Turn Router off when not in use or Not?

Toxteth_OGrady

cybergibbons wrote: »

I know you're joking, but you do know that an e-mail uses a tiny fraction of the energy that a letter would use?

I know but I just couldn't resist the oxymoron in a thread about powering down devices on which those means of communication largely depend. Otherwise I'm violently ambivalent.

:cool:

TOG

fiddiwebb

If chargers for devices such as mobile phones and MP3 players were unplugged when not in use, the UK could save enough electricity each year to power 115,000 homes. Chargers are not huge energy consumers in their own right, but across the UK those left plugged in unnecessarily waste over £60m and are responsible for a quarter of a million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. (2008 Report)

That's just for chargers, what cost for leaving other elecrtical items on in standby.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6076658.stm

Leopard

DebtHater wrote: »

And it might be worth noting, I have no interest in saving energy to "save the planet" or anything. I am interested in saving money on the electric though, so my TV get switched off completely (I have a wireless remote to switch it all off with one click)

It's highly likely that using a wireless remote switch to turn off your television is costing you greatly more in electricity than leaving your television on standby.

A modern television uses less than a watt when in standby. A wirelessly controlled switch consumes, typically, 3 or more watts. And it consumes it constantly. You are, moreover, paying for that even when your television is switched on and you are watching it.


Reducing electricity wastage and de-forestation will do nothing to "save the planet". The planet is perfectly capable of looking after itself. Whether or not mankind succeeds in making it uninhabitable for its own (and other current) species is the more relevant question.

fiddiwebb wrote: »

Ah well, clay tablets and a donkey then

This is very irresponsible. The methane produced by donkey-farting is destroying the ozone layer. Flatulence in all species needs to be eliminated.

spud17

This is very irresponsible. The methane produced by donkey-farting is destroying the ozone layer. Flatulence in all species needs to be eliminated.

I'm not that informed about donkeys, which incidentally are not ruminants, but in the case of cattle and sheep, it is not the farts, but the belching, which is the major cause of methane production.

e.g.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/13/tech/main558572.shtml

cybergibbons

Just on the note of those wireless switches - I opened a set of these up a while ago, and the build and design quality was truly awful. I didn't think to measure power consumption, but the way they drop the voltage down from mains to low voltage is certain to use up at least 0.5W of power.

But the reason that I took them apart was to see how safe they were. A friend's relative had bought them to turn off everything as they were hugely paranoid about electrical appliances starting fires.

In my opinion, the build quality (hot glue, twisted + soldered wires, crammed randomly into a box) and design quality (no fuse, inefficient voltage conversion, cheap relay) would mean that the wireless switches would be far, far more likely to start a fire than a modern TV, DVD player, PC, router or turned off table light.

These were cheap, I can't remember how much, but at the low end of the market. The same is true of the cheap digital time switches.

Leopard

We use Byron wireless pass-though plug/socket devices (predecessors to the "Home Easy" things, which do look a bit crude). They look quite well built.

Got four groups of them: about 18 units in all (some use one button to switch two or three different units, in different rooms).

They work very well and have good range, even through walls.

Particularly useful for controlling inconveniently-located power sockets. From the kitchen, for example, we can switch on/off the ice-making machine in the garage, the TV/FM distribution amp in the loft, a heater in the greenhouse and the power sockets in the out-houses.

Each one consumes 3.2 watts constantly (unless we switch them off individually or by-pass them, temporarily) at the wall socket.

Obviously, the most economic way to deploy them is to let single units control 4/6/8-gangs into which are plugged multiple devices.

Profligate? Possibly. Handy? Very. Indispensable? In some locations and for some applications, yes.

(We also have solar-panels, grow vegetables and plant trees. )

Francesanne

Was told by SKY to leave on router for 10 days after we made switch from AOL. Then OK to turn off. There's an on/off switch on back of SKY router.

Leopard

Francesanne wrote: »

Was told by SKY to leave on router for 10 days after we made switch from AOL. Then OK to turn off. There's an on/off switch on back of SKY router.

Leopard wrote: »

So many people sloppily use the words "my router" on MSE when what they actually mean is modem/router, or wireless (non-modem) router, or wireless/modem/router, that I've found it fairly pointless to engage in these discussions any longer because everyone winds up talking at cross-purposes; they all misunderstand what actual piece of kit the other people are talking about.

I give up.

What's the point of trying to pursue and solve issues involving these various devices on MSE when nobody describes correctly the piece of kit they're writing about? :wall:

fiddiwebb

Leopard wrote: »

I give up.

What's the point is of trying to pursue and solve issues involving these various devices on MSE when nobody describes correctly the piece of kit they're writing about? :wall:

router....router...router....snigger

Leopard

spud17 wrote: »

I'm not that informed about donkeys, which incidentally are not ruminants, but in the case of cattle and sheep, it is not the farts, but the belching, which is the major cause of methane production.

e.g.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/13/tech/main558572.shtml

Thanks for that interesting link. I'll ruminate on it.




fiddiwebb,

I think that what we need is some more buttons to be added to displayed posts.

In addition to "Thanks" button, we need a "That's absolute balls" button, a "!!!!!! was the point of posting that?" button and a "Please would you edit this into coherent English" button.