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Save the Earth! From evil parasitic power packs...

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tomos:
I'd say you'd have a market here in europe at any rate..

But those wee little black power bricks just piss me off.  Individually, they're nothing... but add together 10 or 15 of the beasties and you're talking about some serious current, all going to waste.
-Ralf Maximus (November 12, 2007, 08:50 AM)
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I read (somewhere :-\) a while back that,
if all the people in germany turned off everything that was on standby,
the energy spared would be equivalent to that produced by one nuclear power plant (average sized I presume!).
That's 80ish million people here, now how many there in the states...

I generally try to have those "blackbricks" on an extension lead with a switch...

Oh and I wish there was a cable modem with wake-on-lan... so it can turn itself off and then back on when you use it again.-iphigenie (November 12, 2007, 07:44 AM)
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Times I'd love to be able to turn off the dsl router but our incoming calls come through the internet connection -
this can be changed (would also have to be changed back) but it is a bit of a pain & the box is so bloody delicate I'd be afraid to plug things in or out too much..

 

iphigenie:
We bought one of those power monitor thingies, the ones you put in at your main switch which then has a device you can take around with you and find out what turning things on/off does to your consumption.

Found out the difference between my old CRT and my partner's snazzy new flat screen was not as much as we thought it'd be  :tellme:  but on the other hand it confirmed that a lot of these transformers do add up.

Now we'd already switched all our lightbulbs prior to this but this little device still made a difference to our energy consumption, even though I cannot think as to how I changed my behaviour (turn plugs off more, i guess)

Deozaan:
And all Boss discs increased the lifetime of their host lighbulb by x3 to x5.  They weren't expensive, and sold three-discs-to-a-package.

So why didn't they sell like crazy?  I'm guessing the economics were wrong (nobody cared about saving energy in 1996) and lack of marketing.  Such a simple idea, and quite effective, yet you can't get the durn things anymore.
-Ralf Maximus (November 12, 2007, 08:50 AM)
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I could be wrong, but isn't turning on a light the hardest part of the light? I mean, doesn't the act of connecting the bulb to it's power source cause the most strain on a bulb, making the filament break or something? Seems to me my light bulbs only blow out when I turn on the light. Anyway, a Bulb Boss would increase the number of times power was connected/disconnected.

I think from a math perspective, it increases the lifespan because the light isn't on as long. But from a practical perspective, it would decrease the lifespan because of the increased wear on the hardware.

But like I said, that's me coming to my own conclusions from personal observation, without knowing the facts.

My family had some of those Bulb Bosses. I had one for a night light that would gradually dim the light over 30 minutes until it finally went out.

Ralf Maximus:
I could be wrong, but isn't turning on a light the hardest part of the light? I mean, doesn't the act of connecting the bulb to it's power source cause the most strain on a bulb, making the filament break or something? Seems to me my light bulbs only blow out when I turn on the light. Anyway, a Bulb Boss would increase the number of times power was connected/disconnected.
-Deozaan (November 13, 2007, 01:53 AM)
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You are correct, sir.  Powering on anything is bad for its health.

But THIS part I know from the Blub Boss propaganda: the way they extended the life of the bulb was that instead of delivering the full current jolt at once, it gradually (over the span of a few hundred milliseconds) increased the current.  The human never notices -- the light seemingly snaps on as usual -- but in reality the bulb has been gently started.

So elegant, so clever.  And so off the market.  I suspect the lightbulb PAC is behind this...

Deozaan:
So elegant, so clever.  And so off the market.  I suspect the lightbulb PAC is behind this...
-Ralf Maximus (November 13, 2007, 07:22 AM)
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I'm still waiting for light bulbs with LED arrays. Low power, long lasting, and they won't flicker like those halogen bulbs. What's not to like? There are so many ways that are possible today to save energy if people really wanted it. Instead they come up with all this crap about "going green" by drastic measures that don't really benefit anyone and don't have significant results.

If people really wanted to "save the planet" instead of cashing in on the latest fearmongering, it could easily be done. We have the technology. Nuclear power anyone?

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