Author Topic: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!  (Read 48449 times)

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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #100 on: February 14, 2017, 11:47:28 am »
Top of my head, 'sealed for life remote controls', a piezo film deforms when a button is pressed and powers up the micro which does the 'usual' remote control thing before powering down to zero power when the user has finished pressing buttons.

A finger on a piezo would easily produce enough energy to detect and wake a battery-powered MCU easily.
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Online tszaboo

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #101 on: February 14, 2017, 11:54:40 am »
Top of my head, 'sealed for life remote controls', a piezo film deforms when a button is pressed and powers up the micro which does the 'usual' remote control thing before powering down to zero power when the user has finished pressing buttons.

A finger on a piezo would easily produce enough energy to detect and wake a battery-powered MCU easily.
Actually, there are remote controllers which work without battery.
http://www.allocacoc.com/Product/detail/id/98/product_group_id/59.html
So whatever RF magic they are doing, the press of a button stores enough energy to do it.
 

Offline Zbig

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #102 on: February 14, 2017, 01:11:57 pm »
Top of my head, 'sealed for life remote controls', a piezo film deforms when a button is pressed and powers up the micro which does the 'usual' remote control thing before powering down to zero power when the user has finished pressing buttons.

A finger on a piezo would easily produce enough energy to detect and wake a battery-powered MCU easily.
Actually, there are remote controllers which work without battery.
http://www.allocacoc.com/Product/detail/id/98/product_group_id/59.html
So whatever RF magic they are doing, the press of a button stores enough energy to do it.

I'm using Philips Hue Tap switches around my house - battery-less lighting controllers. They use integrated energy-harvesting transducer/RF transmitter combo by a company called Enocean. There's a teardown even over at https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/gallery-dissecting-the-philips-hue-tap-wireless-battery-less-controller/. Please note, however, that "Tap" is a bit of a stretch here but, on the other hand, I could understand that "Philips Hue Press-it-like-you-mean-it" wouldn't be as catchy name marketing-wise.

EDIT:
Chances are the Allocacoc cubes are using the same Enocean technology. BTW, don't buy these (Allocacoc's PowerCubes, that is). I've got the regular one (no remote, just dumb multi-socket extension cube) and, apart of looking "oh so trendy and minimalistic", they are terrible. I had to force the plugs into mine so hard I actually ruined the protection prong receptacle in one of my CEE 7/7 plugs.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2017, 01:23:48 pm by Zbig »
 

Offline f4eru

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #103 on: February 14, 2017, 01:29:03 pm »
it would be totally amazing if the television was cordless and powered itself for 5 yrs without emitting any radiation.  :-DD
yeah. A TV needs to emit some photons at least  ^-^

Offline jonovid

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #104 on: February 14, 2017, 01:40:46 pm »
having a TV remote control which work without battery is a interesting idea. solar cells indoors? we have Solar powered calculators so why not a TV remote control?  surface area of a TV remote should be large enough? add a super cup if needed.  if all else fails you can have it charged by shaking it! adding a linear generator. cannot be more odd then a wind up smartphone.   ;D
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Offline Zbig

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #105 on: February 14, 2017, 02:18:46 pm »
having a TV remote control which work without battery is a interesting idea. solar cells indoors? we have Solar powered calculators so why not a TV remote control?  surface area of a TV remote should be large enough? add a super cup if needed.  if all else fails you can have it charged by shaking it! adding a linear generator. cannot be more odd then a wind up smartphone.   ;D

You'd have a hard time explaining to the potential customer why it's worth paying for over the regular one that lasts on the factory-provided batteries for the whole lifetime of the appliance.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #106 on: February 14, 2017, 04:01:33 pm »
Top of my head, 'sealed for life remote controls', a piezo film deforms when a button is pressed and powers up the micro which does the 'usual' remote control thing before powering down to zero power when the user has finished pressing buttons.

A finger on a piezo would easily produce enough energy to detect and wake a battery-powered MCU easily.
Actually, there are remote controllers which work without battery.
http://www.allocacoc.com/Product/detail/id/98/product_group_id/59.html
So whatever RF magic they are doing, the press of a button stores enough energy to do it.

the very first wireless remote controls were simply mechanical on the transmitter side. they wire simply tuned piece of metal. clicking produced an ultrasonic 'click' of a specific frequency. the receiver picked that up.
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Offline trophosphere

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #107 on: February 14, 2017, 04:06:52 pm »
Quote from: trophosphere
... I will sometimes use this circuit to expand Vin range ...
But that increases Vmin, negating the LDO advantage. What DO do you see?

Did you even read what I was replying to? The requirement was that it had to accept a higher Vin.
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #108 on: February 14, 2017, 04:14:36 pm »
A finger on a piezo would easily produce enough energy to detect and wake a battery-powered MCU easily.

So would any sort of vibration, loud noise, etc.

The thing would be constantly waking up.  :scared:
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #109 on: February 14, 2017, 04:19:15 pm »
i have an observation to make.

It is pointless to make these tv sets zero power. here is why :
a well designed power brick runs below 1 watt of standby power.
you need a minimum load on the power grid. you can't simply crank up a powerplant when a bunch of people tune in for their favorite show. and crank it down when they all go to bed. even if nobody consumes power : the powerplant is still running. the generators are still running, the steamboiler still boiling . so no matter what : energy is being produced. Whether it is is used or not. the turbines need to spin at constant RPM.

an average powerplant is 300 megawatt. 1 watt standby power .. that is a lot of TV's... and there are many powerplants.


besides. if you really want to implement this : how will it disciminate between remote control signals. if i use the remote for the stereo the tv will react too as it cannot decode the signal and has no way of knowing what remote is used.

and since modern tv's all run a flavor of lunacy linux , it takes at least 10 seconds for them to boot , at which point they cannot figure out anymore if the signal was indeed for them or not ...

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Offline nctnico

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #110 on: February 14, 2017, 05:02:32 pm »
It is pointless to make these tv sets zero power. here is why :
a well designed power brick runs below 1 watt of standby power.
you need a minimum load on the power grid. you can't simply crank up a powerplant when a bunch of people tune in for their favorite show. and crank it down when they all go to bed. even if nobody consumes power : the powerplant is still running. the generators are still running, the steamboiler still boiling . so no matter what : energy is being produced. Whether it is is used or not. the turbines need to spin at constant RPM.
Are you serious?  :palm:
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Offline CJay

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #111 on: February 14, 2017, 05:08:26 pm »
Top of my head, 'sealed for life remote controls', a piezo film deforms when a button is pressed and powers up the micro which does the 'usual' remote control thing before powering down to zero power when the user has finished pressing buttons.

A finger on a piezo would easily produce enough energy to detect and wake a battery-powered MCU easily.

Definitely, yes, but the micro would be in sleep instead of powered down, that might be a piffling difference in current consumption and not worth doing I suppose but it was an idea that sprang to mind.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #112 on: February 14, 2017, 05:12:52 pm »
It is pointless to make these tv sets zero power. here is why :
a well designed power brick runs below 1 watt of standby power.
you need a minimum load on the power grid. you can't simply crank up a powerplant when a bunch of people tune in for their favorite show. and crank it down when they all go to bed. even if nobody consumes power : the powerplant is still running. the generators are still running, the steamboiler still boiling . so no matter what : energy is being produced. Whether it is is used or not. the turbines need to spin at constant RPM.
Are you serious?  :palm:
yes i am.

there are much much bigger power consumers on the grid. this is solving the wrong problem. sure it helps, no doubt about that.
power companies run complicated models to figure out when load shedding will happen so they can predict when to spin up or down a plant. that takes time.
There was a documentary about that on NPR i believe , or natgeo. saw this a couple of years ago. little standby consumers in the sub 1 watt class are irellevant.
all the more if you consider the delta between standby an operational. you are going form 1 watt to 250 watt. standby consumption is not even 0.5% of operational usage. nothing more than a rounding error. now, if your operational usage is only 5 watt and your standby consumption is 2 watt .. then you have a problem...
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Offline Fungus

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #113 on: February 14, 2017, 05:20:35 pm »
there are much much bigger power consumers on the grid. this is solving the wrong problem. sure it helps, no doubt about that.
power companies run complicated models to figure out when load shedding will happen so they can predict when to spin up or down a plant. that takes time.

"complicated models"?  :-DD

Mostly they watch TV. Demand goes up massively when the adverts come on in the middle of a popular show because everybody goes and puts the kettle on to make a cup of tea (or if you live in the USA: Open up a two-story refrigerator to grab a beer/soda and let all the cold out then microwave something with "cheez" in its name).

 
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Offline james_s

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #114 on: February 14, 2017, 06:51:32 pm »
The standby power of a single TV is irrelevant, but there are probably around 300 million TVs in the US alone, what's 300 million times 1W standby? That starts to look like a significant amount of power. Probably most of those millions of TVs are all in standby from about midnight to 5am or so, and a large number of them are going to be in standby all day too while people are at work.
 

Offline mrpackethead

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #115 on: February 14, 2017, 07:12:06 pm »
Heres some more marketing BS..  Good on you Altium.
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #116 on: February 14, 2017, 09:02:02 pm »
besides. if you really want to implement this : how will it disciminate between remote control signals. if i use the remote for the stereo the tv will react too as it cannot decode the signal and has no way of knowing what remote is used.

Easy - wake up, look at the code, if it's not for me, go back to sleep
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Offline Delta

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #117 on: February 14, 2017, 09:22:45 pm »
The standby power of a single TV is irrelevant, but there are probably around 300 million TVs in the US alone, what's 300 million times 1W standby? That starts to look like a significant amount of power. Probably most of those millions of TVs are all in standby from about midnight to 5am or so, and a large number of them are going to be in standby all day too while people are at work.

Lots of little numbers add up to a big number, but that big number is then vanishingly small in the grand scheme of things.

300 million times 1W is indeed a 300MW, but 300MW is bugger all compared to total US demand.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #118 on: February 14, 2017, 09:28:31 pm »
300MW is 300MW, no matter how much the grand total is, and that's only looking at TVs, and assuming that they're all modern Energy Star compliant ones, which they're not. It all adds up.

I see a lot of people have this mindset with money. "Oh that's only $5" Yeah well $5 here, $10 there, repeat that several times a day and pretty soon we're talking real money, then they wonder why they're always broke.
 

Offline digsys

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #119 on: February 14, 2017, 10:49:20 pm »
Quote from: trophosphere
Quote from: trophosphere
... I will sometimes use this circuit to expand Vin range ...
But that increases Vmin, negating the LDO advantage. What DO do you see?
Did you even read what I was replying to? The requirement was that it had to accept a higher Vin.
LOL .. chill :-)  DO is meant to mean DropOut, maybe I should've written it as D/O. Q2: Yes I do read everything before I reply. Q3: Yes, I understand you're looking for
a higher Vin, and I do this myself all the time, but the question I was trying to ask is - How much Vmin do you sacrifice for a higher Vin. When "one" uses an LDO,
it is "usually" because they need a low-drop-out, hence the term :-)
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Offline nctnico

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #120 on: February 15, 2017, 12:20:44 am »
The standby power of a single TV is irrelevant, but there are probably around 300 million TVs in the US alone, what's 300 million times 1W standby? That starts to look like a significant amount of power.
Exactly! It is about the big numbers (and a TV is only 1 of 20 to 30 devices in standby in one home) and what is needed in the very near future are power plants which can switch rapidly and/or battery storage.

@free_electron: Why do you think Tesla is entering the home battery storage market? Answer to a rethorical question: power companies are going to invest big in this to even out the variations in supply and demand.
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Offline trophosphere

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #121 on: February 15, 2017, 01:12:52 am »
LOL .. chill :-)  DO is meant to mean DropOut, maybe I should've written it as D/O. Q2: Yes I do read everything before I reply. Q3: Yes, I understand you're looking for
a higher Vin, and I do this myself all the time, but the question I was trying to ask is - How much Vmin do you sacrifice for a higher Vin. When "one" uses an LDO,
it is "usually" because they need a low-drop-out, hence the term :-)

I'd say when a battery voltage is stated as "battery >>5V" and low power systems are usually in the 1.8-3.3v range then an increased Vmin requirement would not matter much. Just because you have a regulator that has low-dropout functionality doesn't mean you need to use it. Low drop out and low quiescent current kind of go hand in hand and thus designers have designed to those specifications. IMHO it would be a waste of time to go out of the way to find a regulator that has the specification of having low quiescent current while NOT being a low dropout unless the problem some how called for it which it did not.

Maybe I should have posted something like this at the beginning but I have never used it before so I'm not familiar with it.
 

Offline StillTrying

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #122 on: February 15, 2017, 01:42:46 am »
Seems nobody has come up with an application ...yet.
.  That took much longer than I thought it would.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #123 on: February 15, 2017, 03:08:53 pm »
besides. if you really want to implement this : how will it disciminate between remote control signals. if i use the remote for the stereo the tv will react too as it cannot decode the signal and has no way of knowing what remote is used.

Easy - wake up, look at the code, if it's not for me, go back to sleep
ehhh.
i press a button. the remote control sends a burst of pulses. this energizes the special chip , which then wakes up the tv. by this time the infrared burst is gone ...
unless that magic chip can store and replay ...

and for every buttonpress all my devices wake up check code and go back to sleep ... you'd have to implement another small cpu dedicated to that task. and sleep. it is power off. so a total cold start.

doesn;t work.
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Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #971 - Zero Standby Power TV - BUSTED!
« Reply #124 on: February 15, 2017, 03:10:59 pm »

@free_electron: Why do you think Tesla is entering the home battery storage market? Answer to a rethorical question: power companies are going to invest big in this to even out the variations in supply and demand.
because batteries react much faster than you can crank up a powerplant...
and because you install batteries at point of load. which means you dont have to work on the distribution grid that is creaky and overloaded.
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