitchen. I can't convince my mother to part with the incandescent chandeliers in the living room, master bedroom, and dining room. She thinks they look nice even though she hates the yellow color of incandescent light as much as I do. Of the three, only the one in the dining room is used more than very intermittantly, so extra electrical usage is practically negligible. Hopefully in a few years we'll see nice LED candelabra base bulbs using 1/10 the power and with a nice white light output, and then the problem will be solved. Additionally, we have CFLs in all the frequently used outdoor lights, especially the side light which is on all night. When we used bulbs we needed a new one every 2 or 3 months. The CFL is in for 10 months and still going strong. I installed a few 300W halogen outdoor lights recently, but as these are hardly ever used they don't have much impact on the electric bill. When the bulbs burn out or break, I'll replace them with fluorescent or LED(whichever makes more sense at the time).
 
I have you beat alot in the electrical dept.(during the hottest month of the year i payed $75. That is with 2 people in an apartment though...But my gas bill is f*ing crazy... hell if I know how to figure it out.

I might use between 0 and 2 units of gas a month... i would say an average of $5 per gas a month, but somehow on my bill I get charged for like 4 different things, only one of which is the gas I actually used... then there are 3 taxes added on to that... total bill can be anywhere between $10 and $30... I'm dreading the bill as it gets colder this winter.
 
unfortunately we have a chandelier as one of our main sources of light(dingin room/ computer room.. I hate it... I hope, as you've said, that they come with some sort of bulb replacement for those small incadecents they use.


I've thought of just getting a floor lamp and using that instead, but couldn't justify the cost considering the chandelier works fine and is decent looking.
 
What will happen to our electricity bills when the good old combustion engine is changed out for a electrical one,maybe we will be happier because we have clean and fresh air but not so happy because we must pay for it now in higher charges, but there is the consolation in knowing that we might not be so sick and save on our medical charges,so maybe we might be a little richer in more ways than one.
 
Coal burning power plants are responsible for killing alot of the trout that I go fishing for every year near the national divide here in the USA... something I spend weeks of time on and hundreds of dollars doing. i'm not too happy about the acid rain.

However, current automobile trends are out of control. We need to reduce the use of gasoline and the total emmisions of our vehicles. I wish people would do this by making smarter life style choices(car pooling, walking more, buying more efficient cars, simply driving less), but it looks like that route is almost futile.
 
Bush's EPA just relaxed rules for coal-burning, polluting power plants that were sued by the Clinton Administration. They withdrew all the lawsuits as well. It's amazing how one administration, in a scant few years, can set a country decades back with respect to civil liberties & freedoms, the environment, etc.
 
the INQUIRER
Illinois scientists make 509GHz transistor
By INQUIRER staff: Friday 07 November 2003, 08:37

SCIENTISTS AT the University of Illinois claim to have broken their own record for creating the world's fastest transistor.

A device the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Illinois University has made a 509GHz transistor, and that's 57GHz faster than a previous transistor the boffins had put together.

The transistors are build from indium phosphide and indium gallium arsenide rather than silicon and germanium, the university said.

This system, claims Milton Feng, a professor in the department, is "inherently faster than silicon germanium and can support a much higher current density".

Feng claims that the research, funded by DARPA, will mean even faster transistors in the future – perhaps as fast as one terahertz. µ
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L'INQ
University of Illinois
 
blakerwry said:
However, current automobile trends are out of control. We need to reduce the use of gasoline and the total emmisions of our vehicles. I wish people would do this by making smarter life style choices(car pooling, walking more, buying more efficient cars, simply driving less), but it looks like that route is almost futile.
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It's a shame that the average person can't be made to understand that, and even more of a shame that our government does little in this regard. I can't just blame the Bush administration. No administration in my memory has ever gone up against big oil and the big three automakers. It seems the only way out will be to hope some private company comes up with something(maybe a cold fusion generator) that's so revolutionary it gets retrofitted into everything in short order and after that you can't give away oil or coal. Of course, that's wishful thinking that will likely never happen.
 
actually, from my point of view the administrations have been "going up against big oil(and other neergy providers) and the big 3 auto makers". Both industries are regulated and ARE under control to a major extent. I think there are a few loop holes, like SUVs... but mostly I see the problem of air pollution is being caused by consumers.
 
mubs said:
Bush's EPA just relaxed rules for coal-burning, polluting power plants that were sued by the Clinton Administration. They withdrew all the lawsuits as well. It's amazing how one administration, in a scant few years, can set a country decades back with respect to civil liberties & freedoms, the environment, etc.
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Hardly surprising seeing as they paid for his political campaign.
 
blakerwry said:
actually, from my point of view the administrations have been "going up against big oil(and other energy providers) and the big 3 auto makers".
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You gotta be kidding me.

Bush is the puppet of oil companies. The ex-CEO of Enron wrote your current environmental policy. Cheney bought oil from Irak in the nineties (yes, during the embargo) and Rumsfeld is another former president or director of the oil business. Just like many many other folks that have been nominated by Bush since he's been elected.

All the rules made by Bush on oil regulation were those that would hurt the oil companies the least while creating the illusion for credulous US citizen (like people with very misinformed point of view) that the oil companies were regulated to safe standard. But in reality, all of this is just bullshit. Those rules are a smoke screen. Why do you think US is the worst poluter on the planet? Because your country is ruled by oil companies and their directors don't give a shit about the climate, the environment and the welfare of US citizen. Money, money, money and money.
 
blakerwry said:
actually, from my point of view the administrations have been "going up against big oil(and other neergy providers) and the big 3 auto makers". Both industries are regulated and ARE under control to a major extent. I think there are a few loop holes, like SUVs... but mostly I see the problem of air pollution is being caused by consumers.
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True that there are CAFE standards, but it's also true that those standards haven't been raised in years and that the automakers used the SUV loophole and clever advertising to sell the very types of unregulated vehicles that they make the most profit on. As a result, average fuel economy of vehicles on the road is at a 22 year low despite the required CAFE. To some extent consumers are to blame for being brainwashed into buying SUVs and not demanding zero emission vehicles, but fact is if all they could buy were more sensible vehicles the SUV craze never would have started. Just because consumers may want something doesn't necessarily mean it should be produced, so I think both sides are somewhat to blame here.
 
Related to power and storage:

ANANOVA
CDs 'could be history in five years'
18:07 Wednesday 12th November 2003

Compact discs could be history within five years, superseded by a new generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.

Scientists say each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent to 1,000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space.

Experts have developed the technology by melding together organic and inorganic materials in a unique way.

They say it could be used to produce a single-use memory card that permanently stores data and is faster and easier to operate than a CD.
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For more information, see link above.
 
When information is recorded, higher voltages at certain points in the circuit grid would "blow" the PEDOT fuses at those points. As a result, data is permanently etched into the device. A blown fuse would from then on be read as a zero, while an unblown one that lets current pass through is read as a one.
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That's the same way a programmable IC works.. like a BIOS chip for example... and as you probably all know, they are the most static sensitive components in a PC... <be sure to ground yourself properly before handing your friend your memory-R>
 
blakerwry said:
When information is recorded, higher voltages at certain points in the circuit grid would "blow" the PEDOT fuses at those points. As a result, data is permanently etched into the device. A blown fuse would from then on be read as a zero, while an unblown one that lets current pass through is read as a one.
Click to expand...

That's the same way a programmable IC works.. like a BIOS chip for example... and as you probably all know, they are the most static sensitive components in a PC... <be sure to ground yourself properly before handing your friend your memory-R>
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Well, kinda... That's just PROM... BIOS chips are Flash ROM (I'm not sure whether the suffix "ROM" is justified with Flash...).

Static electricity is bad for those chips. Especially as one must change them often. You'd need some sort of protective cover to shield the pins when the card is out of the reader (kinda like in floppy or MD). Plus, while the chip itself could be sized as small as one's fingertip, the card itself should be enough large that the persons who have "butter fingers" could handle them easily.

Yes, they would be much easier to lose/misplace than CDs.

Cheers,

Jan
 
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