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Another reason to hate "soft touch" power switches

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IDEngineer:
We had a power blip yesterday morning, enough to reset the digital clocks but otherwise not a big deal.

Late in the day, I finally made it into the lab... and discovered that things with soft touch power switches had turned themselves on! Most notably for this forum, this included my Rigol DS4000 series scope. It was whirring along, front plastic cover installed so I couldn't visibly tell. I guess now we know why Rigol uses loud fans, as a backup in case their equipment turns itself on and the cover is installed.  :o

I HATE soft touch power switches. I understand there are items which actually need to be "lightly" powered on all the time (remote control TV's, etc.) but the majority of soft touch switched things in my life really don't need to be. They would do just as well with a traditional, inexpensive switch that interrupts (at least) the hot side of the mains. The irony here is that the Rigol ALSO has a hard switch which I'd forgotten to turn off last time because it's on the back of the unit, out of sight. It's the worst of both worlds... all the expense of BOTH kinds of power switching, with the hard switch you paid for hidden away so you can easily forget to use it.

What is the rationale for defaulting to soft touch power switches these days? Especially on something like an oscilloscope?!? I'd expect the greenies out there to be marching in the streets over all the wasted power (like they do about wall wart chargers) yet I've never heard an environmental peep about it. There must be some overwhelmingly great advantage, so massive that even the greenies are afraid to speak out against them. What am I missing here?

JPortici:
Remotely controlled on-off for automated test equipment.
Or, at least, this is the reason they gave me when i asked why most of siglent hardware comes with soft buttons.
If i need to cut power, all my outlets have switches

rsjsouza:
It could be worse... Keysight's E3631x series of Power supplies have no hard switch - both the fan AND the TFT backlight are turned on permanently!

I like Rigol featuring both switches - it gives me choice, although I use the soft button more often than not simply due to convenience (it is in the front panel). A hard switch is convenient for the power saving stance but when there's lightning outside, I pull the plug from the outlet!  :o

james_s:
As if we needed another reason to hate them. Not sure exactly why everything uses it but I suspect it's a mix of some things requiring a bit more time to cold boot but probably more often it's just what the engineer is familiar with. I suppose it also allows placing a power button on the front panel while allowing the power supply to be placed in a convenient location without mains wiring running all over in the thing.

Whatever the case I have my whole workbench on a switched power strip.

SiliconWizard:
I'd say that a device equipped with such "soft" on/off button should NOT power on by itself in case of mains power cycling. Sounds like bad design and not something completely inherent to soft power buttons (but obviously with a simple mechanical switch, it can't happen.)

Using those has two benefits: usually more convenient for the user as they can be put on front panels. Much easier to deal with especially when you don't have easy access to the back panel. And obviously putting a mains switch on the front panel is usually much more akward from a design POV and not nearly as safe.

The other benefit is that it allows the device to be cleanly put in a sleep state when turning it off. Many modern instruments are not unlike computers and switching them off brutally may make them lose their current settings or worse.

One easy solution is to have switchable mains rails in your lab.

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