To answer your questions I figured I needed a whole post for this one.
First of all .......a wall wart is a physical description ...."It's something that plugs into a wall outlet that has a built in transformer and usually blocks more outlets than it uses. Look at a power bar, or your cell phone charger, I’m sure there are several examples within eye shot of where you’re sitting now.
Now talking about Wall warts, we better talk about what they do, and I don't mean just blocking an additional outlet, I mean draining unnecessary power at all times even when not being used. The best example of this is your cell phone charger, it may provide a function overnight while you charge the battery inside your cell phone, but in the morning when you disconnect the phone from the plug, it doesn’t stop...... It just keeps on sucking back the power, and dispersing it as heat, feel it next time. And yes this particular function has also been given a name, Vampire power or Phantom power.
Now vampire power and or phantom power isn't limited to wall warts, anything that goes into standby mode is also sucking back the juice while not in use. Take for instance your TV, why do you think you can use a remote to turn on a device that is turned off, well that’s because its not turned off, it's in standby, this a pretty good rule of thumb, basically anything that can be turned on by remote is not off but in standby mode. Turning off your cable box however is not the best idea unless of course you don't enjoy having the guide available at all times..... not even I am turning that one off.
Side note... did you know that in a typical situation your microwave oven will use more power displaying the time then when its actually being used (24 hr period).
Ok so what do you do, well, you can use power bars so that all those wall warts can't draw the juice. They even make some special power bars that have a master plug, that knows when you turn off the main device i.e. TV or computer, it can turn off the other color coded plugs as well.
My only advice would be to not purchase a device that requires power in order to turn off other devices; this is just displacing one problem with another.
Hope I answered your questions and didn't cause too many more.
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4 comments:
thanks for the info. i often have wondered about the eletricity and plug ins. ..humm that could be some of our problems with our large power bill.
Thanks for clearing that up....I'm gonna take note here also, but then again...nah...I don't have to pay for utilities....haha
p.s. what's with this choose an identity thingamabob here.....its me - shell
you may not care now that you dont have to pay for it, but you will care when there is no utilities left to pay for...... you'll be begging someone to let you pay them for gas and water and electricity.
This is great info to know.
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