Linked by David Adams on Mon 26th Oct 2009 19:32 UTC
The "wall wart" is one of humanity's worst inventions (not counting all of the inventions that are actually intended to kill and maim each other, I'll admit). AC-plug power supplies are a cheap workaround to various engineering, economic, and regulatory problems that manufacturers face, and they solve those problems by pushing them off onto end users. So what can we do about it? OSNews takes a look at an ingenious workaround to the Wall Wart problem, and some hopeful trends that might make them a thing of the past.
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Member since:2009-08-14
I can also image one day having solar PV panels on the roof battery backed and send that power into the house for use only by 12DC computing or entertainment devices, not mess with the AC system at all. So AC half stays on grid, DC half off grid. If the power goes out, the huge AC equipment won't work, but the computer stuff will.
I currently use a 15 watt and a 9 watt solar panel to charge 2 18 amp batteries. I use a USB car adapter to charge my phone and bluetooh headset. I use a 350 watt inverter to run my rooms lights, and charge my netbook.
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Member since:
2005-07-08
I wish wall warts would all use a short AC cable from the brick so all the strip outlets would be useful. I also wish that vendors would use distinct colors on the power wiring so a quick glance tells me which device is on which power wart. At least Apple uses white cables and a better looking PSUs on the Mini Mac.
The vast majority of my power bricks are cold, and the Killawatt device tell me that the power is negligible.
Only the speaker system and the typical PC shutdown use about 4W each so it might be worth turning off the strip, but it is not going to save the earth.
As Jonathon said, distributing DC around a house is a nice idea on paper but a bad idea if you ask the electrician or the house inspector.
I'd like to do it too as I have added some AC wiring, outlets around the house but my EE background stops me from going further with DC.
More and more lights are going to low power/amp CFLs, hardly any current, but I still must use Romex14 for regulation sake just in case the next owner in 20 years wants to use high amp lighting (if that even exists then). I could easily see running 12V DC wiring short distances off a DC power bar up and down the house center to enable direct use of LEDs strips when those become affordable as well as DC computing.
I can also image one day having solar PV panels on the roof battery backed and send that power into the house for use only by 12DC computing or entertainment devices, not mess with the AC system at all. So AC half stays on grid, DC half off grid. If the power goes out, the huge AC equipment won't work, but the computer stuff will.
I think technology is just moving way to fast to pick any particular plug standard. If we did this 20 years ago we might all have DIN plugs or RCA jacks all over the walls. I bet many youngens don't even know about DIN. In 20 years USB might be largely forgotten too. It might be better to let the electrical industry pick an eternal DC plug standard and use adapters from that.
A good reason for using DC is to avoid some of the losses involved in PSUs when AC is converted to DC, but DC wiring would also have losses too, so I think we are stuck with AC for a long time.
A more long term solution is probably going to be wireless power, maybe at very high AC frequencies and also perhaps Supercaps (EESTOR hopefully) replacing batteries.