Seemingly trivial things that intrigue you
Comments
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It was an amusing enough past instance to warrant a mention 🙂
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
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A casualty of the forum reboot, I assume. A shame if so.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Also not seen Kingstongraham on here for a while.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I will kick off a post in the financial thread.
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Good point. Both good value. Hope they find their way back
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They've both been active since the reboot (KG is showing as having been active in the last hour, SC on 23rd December)
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Can someone explain to me how apparently leaving chargers in the socket but not attached to anything does take a tiny bit of energy?
Wife is insistent she’s read that’s the case but I can’t get my head around it. What on earth could be drawing the current?
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I guess there is a transformer in there that probably draws a tiny bit of current in the 1st coil but my memory of A level physics fails me after that (or possibly before)
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A charger is a transformer. It converts 230v* to 9v. If it's switched on at the wall, there is a residual current flowing through it. Not much but some. The Swedes worked out that if everyone on Europe switched off electrical appliances that were usually on standby, we could get ride of 1 nuclear power station.
*Popular opinion says it's 240v but that is the usual handling capacity of the electrical item not the current to your socket.
seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
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Ok so that is a test but what’s happening in the physics here - is the current being lost to the air? Where is that energy going?
It’s ok if people don’t know - neither do I.
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Question is more whether you would understand the answer if you looked it up, rather than if you happen to store a fact in your head.
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Heat
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I was always under the impression there had to be something drawing current in order to get the energy to flow through?
But this suggest it just sort of leaks out?
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What causes the heat?
In fact, what actually IS heat? Does this mean in cold climates they don't draw power?
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I get that stuff on standby like TVs etc have a tiny bit that is effectively “on” to be able to run the sensor to receive the remote signal to turn on etc.
but I don’t get how that works with chargers that don’t have the device attached. I mean, it’s not like the socket is leaking out heat if there is no unattached charger plugged in.
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The process of adapting from AC to DC takes energy. I had an old one where you could almost feel the warm from it under no load, they're much more efficient now though.
Dehumidifiers consume a fair amount of power, permanent fan, refrigerant and the fact they have to be running for a reasonable amount of time to do anything. Mine consumes about 0.239kwh, leaving the window open can be better if the wind isn't blowing too much cold air in. Mind you it been good with all this fookin rain.
STOP WITH ALL THIS RAIN THE OTHER GOD!!
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I'm not that smart and it is a long time since I thought about any physics.
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I get that there is heat wastage in ac/dc converters but if there is no device attached why would that still be converting?
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Because
Why does space go on forever?
JUST LEAVE IT!
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It's the byproduct of magicalness.
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Look up a diagram of a transformer (if you don't already know the basics). There are 2 loops of wire on either side of a magnetic core that step the voltage up/down.
In that process there are losses within the core (check the hysteresis loss and eddy loss links in the wiki link) and some of those losses still happen when the second loop isn't closed.
I guess it ultimately gets lost as heat.
This is very old and badly remembered knowledge from 20+ years ago.
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That energy consumption when not in use is because the adapter converts alternating current from our socket into direct current, which our devices use. A charger simply continues to convert if it is connected to the socket but does not charge anything. That energy is lost as heat.
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I expect because the draw on modern adapter is so minimal they don't bother with some kind of off switch to make it nothing. I just flick the socket switch, for safety more than anything, especially when going out and even nore so when going out out.
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Anyway, we're lucky we have greatists who invented all this greatness.
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