Power consumption of phone chargers

You forgot the one that said :-

"TVs, VCRs and DVDs can use as much as 85% of the energy in standby mode as they can when they're switched on at the wall." Errr...

It's the new greenwash propaganda - lie often enough and people will begin to believe you.

Most modern switched mode phone power supplies consume a few mA when not charging a discharged battery so a figure of 5W/hrs a day (not kW/hrs) if not charging is probably more realistic.

Greenwashers like quoting the older chargers from 10 years ago which consumed about 5W on standby which would give 100W/hrs a day give or take a bit.

It's the same dishonesty which makes them quote peak power output for wind farms ("enough power for 3,000 homes") when they know full well that in England they only operate at 25% or below of their peak capability.

This may simply be confusion.

Many Sky boxes, Freeview boxes, and assorted hard disk recorders do use about 15% less energy when in 'standby'. For Digital TV's, with integrated freeview boxes, I would not be surprised in some cases to see energy uses of around 25-30W, in the standby mode that lets you turn it on and watch immediately.

At 03:52:17 on 15/12/2006, Ian Stirling delighted uk.legal by announcing:

Mine's under 1W. The SkyHD box, however, was about 18W IIRC.

I suspect more even than that - I was surprised at how much heat it pushes out even when in standby - though most of the unit must be powered up in standby, as it can still receive, decode and record to HDD from two datastreams. About the only parts that could be powered down are the graphics circuit and the audio convertor circuit.

Cynic wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Amazing really... My mate's somehow manages to use 13W even when not switched on at all (ie not on standby).

I intend having a look at this stuff in more detail - particularly as I am about to buy a house....

Martin.

At 00:42:45 on 20/12/2006, Martin Milan delighted uk.legal by announcing:

How do you switch a Sky box off completely?

"Alex" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Bugger.

I was actually referring to a television.

Nothing to see here, move along...

Martin.

At 21:54:57 on 20/12/2006, Martin Milan delighted uk.legal by announcing:

Again, I cannot switch my TV off completely unless I unplug it.

"Alex" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Try pressing the big On/Off button then.

There's no reason I can see why a modern TV should be drawing any current at all with the set turned off. (Which is not quite the same as saying there is no reason at all...)

Martin.

Haven't looked at TV's in 20 or 30 years?

If the TV has a CRT, when it is "off", it will have low voltage applied to the CRT filament to reduce the warm up time.

Anything made in the past 10 years of so will have time functions, local channel selections, and various other settings in RAM that all go away if the set is unplugged.

Except for the CRT, the same can be said of any recent DVD or VHS player, tuner/amp, or bread maker.

Yeah, the manufacturer could have put in battery backup, but they don't.

Well I have- I used to service them and still do occasionally. Turning them off at the mains does not cause loss of user settings or channels.

I can't say I've ever seen a modern TV that keeps the CRT heaters running while on standby, apart from a really ancient Pye B/W portable I once came across. It would cause a considerable reduction in CRT life for no valid reason.

Every modern TV I've seen holds channels and user settings in NVR and they aren't lost if you power it off. It's been about 20 years since I saw a TV which had volatile memory for the channel settings, and even then it was backed up by internal NiCad button cells.

You're seriously saying that every time there's a power cut or you have to shut off the mains for any reason you have to readjust and retune your TVs, Videos, DVD players etc?

They don't need to- they use NVR (non-volatile RAM). Video recorders will lose their clock settings (not their tuned stations) if powered off long enough to flatten the battery backup or supercap, and some cheap ones will lose the clock setting instantly, but I've yet to see a modern TV or tuner/amp which will lose stations if unplugged..

We have 8 TVs in our house and they have all been unplugged for prolonged periods at one time or another. I've never had to retune any of them since buying them, nor have I had to readjust the user settings. The brands are Philips, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung and Daewoo, ranging from around 150 quid to a 2000 quid RPTV.

Morse

They don't run at full voltage when in standby.

Yep, all the station/channel presets and all the clock/timer functions.

There is obviously cap backup on most of them since a short flicker usually doesn't cause a reset.

I have 2 TV's, 2 VHS/DVD machines, 1 DVD machine, a tuner/amp, and a bread machine of ages from 2 to about 20 years.

Every one of them goes to the factory defaults if the power is gone long enough.

Either you are the luckiest guy in the world or there are regulations in the UK that don't exist in the US.

I've crossposted this to sci.electronics.repair, maybe someone there can shed some light on this.

Morse

My experiences here in the UK are quite different. I have never had to retune/reconfigure a TV I've serviced in about 20 years. Maybe NVR is used more in European models?

Morse