Battery Chargers

A good rule of thumb is $1 per year....

...a BETTER rule-of-thumb is "...always unplug unused devices..."

Computers and many other devices draw parasitic power even when idle or on standby. That's one reason I use the surge protector switch to turn mine totally off overnight and it may not get turned back on until late the next day.

Does anyone (Radio shack?--I haven't checked yet) make a "meter" that can be plugged into the grid and the device into it to measure what the current draw is?

Yes. And it's relatively cheap.

Kill-O-Watt. It gives you plenty of useful information besides just power consumption. It's just for 110V and max of 15 AMPS, but it's great fun around the house.

I've got one, so does ozzb. My results follow his.

Kill-A-Watt: $17.84 - includes shipping | gosale.com

Also, look here:Idle Power Supply Energy Consumption

Idle Power Supply Energy Consumption

UNPLUG.

But the sensor in the new generation of chargers, does consume some power, which surely does not come free & this charger will come at a higher price too. The moral of the whole argument is, as most of the posters have said, pull the plug out.

"... the sensor in the new generation of chargers, does consume some power, which surely does not come free..." Actually it does not draw any power from the wall, what it does do is sense if there is a device on the low voltage side, probably by sensing any voltage from a device's battery. This in turn causes a relay in series with the AC source to close admitting power into the charger.

"...this charger will come at a higher price too..." When you take the time to read the link you will see that AT&T is pricing it the same as old style charger that it replaces.

Thank you, Del. Very sharp. I am yet to see you miss, the other side of the coin.

Sorry Dell but if you have a totally flat rechargeable battery then it doesn't matter what kind of charger you plug it into because it's one stuffed battery.

Ok it's a fair cop.
You can take all my GAs but you'll never break my spirit.
I am Spartacus
Del
Spartacus

(I'll gloss over the fact that relays can fail with their contacts due to arcing closed and that anything that could possibly prevent a house fire is a good idea)

"relays can fail with their contacts due to arcing closed"

So can circuit breakers, just ask the crew of Apollo 13 about it, but I agree about preventing house fires.

LOL!!

Good point!

It says it will activate when the device is plugged into the charger, as I have already posted, a simple mechanical switch could be the answer.

I read the article linked and it is quite specific that the charger draws current "only when the device to be charged is plugged in to it".

Therefore the change could be as simple as a mechanical switch, only activated by the device being physically plugged in that removes the mains when not plugged in. It could be simple mechanical or even some sort of use of a magnet in the end plug for the device.....

From the article, I do not get any impression that its something wonderfully complicated and new......

Naturally, it will probable double the price of the charger, offsetting any electricity saved by 10 years or more.....

I always used a mechanical time switch to remove power after a specific time and not to go "ON" again, until I reset it. This is simply achieved by wiring the mains to the tiny synchronous motor in the time switch to only receive power via the switched contacts, a really simple mod. It simply switches itself off......They cost only a couple of Dollars in DIY stores over here.....

Its bad pratice not to pull the plug. It is maybe a bad design, but then, why not pulling the plug!

As everyone else said: Unplug!

Talking about house fires, don't trust those plug-in air fresheners. A lot of house fires have been caused by them let in the electrical outlet.

Talk yourself and the Mrs. out of buying any of them at the supermarket or Wallie World, etc.

[Our small village had a very bad house fire a few months ago, that displaced a family of 5. The Fire Marshall, a neighbor of mine, had determined that a Glade plug-in air-freshener was the cause of the 3-alarm fire.]

Thanks for the heads up an the air freshner.
Mind I'm very ainti 'air freshner' especially the sprys, they should be re-named
'artificial stink and upper respiratory tract irritant'
I'm a bit touchy over house fires we had a Mother and 5 children die in one here last last week.
Del

My kill O watt says none. Even on charge it's only 3.7 watt.

In 2007 there was an initiative to reduce stand by power in most devices to 1 watt by 2010. I believe has been incorporated in to the Energy Star rating. It drops to .5 watt in 2013.

The battery chargers regulations were introduced into consumer market place around Year 2007 consumer devices used in IT, audio, video and home electronics. Extensive studies were performed and regulations were drafted based upon studies.

Heritage or legacy type chargers were bulky and linear transformer based and was consuming significant energy year round, when devices were not in use.

Depending on required power rating for battery chargers, most of these devices are required to be more than 80 % energy efficient. Measurements are (were in 2007) performed in four load states 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% states. Then average of these four measurements must be more than typically 80%.

I use the no-load touch test. If the charger is plugged in but not connected to anything and it feels warm to the touch, it's wasting energy. If I touch it and it is stone-cold, I leave it be. We keep all ours on outlet strips anyways because it's easier to deal with when traveling. Just grab the outlet strip and go. My wife didn't like the rat's nest of tangled wiring so she purchased some split loom wire tubing and organized the adapters by wirelength. No more Medusa messes.

How about a picture? Robin

Thanks for all the good advise. The reason I asked this question was; it's hard for me to crawl under a desk or other piece of furniture to plug in a charger (78 year old bad back). The only other outlets at counter level are in the kitchen and baths and they are usually in use.

We all have so many electronic devices in our homes that draw standby power (TV's, microwaves, computers, etc). I wonder how much energy is wasted in a year's time.

In the UK, they reckon with a single major power station always online just to feed standby devices.....The USA would need several, probably around 5 for the same reason......

Five, hunh, haahaha that is called following blidly...

Instead of building 5 power plants, give rebate to consumers to buy new chargers to replace old in-efficient ones... Following blindly is not a good choice...! The money spent on building 5 power plants will not be well spent......................................That should be enough....................... periods......................................................

..................................................or zeros with $1000000000000000000.00 savings............

You forget something, they are built and in use right now because of standby power requirements......

I agree it would have been better, years ago, to require better designs of standby devices....

"blidly"??????

"Open your eyes" to what you are typing.....

LOL!!!!

Thanks for pointing this out, it was typed in a very fast and furous way... Yes, I should not be typing in fast and furious way!

The DOE places it at an average some where between 8 to 10%. In the typical home figures given to me by energy consultant say it can go as high as 17%. A lot of that is due to the age of the appliance and their numbers.

The energy consultant was part of a government program. One of the guys in the group made a effort to follow suggestions given out for a month at home. he wanted see if it would really make a difference. He reported it cut his bill in half.

As far as crawling under the desk a surge protector to turn them off or have a switch cut in to the wall above the outlet to turn it off.

Tripp Lite, and I'm sure other manufacturers, makes a product (surge protector) that has a master outlet and it turns off all the other ones automatically. http://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-TLP1210SATG-Protector-Outlet/dp/B003A816FM

There are other green products that sense when power draw has dropped off and turns it off as well.

Put it another way. Each one left on idle is roughly 1/1000 to 1/200 of the value of the home's electricity bill.

"Book 'em, Danno."

Haha...

They are certainly spectacular pumpkin sculptures, but I fail to see what relevance they have to battery chargers.

My problem is this, I can't see beyond, how this benefits me, meism..... There is something better than what has been stated in former line! The best HALLOWEEN costume, is two piece suit with FUNNY neck tie!

Happy Halloween to everyone i.e., believers and non-?!

Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!!!!!!!

http://www.arcfn.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html
This is a great article that explains a lot about different phone battery chargers.

Apparently the average annual cost of leaving even a poor performer plugged in is less than 20 cents.