Pity, we have mad “the sky is falling” concern over the standby current draw of home electronics.
Yes, there was a day when the heater circuits for the vacuum tubes kept your television ready for instantly springing to life, but consider for a moment the difference in draw betwen “on” and “off” for modern electronics.
The difference in efficiency between the old, and the new, has grown respectably larger over each generation of devices.
It’s a tribute to the engineering involved in these machines. The real problem is that we have communications majors making mad proclaimations about the evil “vampires” connected to that wall outlet, making us feel the “requisite” guilt over our usage of electrical power. I’ve had enough of that. What we really need are more trained engineers, or at the very least, proper education in the sciences for the unwashed masses.
The power plant is distributing the fruits of its spinning generators, alternating current, pased through multiple transformers and requisite switching systems, even corrections in phase as it travels to your home. The sad truth is that once the turbines spin the massive AC generators, that energy has to go somewhere, regardless of demand. It’s a closed system, with the electrical load variables only partly controllable on the distribution side.
Thus, as our homes collectively drop their demands upon the system to “standby levels”, the real issue is the peak demand requirement, and the overall generating capacity required to meet that peak.
So, we sit at home feeling guilty, or more correctly, being made to feel guilty, for our lack of concern for the planet. Again, this is fear mongering at its finest. True conservation means collectively watching our power usage during the busiest periods, so we can keep the required generating capacity most efficiently used. Simply put, less energy consumption by having less spinning turbine generators.
We traumatize our electronics by feeling guilty and cycling them on a power strip, increasing transients, losing their basic settings, all things that will drive these devices to an earlier grave, and yes, this means more trauma in the form of disposing those dead electronic devices.
Sorry, enough of my engineer’s rant. What do I know? Perhaps the training from MTV is more apropos than real bookwork? None of those guys can even spell “slide rule”.
On topic, vncoffman, I am jealous of your e280v2s, I have a craving for a backup device, as the e200 is the engineer’s Sansa, no doubt: it has a metal cover plate with screws, and replaceable components. Anything with metal cover plates makes the engineer happy.
And think how we are collectively helping our energy consumption by listening to the music while consuming mere milliwatts of energy. Save the Planet, go Sansa!!
Bob :smileyvery-happy: