Indicator LEDs are about 2mA at 2VDV, so at 120VAC the losses in the transformer and rectifiers are far more than the power actually drawn by the LED. A neon lamp might actually be more efficient to run off of AC since you don't have all the losses of the magnetics. You could run an LED off low voltage AC and it would just illuminate on half of each cycle (some cyclists do this when they connect an LED directly to their dynamo without using a rectifier).
These have an NE-2 neon bulb which draws about 0.6mA, so at 120V it's around 0.07 watts. So 1000 lighted switches would be a little less than a 75 watt light bulb.
Suffice it to say, the watt-hours you'd save with even 50 unlighted versus lighted switches would barely be measurable, even over the course of a year.
Some people unplug things like phone chargers when not in use. I.e. an iPhone charger draws 0.2W even when the phone is not connected, close to
3X what a lighted switch draws, but still a trivial amount.You can buy power strips with individual switches to avoid unplugging wall warts all the time. But you'd probably never recover the cost of the power strip in saved electricity.
My experience with a lighted switch is that its neon lamp is either an A1C ("mini-NE-2H") or a C2A (NE-2H). Those get more like 2 mA.
One of these can easily consume 2 KWH per year.
Plenty of wall warts consume a watt or two even when no load is connected. As in basically all of the older technology ones that weigh more and get warm to the touch even when operated unloaded. That is fairly easily 8 to 16 KWH per year for each one.
I was going by the NE-2, which actually is about 0.03W at 120V, but an NE-2H is about 0.2W, and an A1C is about 0.14W. So if the light switch was never turned on, and it was an NE-2H, it would be about 1.7KWH per year, so you're right, about 2KW a year if it's an NE-2H.
=3D=3D Which is negligible...not to worry about...not to budget for...not to have ulcers over. In other words...forget it. =3D=3D
I agree, probably 25 cents per switch per year. But didn't someone claim that they'd reduced their electric bill by $2.50 a month by getting rid of a bunch of these sorts of loads? I doubt if it was true.
=3D=3D Yes, quite cheap for a light to indicate the location of switches in the dark. People are a puzzle sometimes. =3D=3D
25 cents a year is enough for me to rip them all out from my house. I already got rid of the doorbell because the doorbell transformer costs close to $10 a year. It dont cost anything to post a sign on the door that says "KNOCK HARD".
If you want to see your light switches at night. put one of those solar powered sidewalk lights in a window in every room.
I couldn't find any white Decora style dimmer switches that *weren't* also lighted in any store near me. That's the main reason that I have two lighted switches in my house (the design department wanted Decora on the first floor.)
nate
-snip-
"Meditatio" by Ezra Pound When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs I am compelled to conclude That man is the superior animal.
When I consider the curious habits of man I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.
Jim
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