Comments on Thoughts by Chris W. Rea [UL]: The Media's Answer To Phantom Load Is... A Load.

I agree Chris. This is lazy engineering. The manuf...

2009-03-05T16:58:00.000-05:00

I agree Chris. This is lazy engineering. The manufacturer doesn't have to pay the customer's electric bill. The responsibility for phantom loads falls squarely on the designers. Either the current is required for the product to function (then it's not a phantom load) or it is not.

On the other hand, we could just throw the main breaker to off...then no phantom loads at all.

True what you say. Although most things don't mind...

2008-03-03T18:22:00.000-05:00

True what you say.

Although most things don't mind being shut fully off. I have a big power bar for all my stereo stuff; it does not care. The amp seems to keep the FM radio presets in a non-volatile memory, as it should.

The other thing is, have you put your Kill-a-Watt on some of these phantom loads? Most of them are way smaller than I feared, especially the dumb AC-DC transformers.

For one thing, some manufacturers (e.g. Apple, Palm) have gone to non-dumb transformers that shut off power when there's no load on the DC end, rather than just dissipating several watts of heat. Thanks!

And in the other case, even the dumber devices still seem to draw load much lower than the media had led me to believe. E.g. 5% of North American power production goes to phantom load? Certainly not true in my house.

But I don't have a digital cable box or a sat TV receiver -- I'd love to hear the story on those.

Thanks for posting!

Regards,
tai

Tree-hugger.

2007-09-28T09:47:00.000-04:00

Tree-hugger.