Standby button - friend or foe?
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- A selfsufficientish Regular
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Standby button - friend or foe?
The standard "green" advice is to switch off appliances rather than leave
them in standby in order to save electricity.
My sister who jbexf for an electricity company calculates that it would cost
over £7pa to leave her TV on standby. And in my house there are many
appliances on standby - I estimate more than 10, so I could stand to save
almost £100pa by turning them off at the wall, as well as doing my bit for
the planet and all that jazz.
Here's the rub. Her husband who jbexf in the electronics industry says
standby buttons lengthen the life of the appliance because the inrush spike
when you switch them on damages them. That could add up to more than
£7pa if I need to replace my TV earlier than need be. And of course there
is environmental damage when you replace an appliance, just as there is
damage when you use power you don't need.
So what's the answer? Is it better to switch off the appliance or leave it on
standby?
them in standby in order to save electricity.
My sister who jbexf for an electricity company calculates that it would cost
over £7pa to leave her TV on standby. And in my house there are many
appliances on standby - I estimate more than 10, so I could stand to save
almost £100pa by turning them off at the wall, as well as doing my bit for
the planet and all that jazz.
Here's the rub. Her husband who jbexf in the electronics industry says
standby buttons lengthen the life of the appliance because the inrush spike
when you switch them on damages them. That could add up to more than
£7pa if I need to replace my TV earlier than need be. And of course there
is environmental damage when you replace an appliance, just as there is
damage when you use power you don't need.
So what's the answer? Is it better to switch off the appliance or leave it on
standby?
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- A selfsufficientish Regular
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that's one of these impossible conundrums - how on earth do you cost the cost to the environment of replacing your duff tv perhaps two years earlier than you would have done??????
I know that many years ago I was told that unless you were switching it off for more than an hour, it was far better (for the tv) to leave it on - certainly lighbulbs usually conk out on starting, as do many appliances (the dreaded spike!)

I know that many years ago I was told that unless you were switching it off for more than an hour, it was far better (for the tv) to leave it on - certainly lighbulbs usually conk out on starting, as do many appliances (the dreaded spike!)

http://solarwind.org.uk - a small company in Sussex sourcing, supplying, and fitting alternative energy products.
Amateurs encouraged - very keen prices and friendly helpful service!
Amateurs encouraged - very keen prices and friendly helpful service!
- Muddypause
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1) Invest in an anti-spike device available from all computer stores.
2) Its bollox anyway - my TV is 25 years old with no standby facility, so is continually subject to on/off spikes, but it still works fine.
3) Even if it is an issue, it all depends how often you turn the appliance on or off; once or twice a day should be fine (if it's not, then maybe that means they have cut corners on the design); twenty times a day may have a long term effect on its longevity.
PS. should I comment about the use of the word 'jbex' here? People may be wondering, like.
2) Its bollox anyway - my TV is 25 years old with no standby facility, so is continually subject to on/off spikes, but it still works fine.
3) Even if it is an issue, it all depends how often you turn the appliance on or off; once or twice a day should be fine (if it's not, then maybe that means they have cut corners on the design); twenty times a day may have a long term effect on its longevity.
PS. should I comment about the use of the word 'jbex' here? People may be wondering, like.
Stew
Ignorance is essential
Ignorance is essential
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ahhhhhhhhh, but then you have the problem of the energy used to make the spike stopper.........
-is it in fact going to offset the cost of manufacture (to the planet) by stopping your tv frying? And a 25 year old telly was probably "pre-standby" era, built with a good built-in immunity from switching on and off (hefty components, wih bags of "reserve") - knowing the accountant's view taken nowadays, for a set designed to be on standby, it may well not be so tolerant of a lot of complete on/off cycles as the older one as it's probably built to a much lower spec. as it wasn't designed for lots of "offs"
Probably best not to turn the haunted fish bowl on at all!

-is it in fact going to offset the cost of manufacture (to the planet) by stopping your tv frying? And a 25 year old telly was probably "pre-standby" era, built with a good built-in immunity from switching on and off (hefty components, wih bags of "reserve") - knowing the accountant's view taken nowadays, for a set designed to be on standby, it may well not be so tolerant of a lot of complete on/off cycles as the older one as it's probably built to a much lower spec. as it wasn't designed for lots of "offs"

Probably best not to turn the haunted fish bowl on at all!

http://solarwind.org.uk - a small company in Sussex sourcing, supplying, and fitting alternative energy products.
Amateurs encouraged - very keen prices and friendly helpful service!
Amateurs encouraged - very keen prices and friendly helpful service!
I'm with muddypause on this, its bollox. To take the lightbulb analogy, I've sat under a bulb that has just fizzled out while it was on, it happens, the only reason they normally go when you turn them on is because it is marginally more stressfull as the filament rapidly heats up. but when it is time to go it is time to go, if its not at startup it will be a few hours later, theres no great life extension to be had keeping things on.
It is possible to get modern equipment that does not sit on standby, we recently had to replace our DVD player (8 years old and on standby for most of them), the new one does not have a standby setting, it has one of those quaint on off buttons on the front that does exactly what it says. Not only that but it was cheap £17.99, and came from erm.... how can I put this..... Tescos. There are probably thousands of reasons not to shop there, and most apply to all supermarkets, but in this particular instance they have certainly scored one back, because we like not having it on standby.
It is possible to get modern equipment that does not sit on standby, we recently had to replace our DVD player (8 years old and on standby for most of them), the new one does not have a standby setting, it has one of those quaint on off buttons on the front that does exactly what it says. Not only that but it was cheap £17.99, and came from erm.... how can I put this..... Tescos. There are probably thousands of reasons not to shop there, and most apply to all supermarkets, but in this particular instance they have certainly scored one back, because we like not having it on standby.
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its all far deeper than just "b****X!":cooldude:
For a start, electrical engineeers have a damned good idea how long components will last, often their "life" is quoted - they can pretty accurately work out how long they'll last (built-in obsolescence). So we then consider our test telly (a modern one, designed to be on "standby") - if a few components were of a higher spec., they may well be able to last indefinitely, but they don't fit them. The way economics are balanced these days, and there is so little residual value in electronic equipment, it is often cheaper to replace the whole thing with a new one, rather than having one or two minor components replaced - a great cost to the environment! I think Chickpea hit the nail on the head - it ISN'T a simple question
I think the one thing we should agree on is that all consumer goods should be designed for longevity, repairability, and recyclability!
For a start, electrical engineeers have a damned good idea how long components will last, often their "life" is quoted - they can pretty accurately work out how long they'll last (built-in obsolescence). So we then consider our test telly (a modern one, designed to be on "standby") - if a few components were of a higher spec., they may well be able to last indefinitely, but they don't fit them. The way economics are balanced these days, and there is so little residual value in electronic equipment, it is often cheaper to replace the whole thing with a new one, rather than having one or two minor components replaced - a great cost to the environment! I think Chickpea hit the nail on the head - it ISN'T a simple question

I think the one thing we should agree on is that all consumer goods should be designed for longevity, repairability, and recyclability!

http://solarwind.org.uk - a small company in Sussex sourcing, supplying, and fitting alternative energy products.
Amateurs encouraged - very keen prices and friendly helpful service!
Amateurs encouraged - very keen prices and friendly helpful service!
- wulf
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Electronic devices certainly can be designed to cope with being switched on! While I'm a little fuzzy on the electronics, I suspect there is definitely a strong factor of built in obsolesence in the calculations; worshipping at the altar of free-market economics means there is more obvious gain for the manufacturers by selling equipment that is covertly intended to break down and need replacing (just outside the warranty period!).
As consumers, we need to choose to live with less gizmos and to make long-term reliability (and other "green" factors) a more major part of our buying choices. From the manufacturers side, hopefully the greedy ones will either go out of business or at least recognise the value of better manufacturing ethics and the good ones will come up with innovative ways to do things better, looking at their own sustainability rather than short-term profit.
Wulf
As consumers, we need to choose to live with less gizmos and to make long-term reliability (and other "green" factors) a more major part of our buying choices. From the manufacturers side, hopefully the greedy ones will either go out of business or at least recognise the value of better manufacturing ethics and the good ones will come up with innovative ways to do things better, looking at their own sustainability rather than short-term profit.
Wulf
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why not switch the TV to standby and then switch it off? removes spikes and also saves energy
The long term reliability thing is a huge issue, my brother once threw away a perfectly good video recorder because it had 'stopped working' and all it needed was a new roller. There's no market for second hand electronics anymore and if you cant fix it yourself its cheaper to buy a new one. Cheap goods (mainly with lots of air miles) mean that no one has any incentive to buy good quality. Even secondhand cars aren't selling so well now you can get 0% interest on a new one.
OK, rant over. And breath....
The long term reliability thing is a huge issue, my brother once threw away a perfectly good video recorder because it had 'stopped working' and all it needed was a new roller. There's no market for second hand electronics anymore and if you cant fix it yourself its cheaper to buy a new one. Cheap goods (mainly with lots of air miles) mean that no one has any incentive to buy good quality. Even secondhand cars aren't selling so well now you can get 0% interest on a new one.
OK, rant over. And breath....
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Thanks all for contributing your knowledge and opinions on this one. I'm going to investigate further, but for now I've put up a discussion of this topic on my blog and I've quoted some of your opinions.
If you'd rather not be quoted let me know and I'll take it down soonest.
If you'd rather not be quoted let me know and I'll take it down soonest.
- hedgewizard
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The trouble with that is the manufacturers think (probably rightly) that if they make longer lasting TVs then eventually people will stop having to buy them. The horrors!
I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' idea of the Shoe Event Horizon. This is when the price of shoes drops so low that it destroys the entire civilisation. Basically, you bulk manufacture your shoes to make them cheaper than the competition. The competition then goes to bulk manufacture, and reduces the quality to become cheaper than you. You then cut a few corners. They use cheaper uppers. You use cheaper soles. And so on, except now the shoes wear out really quickly so people need to buy more often, and eventually it becomes economically unfeasible to make anything other than shoes.
And everyone dies.
Except Andy and Dave of course, because they don't need shoes on account of their hairy feet.
I'm reminded of Douglas Adams' idea of the Shoe Event Horizon. This is when the price of shoes drops so low that it destroys the entire civilisation. Basically, you bulk manufacture your shoes to make them cheaper than the competition. The competition then goes to bulk manufacture, and reduces the quality to become cheaper than you. You then cut a few corners. They use cheaper uppers. You use cheaper soles. And so on, except now the shoes wear out really quickly so people need to buy more often, and eventually it becomes economically unfeasible to make anything other than shoes.
And everyone dies.
Except Andy and Dave of course, because they don't need shoes on account of their hairy feet.
- Millymollymandy
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Sorry! I composed the original message in uk.rec.sheds, where by convention words such as "work" and "job" are considered harmful and their ROT13 equivalent is used, i.e. "jbex" and "wbo". I then cut-and-pasted the message to a couple of other places but didn't change the words. Truth is, I've been using them so long they no longer look at all odd to me.
If you look on the blog I included a quote from someone who replied to me on uk.rec.sheds and had to "translate from the Sheddese", because it really would have been mostly unreadable unless you're a fluent Sheddi.
If you look on the blog I included a quote from someone who replied to me on uk.rec.sheds and had to "translate from the Sheddese", because it really would have been mostly unreadable unless you're a fluent Sheddi.
- Millymollymandy
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ROT13 is the Usenet equivalent of a magazine printing the answer to a quiz upside down. You know the way of encoding a sentence by swapping all the "a"s with "b"s, all the "b"s with"c"s etc. ("z"s go to "a"s)? So "Millymollymandy" would become "Njmmznpmmznboez". You're rotating all the letters by 1, that would be ROT1.
By the same token, ROT2 would be if you replaced the "a"s with "c"s, "b"s with "d"s etc.
ROT13, then, is when you replace "a"s with "n"s, "b"s with "o"s etc. "Millymollymandy" becomes "Zvmmlzbmmlznaql".
The advantage of this is that (because there are 26 letters in the alphabet) the same programme that encodes "Millymollymandy" into "Zvmmlzbmmlznaql" can be used to decode "Zvmmlzbmmlznaql" back into "Millymollymandy". You don't need one programme to encode and another to decode. It comes as a standard tool in newsreading software because its use is so widespread.
On Usenet you often see ROT13 used to disguise rude words ("fart" becomes "sneg" for example), to hide spoilers such as the plot twists in movies, or the answers to puzzles. On uk.rec.sheds they pride themselves on laziness (or at least spending their time on other concerns than the mundane ones) so they consider words such as "work", "job", "cleaning", "tidying" etc as rude and tend to ROT13 them. In fact the group overuses ROT13, but when you hang out there you get so adept at it you can read it without even noticing it's there.
By the same token, ROT2 would be if you replaced the "a"s with "c"s, "b"s with "d"s etc.
ROT13, then, is when you replace "a"s with "n"s, "b"s with "o"s etc. "Millymollymandy" becomes "Zvmmlzbmmlznaql".
The advantage of this is that (because there are 26 letters in the alphabet) the same programme that encodes "Millymollymandy" into "Zvmmlzbmmlznaql" can be used to decode "Zvmmlzbmmlznaql" back into "Millymollymandy". You don't need one programme to encode and another to decode. It comes as a standard tool in newsreading software because its use is so widespread.
On Usenet you often see ROT13 used to disguise rude words ("fart" becomes "sneg" for example), to hide spoilers such as the plot twists in movies, or the answers to puzzles. On uk.rec.sheds they pride themselves on laziness (or at least spending their time on other concerns than the mundane ones) so they consider words such as "work", "job", "cleaning", "tidying" etc as rude and tend to ROT13 them. In fact the group overuses ROT13, but when you hang out there you get so adept at it you can read it without even noticing it's there.
- Millymollymandy
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