On 2/14/10 8:14 PM, Bill Christensen wrote:
At 10:07 AM -0700 2/9/10, Bruce Johnson wrote:
If the river is too big (high amperage), the water wheel will work
just fine, because it'll only use the amount of water that fits in the
paddles...the rest of the river flows on by.
Ok, if the "rest of the river flows on by", does that mean that even if
your end use device is drawing .9 amps, the wall wart 'river' is still
going to draw 1.2 or 1.5 or whatever amp rating it has, turning the
'excess' to more heat and a slightly higher electric bill?
Or is the metaphor breaking down here?
Not exactly.
The components in a wall wart have a linear response (at least idealized
components would), if you reduce the current draw by half, the current
going in is reduced by half.
The parts are however not ideal but real. That means that the
transformer in particular isn't linear. In particular, smaller
transformers tend to more quiescent power as a percentage of the total
power drawn. Quiescent power is the power the transformer draws with no
load.
--
Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA
Macintosh / Internet Consulting
"I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"
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