PhilLondon:

j0hnbarker:

Phil - please explain how this is beneficial in warmer climates?

I won't, as I just said:

Why on earth not? You lose the argument I'm afraid.

Because I agree with you on that point.  I have never said it worked in warm climate, and as soon as I talked about this I clearly said and repeated in the quote above, that this is only true when you are heating your home. So no need to tell me it does not work in warm climate when I wrote it myself in my initial post.

But it is not something a scientific can ignore when making a study as periods when you are heating your home in countries where this devices are used represent a percentage of the time that is not negligible. 

No need to argue - pass legislation dictating the max. allowable amount of standby energy consumption (as has happened/is happening). Make the equipment comply, guaranteed success - you don't then have to win the hearts and minds of the consumers.

It's the old problem, manufacturers can do it but wont do it unilaterally, force everyone to do it and presto they are happy to comply. Happens all the time (esp. in the motor industry).

Great thread and nice to see so many other opinions. This is an important topic, clearly

Beonut1 i loved your post!

Haven't yet heard anything about the ban of incandescent globes, but everyone seems to just buy energy savers anyway and the awareness here is widespread and prevelant daily in the media. Unfortunatly my house has "down lights", so i use energy saving globes in a few lamps around the house

...for the reccord, here in OZ, i am really enjoying the heat & i feel that extreme weather is invigorating, i don't complain about weather because when it's hot/cold there's nothing you can do but focus on the positive and my young body can handle it!

It's the friends and family who have been having the blackouts who have busy lives and kids...
The old people dying in their homes all around the world from the extreme weather because they can't afford the electricity bills, that i sympathise with.

I hope 60 years from now i'm just as, if not, more considerate of others around me as i am now.... and that we don't have to all pack up and move to the moon!! just kidding

A few years ago, a very experienced engineer told me that the unplug/leave on decision is not as simple as just saving the electricity use during standby overnight. 

In essence, he suggested that many electronic devices benefit from the "stability" that being left on 24/7 brings, or maybe more correctly, they could actively suffer from being powered up and down everyday  ( I am sure he called it thermal stress?)

He reckoned that up to 1/4 or even 1/3 of the useable life could  be lost - because of component failure etc. 

This is obviously very hard to test / quantify, but if correct, and you then need to scrap and replace this prematurely aged unit, these environmental "costs" could outweigh the apparent saving made by unplugging each night.  This theory sounds credible to me ( its why they leave buses running apparently)  although I am not technical enough to agree or disagree.

Also, there are many other variables - such as quality of components used, the amount of power used in standby etc.

Assuming there is some truth in the idea you can reduce the useable life of a product by unplugging it, its a similar argument to wether or not to scrap an old (but still working OK) car, and get a new, greener alternative - when you factor in the scrapping, the materials and power needed to produce all the new metals and plastic, transport and sell the new one, its not as simple as it seems.

Maybe Keith or some of the other tekkies will verify this, but it seems reasonable - particularly when you the factor in the generally high level of design on B&O kit, which designed to be on because of link and timers. 

IF the "heart" of a link system, such as a Beomaster 5000 ,dies early - you may then end up scrapping three or more otherwise viable units early as well - which adds weight to the idea its better to leave it on, and add X years to its useable life.

KingStreet:

A few years ago, a very experienced engineer told me that the unplug/leave on decision is not as simple as just saving the electricity use during standby overnight. 

In essence, he suggested that many electronic devices benefit from the "stability" that being left on 24/7 brings, or maybe more correctly, they could actively suffer from being powered up and down everyday  ( I am sure he called it thermal stress?)

This is true, but there are two sides to it. Thermal stress usually manifests itself as bad solder joints over time, which can be tricky to diagnose but very easy to fix when located. This is exaggerated since consumer electronics manufacturers - including B&O - mainly use cheaper pertinax based circuit boards instead of glass fiber / epoxy resin, which expands less with heat and is much more durable otherwise as well.

On the other hand, constant high temperature ages some components faster than if they had some rest. I believe "cap replacement" is nowadays pretty much a household term even among the most untechnical Beoworlders. These problems are usually power supply caps, which have to work even in standby. You don't hear so much about this problem with other makes, since the exterior design in B&O often puts severe space constraints for the electronic designers, meaning more heat inside.

Also, the power/heat difference between operation and standby is usually much larger than between completely off and standby, especially in tv sets. So, I'd worry about thermal stress between unplugged and standby more if I had mostly mundane equipment - B&O is usually worth fixing even if it failed a little prematurely!

Regarding the regulations on standby power, I sincerely hope they are enforced. I'm pretty fed up with things like STBs that won't do anything except change a led from green to red when you put them in standby!

The smps "power supply capacitor" type failure has already been covered earlier in the thread (everything was working before the mains supply was interupted but fails to turn on when re-applied). Incidently the power utility companies are past masters at explaining this - they get hundreds of claims for damaged equipment from disgruntled customers every time there has been a power cut

Any type of stress, be it thermal, voltage, current or mechanical will cumulatively effect the life/reliability of a power supply. Good design can minimise the sensitivity to these stresses but typically one of them will do for it in the end.

Thermal cycling is typically used in psu testing to accelerate electrical or mechanical failures in the product. It follows that thermal cycling in the field will have a similar effect.

www-03.ibm.com/procurement/proweb.nsf/.../fileu-c.../u-c&d_ibm+platform+technology+symposium+9-13-04+presentation.pdf

KingStreet:

In essence, he suggested that many electronic devices benefit from the "stability" that being left on 24/7 brings, or maybe more correctly, they could actively suffer from being powered up and down everyday  ( I am sure he called it thermal stress?)

Your friend is correct, it is well known that most failures in electronic devices happen at the moment you power them off or on. One day, your TV, your PC won't start up, but it rarely happens that it fails while you are using it.

But it would not really apply to B&O elements. As I explained before you'll find 2 power transformers, one is powering the few elements that remain "On" when the device is in standby (IR Receiver, ML, Red Led, Timer, a small computer...). All the other elements are really completely off, and would have the same "shock" when powered on again.

I was flicking thrpugh the pages of a Maplin catalogue that showed a remotely operated mains switch that could be used to power on a 6 way set of sockets. 

Now if something could be made (by B&O?) like that to work from a Beo4 then I would be most pleased as I could then switch things off and yet still be able to switch them back on without running around several rooms!

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=227267&&source=14&doy=3m2

I tend to switch off appliances that I do not plan to use again soon - not to save the environment (rather than beating us as individuals look at the waste in Government running two European Parliaments, separate assemblies in Scotland and Wales, all the street and office lights etc etc) but to save on my bills!

I can only assume that all those who feel we must save the planet accuse the dinosaurs of reckless behaviour with their exhaust gases as we have had a few periods of warmth and ice ages over the past millions of years!  The real problem is over population, but I do not feel that we are going to save the planet by our actions.  In fact planet earth will be here (taking care of itself)  long after we have gone - that is until the sun runs out of hydrogen and then expands to make ALL life on earth impossible!

Brian

The Maplin box mentioned by Xseries takes this thread round in a loop - as I said in an earlier post, these boxes use some power all the time they are running so the question is: Is it better to use an additional switching box or an integrated standby function?

I suspect that if you only have a few items of B&O equipment you should not worry too much about standby consumption - there must be much bigger energy savings you can make.  But if you have Sky boxes, STBs, blue ray players, decoders, etc it is a very different picture. The standby consumption on some of these items is quite frightening.

In any event, though, only a few people will pay for these energy switching boxes. Ultimately, the solution has to be for all manufacturers to produce low standby consumption equipment. It's possible but the reality is that unless it's a legal requirement it won't happen. That's because the consumer always goes for the lowest price (except for the ones on this site, of course, who like me are crazy enough to buy the most expensive!)

Really interesting thread and made me think.

At home I have loads of stuff that is left either permanently on or on standby, I started adding them up and realised there's a lot of stuff using external transformers as well - lintronic box etc. I've decided to leave my B&O kit in standby mode but switch off all other stuff at the wall plug that I don't use everyday and will re-wire, this includes, things like, laptop, wireless router, table lamp that has a transformer, record deck that has a US transformer and a transformer for the pre-amp, dvd, microwave, lintronic box - the list goes on but it has made me think and I'll try and do something about those things that don't need to be left because I'm too lazy to just flick a switch.

I agree with the comments though about the low energy bulbs - in any case I use a dimmer with my lights - I beleive this uses less energy and would be interested to know if this does or doesn't, since I have loads of lights on a dimmers.

ajames:

I agree with the comments though about the low energy bulbs - in any case I use a dimmer with my lights - I beleive this uses less energy and would be interested to know if this does or doesn't, since I have loads of lights on a dimmers.

If you use modern dimmers you would save energy when the light is not at 100% compared to using the lamps at full power.

They would still consume more low energy bulbs.

p.

I like that in some hotels you remove the card-key from its holder and that turns off all the lights and TV...

Maybe they should do some something like that in new homes. 2 types of sockets, the one that are always on, and the one that are off when you are out.

p.

A thought occured  to me - does it follow that all the folk who unplug also drive small frugal cars?

Possibly - I unplug and drive a 1.4 Polo.

Yes sir, 

We unplug and drive one of these: Twike

Puncher have you been to the US?  Every car in Europe is small, frugal, and efficient compared to the mammoth soccer-mom SUV's littering our roads over here.  Grant it they all disappear when gas hits $3 a gallon, but now that gas is less than $2 a gallon again they've all reappeared.  If I recall gas by you is over $8 a gallon, no?

Austin

Austin - the shame is that it has ever been thus in Europe. Most of our cars have never had engine sizes over 2000cc. I've owned a couple of bigger engined classic cars (3500cc MG BGT V8 and a 2500cc Triumph TR6) and these cars were older than me and were considered big engines back in the day! Back in the early 70s the oil crisis did for manufacturers such as Jensen, who used big block Chrysler V8s. A capacity of 6900/7200cc was recognised as being far in excess of what is required (particularly when the speed limit is 55mph - why do you guys need all this capacity?) 35 years ago over here!!!

Off thread - you need a bigger engine to move a larger car - or a smaller one faster!  The US speed limit varies from state to state and can be as high as 75 mph in some areas.  Back in 1996 the limit in Montana was described on signs as "Safe and  Reasonable".  At night it fell to about 70mph (I think).  I could not work the reason why the first night - but after driving along unfenced roads you realise that the reflectors are cattle's eyes not cat' eyes!!!

Sadly after reading all this thread I am no wiser about what to do with equipment that was built for remote operation but before we worried so about electrical consumption (ie the last 5 years),  Should I switch off the BM5500 to save the machine overheating and wearing out prematurley or not???

Brian

Xseries:

I could not work the reason why the first night - but after driving along unfenced roads you realise that the reflectors are cattle's eyes not cat' eyes!!!

having struck a deer on 2 wheels... i feel the pain!

w/ regards to standby and some later posts since my first... i standby (pun intended) my comments.

if it won't be used for 2+ weeks -it is off. i feel a very important point made was thermal variance from constant cycling. i believe very strongly in this. if the item is used frequently, then leave it in standby! it will die (from experience) from the cycling sooner than later.

Brian - all I can add to this is that the classic European GT car was built to traverse Europe on motorways that always had no speed limit! In these cases I can see why a big engine turning at relatively low revs is appealing, but in the US the major routes can be straights for endless miles yet have a restrictive speed limit and always have. Such is the inherent contradiction in the US desire for huge CC.

I will probably get shot down for this John, but in America, bigger is better.

Montana and Nevada had no speed limits at all pre the oil crisis in 1974. (Montanna had no speed limit again for most of the 90s - safe and reasonable was generally felt to be under about 110mph.) Most other US States had a limit of up to 75 mph or more.  A blanket speed limit was introduced at 55 mph as an attempt to conserve oil during the mid 70s OPEC hike following the Arab Israeli conflict.  The 55mph limit has gradually been repealed.

Brian

Hi Brian,

I made the conscience decision to leave my B&O equipment on standby, a BS3000 and BM6000. Concern about the value of these items and shortening their life span is the main reason... however just like you,  I still don't 'really' know if this is the correct thing to do or not.

All other non essentials are off at the wall socket, including the power boards they may be connected to, TV, DVD, Cable, oven, microwave, cooktop (I have remote wall switches for these which is common practice here in singapore), washer, dryer, toaster, kettle, computer, router printer etc etc..

This has now simply become a routine, after cooking dinner for instance I turn all the switches off before serving, and after watching TV in the living room at night I switch it all off before going up to bed. So when we are asleep or at work everything is off. When we are at home during weekends, things are left usually on standby.

I really think that these simple small measures help our world, and leave a little extra in my pocket!

Laurence.

burantek:

Xseries:

I could not work the reason why the first night - but after driving along unfenced roads you realise that the reflectors are cattle's eyes not cat' eyes!!!

having struck a deer on 2 wheels... i feel the pain!

Amazing! - the deer in the UK can't ride bikes