New kind of 'vampire' sucks power out of homes

[gateley]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A force as insidious as Dracula is quietly sucking a nickel of every dollar's worth of the electricity that seeps from your home's outlets.

Insert the little fangs of your cell phone charger in the outlet and leave it there, phone attached: That's "vampire" electronics.

Allow your computer to hide in the cloak of darkness known as "standby mode" rather than shutting it off: That's vampire electronics.

The latest estimates show 5 percent of electricity used in the United States goes to standby power, a phenomenon energy efficiency experts find all the more terrifying as energy prices rise and the planet warms. That amounts to about $4 billion a year.

The percentage could rise to 20 percent by 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In California, lawmakers passed a proposal last year -- dubbed the Vampire Slayers Act -- to add vampire electronics labels to consumer products, detailing how much energy a charger, computer, DVD player, PlayStation, microwave or coffee maker uses when on, off or in standby mode.

Here's the rest of the article. It's interesting ... http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/10/30/vampire.electronics.ap/index.html

[Ezlivin]

1. Most electronics nowadays draw power even when ostensibly "off"

Computers "sleep", tuners/receivers sleep and televisions sleep.

I just purchased a new Mitsubishi DLP and it came factory ready to sleep. You push a button and that bad boy would turn on in about 10 seconds. I read through the manual and discovered that by changing a few settings I could put it into a "no-power" mode that drew no power when off. The disadvantage? It now takes about 45 seconds to start.

I've got several electronic items that like to suck power when "off". I plugged them all into a switchable outlet and turn off the outlet when I don't need the devices on.

Oh, get a Kill-a-Watt meter to measure these phantom loads as well as the load of nearly any appliance.

[NV Whino]

7. Thanks for the Kill-a-Watt tip

I just ordered one!

[Gabi Hayes]

13. I only plug in my refrigerator right before I open the door!

what a pain!

[orleans]

2. i have power strips around the house that i've plugged things into

and the power strips get clicked off

i need to get that special one for the cable tv and the computer that allows a small amount of power to keep the cable & internet hooked up--i called around a couple months ago and was told a few stores would have them in stock hopefully by the end of the year. i should check again.

[AlCzervik]

3. i have power strips as well but not for everything, my cell phone gets charged in the car

for 2 reasons, 1, i can't find the charger it came with and 2, the car charger is much faster.

[tridim]

4. Not that charging in the car is a bad idea, but..

you should realize that using battery power in a car burns gasoline. People tend to think car battery power is free, it isn't. Every watt you use is replenished via the engine driving the alternator, your gas mileage will drop.

[AlCzervik]

6. by a lot or is it negligible?

i use cfl's, recycle everything i can, i bought a smaller car and replaced my appliances with energy efficient ones including the whole fireplace, can i keep my car charger---please, let me have this one thing.:D

[Gold Metal Flake]

8. It's VERY negligible.

Don't be alarmed. The current needed to recharge a cell phone is tiny.

Running power steering pumps, water pumps and fans from the alternator is more efficient than directly driving them mechanically from the engine. For years, gearheads refused to believe that. But Car Craft did a feature where they ran various fans (mechanical, flex, clutched and thermo clutched) on an engine on a dyno, then, as a final test, hooked up an alternator and electric fan and turned it on. The fans were pulling 10 to 34 (!) HP from the engine. The electric cost 0.6.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/215655/message/1066184641/Car+Craft+Cooling+Fan+Dyno+Test

That fan, a Black Magic 150, pulls 14 amps!

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?part=FLX-150

Don't let the internet fear mongers freak you out.


Edit: spelling

[tridim]

15. But is it cheaper (and cleaner) to charge via an AC outlet or via a gasoline powered generator?

I honestly don't know but it probably is negligible as you said.

[Gold Metal Flake]

17. Why a gasoline powered generator?

I don't understand why we are off on this tangent?

[tridim]

19. Because that's what a car's alternator is.

[Gold Metal Flake]

21. Ahhh.

I see. A strawman. I thought so.

The driver could disable the interior lamp or use LED replacement bulbs in the tail lights to offset the small amount of current used to charge her cellphone while driving. Or she could play the radio at a softer level or forgo using CDs while charging.

BTW, it's less efficient to rectify and regulate from 120VAC to 5VDC to charge a cellphone than it is to regulate 14.4VDC down to 5VDC. Gotta figure that in as well.

[ileus]

22. car charger draws what 150mA? maybe knock off .0001mpg

With the wall mounted charger the internal transformer sets there converting 120AC to Xdc even with the cell unplugged which uses small amounts of electricity.

[tridim]

23. FWIW I charge my R/C airplane batteries in the car at 2 Amps

and about 2.2A indoors (running off of a 12V PC power supply).

Of course this is in a Honda Civic that gets about 33mpg.

[demgurl]

20. Think Geek has a solar power charger for phones.....

It also works with the IPod. It works with more than 250 models of cell phones. You can see the list if you click on the "Details and Specs" tab.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/7d34/

[roguevalley]

16. I went from $192 a month doing this with power strips -I unplug

them at night- to $28. Two months I had a credit.

[eFriendly]

5. I learned through our local DEC newsletter

that cell phone chargers draw electricity even when the phone is not hooked up and charging. I used to leave the chargers plugged in all of the time for our phones, and just connect the phone when it needed charging. But now I completely unplug the charger from the outlet when I take the phone off of the charger.

Every little bit of savings helps.

[Gold Metal Flake]

9. ALL wall warts work that way.

Those plug-in transformers all draw current whether the devices they power are on or not. Feel them. If they are warm, they are stealing wattage.

[seemunkee]

10. Mine doesn't

I checked it with the Kill-A-Watt and as long as the phone isn't plugged in there is no draw.

[halobeam]

11. Thanks for the post!

[JitterbugPerfume]

12. K&R because

everybody wants to save money , and incidently the planet!

[Gregorian]

14. Here's a good article on this subject.

Funny I was just reading up on this this week. This is an entire issue of Home Power magazine. It's an 18 Mb download. But in it is an article on phantom loads.

http://www.homepower.com/files/sampleissue/HomePowerMagazine.pdf

[Lars39]

18. Am I the only one that remembers that old Partridge Family episode

about this?

[orleans]

24. um...yes. i guess you are. n/t

[Lars39]

25. I know I'm aging myself, but I guess I was trying to point out that it's not new.

:D

[orleans]

27. to be honest--i loved watching the partirdge family--i just don't remember

the particular show you're referring to.

[Xithras]

26. Sometimes killing the power is a bad thing.

My TV, for example, has all sorts of settings for the inputs and sound. Unplug it for more than ten minutes and you'll have to reset the configuration (a 20 minute process) every time. My stereo loses its presets, and my DVR can't turn itself on if it's not plugged in.

"Vampire" power circuits typically power onboard clocks, circuits to remember settings, and IR receivers that detect when a remote is being used. It is impossible to build ANY kind of electronic device with a remote control without having some sort of vampire circuit to detect when the remote is being used to turn the device on. It is also impossible to have any kind of digital or touch command buttons (which use electronic relays) to power on any device without having a constant power circuit. Eliminating vampire circuits means returning to the days of pre-digital inputs, when every adjustment had an analog external knob and there was a manual switch that had to be flipped ON the device to power it up.

We can debate whether that would be a good or bad thing, but I thought it should be clear that manufacturers don't include these circuits just to be dicks. They have a purpose.