Mobile phone chargers without a phone - hype?

So the latest buzz in the media is about being "green" by unplugging your mobile phone charger when it's not currently charging a phone.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but isn't the only power consumed due to wire resistance in the primary winding of the transformer? Seems to me that should be miniscule.

Now phones that don't disconnect the charging circuit when they are charged, and thus remain hot to the touch, would be a different story. But I have never encountered a phone with a lithium battery that did not possess such a cutoff.

So is there any material value to this practice or is it like saving on gasoline by turning off the radio?

Reply to
runderwo
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You could possibly save 14 cents per year by unplugging your charger when not in use. Not worth the bother!

Reply to
sparky

They're all switchmode now, but either way, the residual consumption of current while not in use still remains relatively close to miniscule.

And they don't exist.

And you won't. One side effect of gross overcharging is the batteries go bang in quite a spectacular manner.

Like the other poster said. Cents per year saving, not worth the bother.

The tripe originated from some moron who thought the phone chargers exist within a universe of their own. They don't, there are other considerations to determining the cost of ownership, cost to environment, and overall power consumption.

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Reply to
John Tserkezis

It's worse than that. Due to the lack of knowledge of the press and the general public, it's better to blame global warming for anything these days.

For example, when the river floods, instead of blaming lack of proper dams, maintaining pumps and so on, it's "global warming". Or in Africa if you have a bad year for mosquitos because you don't spray, don't use nets, etc, if you say people are dying because we are poor and have to spend our money on food instead of preventive measures, you get an "oh too bad" from people in the industrialized nations.

If you publish a report that claims the increase in the population of mosquitos is due to global warming, then you get lots of relief money.

It's also a matter of sense. For example, if you use a regular U.S. size electric dryer for one load a month less, it saves more electricity than your modems, cable boxes, and all those devices with timers in standby. However people would rather be "green" and unplug them, instead of simply doing one load less.

Or for example microwaving your slice of quiche instead of using a toaster oven or a regular oven to heat it up.

People here use washing machines that heat the water in them. An average load of clothes (around 7-8 pounds) costs almost

4.5 kWh to wash. We use a larger Maytag washer and except for bathmats and towels, cold water (which never goes below 60F anyway), doing twice as much laundry for .5kWh.

You can't just turn off the heater, as the washers are designed to use short wash cycles is you don't heat the water. The more you heat it, the longer it runs. You simply can't have a long cold wash. :-(

I understand that self heating washers are now being sold in the U.S. :-(

Geoff.

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Reply to
Geoffrey S. Mendelson

Ah yes, forgot about that one. The old classic if you run out of ideas.

What?! One load less of my dainty unmentionables?! I think not!

Er, like pizza, it's best eaten cold. Or maybe it's just me.

We've had them here in Australia for ages, but we've always been able to turn them off. Not a "direct" control of the heater as such, but there's always a "cold wash" option on the buttons. In fact, I don't ever remember NOT seeing it.

Heating-only washers would have been further killed off after the hot water/cold water wash quality difference myth was spread around.

The 'old school' was concerned about bacteria. Too bad it never made any difference anyway.

Along with the general trend for water heaters to have the thermostat temperature turned down - not for power savings - but for burns safety. There was NEVER any mention of power saving on this point because it was introduced way before the tree huggers started whining.

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Reply to
John Tserkezis

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Reply to
runderwo

Or when we have 3 times as many houses using the same water supply as 10 years ago, it's "freakish drought" and "global warming." (And so forth.)

Reply to
mc

" snipped-for-privacy@mail.win.org" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

Most chargers and things these days use switch-mode supplies. I don't know how much they draw unloaded.

FWIW, I practice unplugging my various chargers when not in use (excepting the chager for an SLA flashlight which likes float charged). Unfortunately, a lot of my computer system remains "on" when unused.

Reply to
Gary Tait

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