The Wanderer wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:13:14 +0100, PhilC wrote:

On a similar topic because transformers become warm, is there significant
electricity use when on standby?

Transformers have two losses, iron and copper. The iron losses are incurred
in magnetising the core of the transformer - they happen just by switching
on the transformer. In addition, when you put a transfomer on load, the
windings actually incur some losses.

Someone did the calcs in this newsgroup a while ago, regarding how much
power the average wallwart consumed while left plugged in - can't
remember the figure but a few quid per annum IIRC?

Ask yourself, if there was some merit in your suggestion/question,
whole-building lv lighting circuits would be commonplace.

I've mused about this myself; not particularly in connection with
lighting, but because of the huge number of wall-warts which you now see
festooned around most houses these days; the majority of which get left
plugged in and switched on when not in use. All LV appliances have
different requirements of course, but wouldn't it be better if there was
a standard LV circuit(s) wired into houses, with uniform wall-mounted
sockets, which all manufacturers of electronic appliances could design
their kit around?


Without even trying, I can think of 25 wallwarts in my house, most of
which stay plugged in 24/7 despite my nagging! and this list is
certainly not exhaustive:

Mobile phones (x4)
Printer
Router
Monitor
PC speakers
Kids games/toys (x6)
Playstation
Ipod basestation
AA battery charger
DECT phones (x3)
Power tool chargers (x3)
Clock
Laptop
....

David