> I did this at a friend house and we ended up with about 20
> plugged into a half-dozen power strips and totalling about
> 2 and a half amps of AC... He's got 112-114v of AC at his
> house so using 113 we get 255.2w ... divide by 1000 and
> times 8760=2235.5, or 2.2kw just in wall wart wastage.
>
> Think how many houses have that exact same situation.
>
> Might be worth putting a switch on an idle wall wart....
>
Well I'm all for saving some electricity but it isn't that bad. The
amperage that you are measuring going into the typical wall wart or
other lightly loaded transformer is mostly reactive. The 255w
calculated above is really 255va (volt-amps), not watts.
Think about it. 20 warts dissipating 255 watts averages out to around
12 watts each. Are any of those warts anywhere near as hot as a 15
watt light bulb? Probably not.
Same thing happens with electric motors. The amperage you measure
going into an unloaded motor just idling is probably 80-90 percent
reactive, not real watts. It is used to magnetize the iron in the
motor (or transformer), and is not measured by the wattmeter on your
house. You pay for the real watts not the <false, volt-amps> ones.
Laryn K8TVZ
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