Author Topic: 6.5W in standby!  (Read 19812 times)

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Offline MrPlacid

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #25 on: April 19, 2011, 02:51:49 pm »
Wanna save electricity and not waste time invalidating your warranty, everyone? Use a multiple outlet strip and your problem is solved. Actually, all of you should be using one on your bench and make sure to turn everything off when you're not working on anything.



This is also how I combat wall warts. I even have loads of small single switches that I use for other stuffs.
 

Offline saturation

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #26 on: April 19, 2011, 02:58:04 pm »
Yep, simple $1 solution.  I use surplus surge suppressors and old style obsolete PC power stations popular in the <= 1990s which are good for instrument stacks; just watch out for the magnetic field it can create.



Since so many devices or various vintages have phantom power in so many flavors, just shutting down the entire bench is a simple solution.  If you're doing a design that requires 24/7 monitoring data collection, well its powered up and not on standby, so I guess that doesn't count.


Wanna save electricity and not waste time invalidating your warranty, everyone? Use a multiple outlet strip and your problem is solved. Actually, all of you should be using one on your bench and make sure to turn everything off when you're not working on anything.



This is also how I combat wall warts. I even have loads of small single switches that I use for other stuffs.
Best Wishes,

 Saturation
 

Offline Rufus

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #27 on: April 19, 2011, 03:16:15 pm »
I can confirm that MetraHit Energy measures even idle consumption of mobile phone charger with ease, likewise it handles non-linear loads just fine. Anyway, measuring non-linear loads should not be rocket science nowadays anyway.

Accurately measuring power into non-linear loads is not rocket science but for 'difficult' loads is difficult and expensive.

Blind faith in any measurement is piss-poor engineering.
 

Online jahonen

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #28 on: April 19, 2011, 03:41:40 pm »
Here are comparative figures for Agilent MSO6034A, it seems to have a real power switch.

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Janne
 

Offline Rufus

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Re: 6.5W in standby! (Agilent X2/3000 scopes)
« Reply #29 on: April 19, 2011, 03:49:46 pm »
That implies an unintentional error. I doubt very much this decision was unintentional - more likely a business decision based on cost/benefit and/or availability of suitable PSUs.

They absolutely screwed up. They deliberately designed the power switch with a plastic actuator rod, they cut away the main PCB for the rod, they cut away the shielding over the main board to allow the rod to pass through it. They mounted the switch right next to the mains inlet. It is blindingly obvious it was designed mechanically to support a switch switching mains power. If 'soft' power control was an original design intent there would be a push button on the main PCB instead of a cut out for the actuator rod.

When and why they decided to use the same mechanics to operate a switch controlling an enable to the power supply module we can only make guesses about. There was obviously some unforeseen problem with the original design intent and of course a 'business' cost/benefit decision produced the solution, but, it was an unintentional error/screw up which created the need for a solution. 
 

Online jahonen

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #30 on: April 19, 2011, 03:59:54 pm »
I can confirm that MetraHit Energy measures even idle consumption of mobile phone charger with ease, likewise it handles non-linear loads just fine. Anyway, measuring non-linear loads should not be rocket science nowadays anyway.

Accurately measuring power into non-linear loads is not rocket science but for 'difficult' loads is difficult and expensive.

Blind faith in any measurement is piss-poor engineering.


That is of course true and it is always wise to question if one has performed valid measurements (and preferably to try obtain figures for comparison using different methods), but I don't think that usual AC power supplies are particularly difficult load, as fundamental (where the active power is delivered) is at low frequency.

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Janne
 

Online mikeselectricstuff

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Re: 6.5W in standby! (Agilent X2/3000 scopes)
« Reply #31 on: April 19, 2011, 05:24:00 pm »
That implies an unintentional error. I doubt very much this decision was unintentional - more likely a business decision based on cost/benefit and/or availability of suitable PSUs.

They absolutely screwed up. They deliberately designed the power switch with a plastic actuator rod, they cut away the main PCB for the rod, they cut away the shielding over the main board to allow the rod to pass through it. They mounted the switch right next to the mains inlet. It is blindingly obvious it was designed mechanically to support a switch switching mains power. If 'soft' power control was an original design intent there would be a push button on the main PCB instead of a cut out for the actuator rod.

Not necessarily - it could just be they were simply keeping their options open. The mechanical and front panel design may well have been fixed long before they had finalised the power solution.
The way they did it gives them maximum flexibility - a lump of plastic is not an expensive part, so making provision for a rear switch,ande deciding later how to use it seems a very pragmatic solution.
If they'd designed a soft switch and then found they couldn't get a PSU with low enough 'off' mode draw within budget, that would have been a screwup.
Bear in mind that they may have been be planning for an internal battery option, which they could do without changing anything but the PSU. Again the decision on whether they would do this may well have come way after the mechanical design had to be frozen for tooling.
A company that spends millions of bucks developing ASIC-based top-end instruments does not make 'screwups' over something as trivial as a power switch.
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Offline Neilm

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #32 on: April 19, 2011, 07:22:11 pm »
I have designed switch mode power supplies at work when I had requirements that could not be satisfied by an off the shelf supply. There are many modern ICs that can be forced into a standby mode with a logic input - when they are in standby they consume micro Watts of power.

The only question is does the scope still do things when turned off, for example if you have a network connection will it wake on LAN activity. This would require some power to impliment but I would have thought it would be much less than 6.5W

Neil
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Offline DavidDLC

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #33 on: April 19, 2011, 08:07:36 pm »
 

Offline metalphreak

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #34 on: April 20, 2011, 08:20:39 am »
We have one of those Monster Cable power conditioner boards (don't worry we didn't pay anything near retail price for it).

Was measuring standby power consumption of the hifi rack, and it was in the 100+ watt range  :o

So I started unplugging stuff to work out what was drawing all the power. Got down to 60w and I ran out of things to unplug. The power board, was consuming 60W! WTF? It's got a little voltage panel meter in it, and I don't know what else could be using all that power :| What a joke. It's like having a standard light bulb on all the time.

Offline comox

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #35 on: April 20, 2011, 09:21:37 am »
So I started unplugging stuff to work out what was drawing all the power. Got down to 60w and I ran out of things to unplug. The power board, was consuming 60W! WTF?
WTF Indeed!  Are these things still on the market?
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: 6.5W in standby! (Agilent X2/3000 scopes)
« Reply #36 on: April 20, 2011, 10:27:10 am »
A company that spends millions of bucks developing ASIC-based top-end instruments does not make 'screwups' over something as trivial as a power switch.

I'm inclined to agree.
I'm sure everything they did had a reason behind it.

Dave.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #37 on: April 20, 2011, 10:30:00 am »
The only question is does the scope still do things when turned off, for example if you have a network connection will it wake on LAN activity. This would require some power to impliment but I would have thought it would be much less than 6.5W

No, it doesn't. It switches all the PSU outputs off, there is nothing left going to the main board.

Dave.
 

Offline Neilm

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #38 on: April 20, 2011, 07:50:32 pm »
The only question is does the scope still do things when turned off, for example if you have a network connection will it wake on LAN activity. This would require some power to impliment but I would have thought it would be much less than 6.5W

No, it doesn't. It switches all the PSU outputs off, there is nothing left going to the main board.

Dave.
I remember a product I worked on that pulled a lot of power when turned off. It turned out that manufacturing was fitting a load of components that were marked do not fit - originally they were to allow power an emulator which alloed us to debug the board during development. I wonder if it is something similar.

Neil
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Offline Lawsen

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #39 on: April 21, 2011, 12:54:08 am »
Dave Jones:
I cannot afford such an expensive oscilloscope.  I do not own an oscilloscope like this.  Stand by power supplies were used commonly in RCA color television sets in my childhood era.  I guess there is memory back up, clock, or calendar or as you mentioned, "instant on," feature.  Video cassette recorders have to be on all the time to record television programs, when you are not at home to view it.  The VCR in the early days allowed you to not missed a television show or program (programme) by recording it by time.   Agilent admits to this always on set up in their instruction manual in pdf.  

http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/86100-90117.pdf

Lawsen
« Last Edit: April 21, 2011, 12:58:43 am by Lawsen »
 

Offline bilko

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #40 on: April 21, 2011, 01:51:06 am »
Maybe it helps temperature stability and prevents condensation forming in the scope  :)
 

Offline Zad

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #41 on: April 22, 2011, 11:33:31 pm »

Okay, lets look at it in terms of beer.   6W standby for 1 year @ 13p/kWH = 2 pints of beer!

Now are you convinced that standby power consumption is a problem?

6W * 24 * 7 * 52 = 52.416kWH
@13p = £6:81

I would start buying your beer somewhere else!

On it's own that looks no biggy, but if you have 10 in a lab, and they have a lifetime of 10 years, that is a lot of beer.

It must be a massively lossy inductor that is losing >6W on standby. Can't be helping reliability in hot conditions.

Offline justinc

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #42 on: June 23, 2011, 04:49:21 am »
Dave,

Has Agilent responded to you in anyway over this issue?

 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #43 on: June 23, 2011, 05:12:44 am »
Has Agilent responded to you in anyway over this issue?

Actually, no, they haven't.
It was mentioned that they look at it.
But given that it's not an issue as it was clearly a deliberate design decision, they probably see no need to response like they have for problems.

Dave.
 

Offline gregariz

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #44 on: June 23, 2011, 06:24:34 am »
If you're like me... I'm getting forgetful... so I have a master switch in the lab that automatically turns on/off the lights.. if I see the lights on I know to turn the switch off at night... otherwise I used to frequently leave iron etc on
 

Offline Rufus

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Re: 6.5W in standby!
« Reply #45 on: June 23, 2011, 01:13:53 pm »
Actually, no, they haven't.
It was mentioned that they look at it.
But given that it's not an issue as it was clearly a deliberate design decision, they probably see no need to response like they have for problems.

Not switching mains might have been a deliberate design decision but such a crap PSU design can't have been. I have a 30A 30V Manson bench power supply (like the one on the shelf in your vids?) which with the output set to minimum voltage only pulls around 8W and that is with the displays lit and fan running in the back.
 


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