EnergyStar plugpacks

LMAO!

Dave.

As an impartial observer, it's you who needs to correct your behaviour. Anyone who has the need to insult the mild mannered Winfield Hill, who is an extremely important contributor here, has to have a screw lose.

"blackhead"

You **ARE** an opinionated JERK !!

Another smug, conceited pommy turd of the worst sort.

Plus pseudo academic wanker.

Win is a life long, grossly autistic, narcissist - nearly as up himself as you.

So do F*CK OFF !!!

...... Phil

Don't feed the insane troll, unless its something highly toxic. If you do, there won't be any household appliance safe from his fetish. He does unspeakable things to toasters, and other innocent electrically operated devices.

I can't even look at your profile because:

"This account has been banned because it violated the Google Groups Terms Of Use"

So, what exactly is all that about then?

LMAO! Golf clap for Phil, an impressive effort!

Dave.

That amounts to using about 1 kW-hr per year, instead of 4 or 5 on your old plugpack. You're only saving maybe 50 cents US a year.

The real benefit is to Nokia, who gets to market their plugpacks as being Energy Star compliant.

Mark

He is, but most people probably have upwards of a dozen wall-warts like this in their homes, plugged in full time... and many of them probably aren't as efficient as the O.P.'s original power supply was: It's not uncommon for some higher-power (tens of watts) power supply to draw ten or more watts at idle, in years past.

I don't think the average consumer is particularly aware of the whole Energy Star compaign, actually. :-)

I'm at least vaguely enough aware of it that I know I have never bought anything that was a product that was beneficiary

although i am buying a newly outfitted condo that i bet will have many such energy savers

i can't say I know yet whether they are or not

because i had no choice in the selection

Hope you enjoy the humor in this story

mk5000

'A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, Near the old court-house pacing up and down, Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards He lingers where his children used to play"--abraham lincoln walks, vachel lindsay

Ban on transformer adaptors? !! Worldwide? Or in Australia only?

The last paragraph is interesting: "There is some hope though ... alternative cores for conventional transformer based units exist, and it is certainly possible to make transformer supplies comply with all the requirements. The big question at the moment is whether anyone will do so. Only time will tell."

Is the author discussing toroidal transformers?

Toroidal types are incompatible with Class 2 ( double) insulation requirements.

....... Phil

Thanks for the information. I appreciate it.

Michael

In his web document, "The Humble Wall Transformer is the Latest Target for Legislators," By Rod Elliott (ESP), Rod states,

"A mandatory energy rating requirement effectively bans all presently available transformer based external supplies because their magnetising current is higher than allowable. In order to pass, the no-load dissipation must be less than 0.5W for supplies rated at less than 10W, or 0.75W for supplies rated at between 10 and 250W. Most small transformers draw a magnetising current of around 20-30mA, and the range of power consumption I measured was between 1.1W up to 1.8W (this was verified with a fairly wide cross- section of supplies at my disposal. The dissipated power is directly related to the winding resistance, and also includes iron loss - that amount of power needed to reverse the flux in the core on each half cycle of the AC waveform)."

In my opinion, Rod is badly misinformed on this issue, and perhaps by extension in his reading, then so would be Phil.

It's too bad Rod didn't consult the extensive discussions some of us have had here on s.e.d., wherein we listed some detailed measurements of small transformers - magnetizing inductance, leakage inductance, dc and ac resistances, etc.

We found that typical manufacturers make rather efficient transformers when they're making larger models, but when they make small ones, e.g. 2.5 and 6VA, they really take serious liberties saving on the relative amount of copper and iron used. This allows the little buggers to dissipate far more heat than necessary, compared to their size. We speculated that they felt, hey, it's only dissipating 1.5W, or 2 or 3W, so what's the problem?

It's trivial to greatly reduce the magnetizing current by adding some primary turns and thereby staying much further away from core saturation.

I performed a simple experiment with a Signal Transformer 241-series size-4 frame part. That's one size up from the smallest size they make in that type. I operated without any loads.

I measured the primary magnetizing current at 65mA peak, which given our 120V ac power = 7.8 VA. Most of the current was out of phase with the primary voltage, so the power consumption was much less, about 1.23 watts. Not too bad, and in keeping with Rod's measurements, but oops! well over the new allowed limit.

Next I used a DP-241 size-4 frame part. This fellow was nearly identical, but had the primary winding broken into two portions so they could be wired in parallel for 120V, or in series for 240V operation. My thesis was that the primary should have more turns to meet the new rules, and a factor of two seemed reasonable. To test this idea I ran the 240-volt transformer wiring on 120 volts.

Now I measured only 5.5mA peak primary magnetizing current, more than 10x less! Note that's only 0.66 VA. Clearly the primary magnetizing fields were well below the dangerous power-wasting saturated region. The current-voltage phase shift was about 45 degrees. Are you ready? The new power consumption was, tada!! 0.40 watts.

That's well under the new allowed limit. And I think with further design optimization they can do even better.

So I predict the transformer manufacturers won't have any trouble making parts to meet the new rules. I for one will be glad to see it and look forward to buying the new parts.

In his web document, "The Humble Wall Transformer is the Latest Target for Legislators," By Rod Elliott (ESP), Rod states,

"A mandatory energy rating requirement effectively bans all presently available transformer based external supplies because their magnetising current is higher than allowable. In order to pass, the no-load dissipation must be less than 0.5W for supplies rated at less than 10W, or 0.75W for supplies rated at between 10 and 250W. Most small transformers draw a magnetising current of around 20-30mA, and the range of power consumption I measured was between 1.1W up to 1.8W (this was verified with a fairly wide cross- section of supplies at my disposal. The dissipated power is directly related to the winding resistance, and also includes iron loss - that amount of power needed to reverse the flux in the core on each half cycle of the AC waveform)."

In my opinion, Rod is badly misinformed on this issue, and perhaps by extension in his reading, then so would be Phil.

It's too bad Rod didn't consult the extensive discussions some of us have had here on s.e.d., wherein we listed some detailed measurements of small transformers - magnetizing inductance, leakage inductance, dc and ac resistances, etc.

We found that typical manufacturers make rather efficient transformers when they're making larger models, but when they make small ones, e.g. 2.5 and 6VA, they really take serious liberties saving on the relative amount of copper and iron used. This allows the little buggers to dissipate far more heat than necessary, compared to their size. We speculated that they felt, hey, it's only dissipating 1.5W, or 2 or 3W, so what's the problem?

It's trivial to greatly reduce the magnetizing current by adding some primary turns and thereby staying much further away from core saturation.

I performed a simple experiment with a Signal Transformer 241-series size-4 frame part. That's one size up from the smallest size they make in that type. I operated without any loads.

I measured the primary magnetizing current at 65mA peak, which given our 120V ac power = 7.8 VA. Most of the current was out of phase with the primary voltage, so the power consumption was much less, about 1.23 watts. Not too bad, and in keeping with Rod's measurements, but oops! well over the new allowed limit.

Next I used a DP-241 size-4 frame part. This fellow was nearly identical, but had the primary winding broken into two portions so they could be wired in parallel for 120V, or in series for 240V operation. My thesis was that the primary should have more turns to meet the new rules, and a factor of two seemed reasonable. To test this idea I ran the 240-volt transformer wiring on 120 volts.

Now I measured only 5.5mA peak primary magnetizing current, more than 10x less! Note that's only 0.66 VA. Clearly the primary magnetizing fields were well below the dangerous power-wasting saturated region. The current-voltage phase shift was about 45 degrees. Are you ready? The new power consumption was, tada!! 0.40 watts.

That's well under the new allowed limit. And I think with further design optimization they can do even better.

So I predict the transformer manufacturers won't have any trouble making parts to meet the new rules. I for one will be glad to see it and look forward to buying the new parts.

In his web document, "The Humble Wall Transformer is the Latest Target for Legislators," By Rod Elliott (ESP), Rod states,

"A mandatory energy rating requirement effectively bans all presently available transformer based external supplies because their magnetising current is higher than allowable. In order to pass, the no-load dissipation must be less than 0.5W for supplies rated at less than 10W, or 0.75W for supplies rated at between 10 and 250W. Most small transformers draw a magnetising current of around 20-30mA, and the range of power consumption I measured was between 1.1W up to 1.8W (this was verified with a fairly wide cross- section of supplies at my disposal. The dissipated power is directly related to the winding resistance, and also includes iron loss - that amount of power needed to reverse the flux in the core on each half cycle of the AC waveform)."

In my opinion, Rod is badly misinformed on this issue, and perhaps by extension in his reading, then so would be Phil.

It's too bad Rod didn't consult the extensive discussions some of us have had here on s.e.d., wherein we listed some detailed measurements of small transformers - magnetizing inductance, leakage inductance, dc and ac resistances, etc.

We found that typical manufacturers make rather efficient transformers when they're making larger models, but when they make small ones, e.g. 2.5 and 6VA, they really take serious liberties saving on the relative amount of copper and iron used. This allows the little buggers to dissipate far more heat than necessary, compared to their size. We speculated that they felt, hey, it's only dissipating 1.5W, or 2 or 3W, so what's the problem?

It's trivial to greatly reduce the magnetizing current by adding some primary turns and thereby staying much further away from core saturation.

I performed a simple experiment with a Signal Transformer 241-series size-4 frame part. That's one size up from the smallest size they make in that type. I operated without any loads.

I measured the primary magnetizing current at 65mA peak, which given our 120V ac power = 7.8 VA. Most of the current was out of phase with the primary voltage, so the power consumption was much less, about 1.23 watts. Not too bad, and in keeping with Rod's measurements, but oops! well over the new allowed limit.

Next I used a DP-241 size-4 frame part. This fellow was nearly identical, but had the primary winding broken into two portions so they could be wired in parallel for 120V, or in series for 240V operation. My thesis was that the primary should have more turns to meet the new rules, and a factor of two seemed reasonable. To test this idea I ran the 240-volt transformer wiring on 120 volts.

Now I measured only 5.5mA peak primary magnetizing current, more than 10x less! Note that's only 0.66 VA. Clearly the primary magnetizing fields were well below the dangerous power-wasting saturated region. The current-voltage phase shift was about 45 degrees. Are you ready? The new power consumption was, tada!! 0.40 watts.

That's well under the new allowed limit. And I think with further design optimization they can do even better.

So I predict the transformer manufacturers won't have any trouble making parts to meet the new rules. I for one will be glad to see it and look forward to buying the new parts.

So, the moral of the story is, use transformers with 220V primaries to get 110V (440V primaries to get 220V), and de-rate the secondary by a factor of two?

I wonder how they'll feel about raising their prices accordingly. :-)

Cheers! Rich

Time the posturing pommy Wanker learned to bloody read !!!!

The whole idea of banning them is utterly STUPID !!.

Then the core and copper losses increase again.

Such designs become inefficient unless operated near the core's saturation limit.

The new rules require external PSUs to be unusually efficient, as well as have very low off load power loss.

Taken together ( which Win has stupidly failed to do) this means that E- cores are basically ruled out of the game.

Even the majority of *presently available* SMPS are ruled out of the game !!!

Only new generation SMPS ( which basically cease to switch with no load) will pass.

As I have noted here already - it is possible that in some VA ratings ( between say 7VA and 50 VA ) an R-Core design would make the grade PLUS be able to meet Class 2 insulation requirements - which is also essential.

None on the horizon, anywhere I can see.

...... Phil

Time the posturing pommy Wanker learned to bloody read !!!!

The whole idea of banning them is utterly STUPID !!.

Then the core and copper losses increase again.

Such designs become inefficient unless operated near the core's saturation limit.

The new rules require external PSUs to be unusually efficient, as well as have very low off load power loss.

Taken together ( which Win has stupidly failed to do) this means that E- cores are basically ruled out of the game.

Even the majority of *presently available* SMPS are ruled out of the game !!!

Only new generation SMPS ( which basically cease to switch with no load) will pass.

As I have noted here already - it is possible that in some VA ratings ( between say 7VA and 50 VA ) an R-Core design would make the grade PLUS be able to meet Class 2 insulation requirements - which is also essential.

None on the horizon, anywhere I can see.

...... Phil