13a soucket outlets with usb ports

Peter Johnson snipped-for-privacy@parksidewood.nospam wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I see obsolescence and reliability to be more of an issue than fire safety.

Now that USB type C is set to be the norm (at both ends) I can see early adopters of ones with type A (rectangular outlets) kicking themselves as fewer and fewer people use the annoyingly polarised connectors. The same will apply as newer high spec charging outputs become the norm.

Also, if the USB element fails after a few years and a replacement is no longer available in that fancy design you chose then you're stuffed. A recent install at a relative's had the USB port DOA, not encouraging. A simple, electronics free socket should last decades but with electronics, who knows.

After the DOA item was returned it was decided simply to use a plugged-in charger which can be replaced if it fails or goes obsolete and is an easy solution if the installation is designed with plenty of outlets.

Mine it MK where it is only the Essentials range that conflagrates:

Do these things use a little power all the time, even when nothing USB is connected, or is there some kind of switching mechanism to control them? Washing machines etc are required to shut themselves off if unattended for some time, these sockets should be treated similarly, I would think. Several years of even a trickle current would add up to a lot of power.

There's a difference between "off" and "standby", the latter is better now than it used to be, but just because your washing machine has no LEDs lit, don't think it's completely off ...

That's why I always switch it off at the socket when I am done with it. Ditto the dryer, the microwave oven, the electric cooking oven, the bedroom TV set, etc etc. If it can be brought back to life by pressing a button, then it's still using power. I could also turn off the living room TV set, but it's too much hassle to reach the switch behind all the equipment, and I need to leave the Humax on standby. I leave the dishwasher on standby, but that's because I need to be a contortionist to get to the mains switch. All in all, I try my best.

More like over several centuries. Switched Mode PSUs such as the ones in these adapt to the load. Under no load the current is incredibly low. I checked the British General data sheets and for the "bog standard" double 13amp socket with 2 x USB A outputs the standby consumption is quoted as <100 milliwatts. So assuming 0.1Watts that is 1Kwh every

So assuming you are on the Price Cap of 25p/unit you would need I think around 15 for 25p/month or 60 to make your bill £1/month more expensive.

I would guess the bigger units may have more, I think they probably conform to the EU limit of 0.5W but Switched Mode PSUs can behave in an non-intuitive manner. The adapt very well to both input and output load. So reducing the mains voltage has no effect on power consumption. They just take more current to compensate.

Of course, the usual caveats apply. Most ohe energy used will be converted to heat so reducing your winter bill by a few pounds, but in summer increasing your AirCon load....

Dave

Depends on the button

Typical standby currents these days are the order of microamps

"The phantom power drawn from USB ports is about 0.05 watts (W) when nothing is plugged in"

So about 400Wh per year. Or less than 15p even at today's inflated 'green energy' rates

And at least a third of that you get back in terms of useful heating compared to typical gas or heat pump costs

Just drink one less cup of tea per year. Problem solved.

Switching off everything on standby is a typical ArtStudent response. As is half filling the kettle

Try not having a shower every day, Save far more

Thanks, that's worth knowing. Tell Mad Ed, though, and see if he listens!

Thanks, that's worth knowing. Tell Mad Ed, though, and see if he listens!

Apologies for replying to the wrong post before.

Oops, wrong message. See elsewhere for correct placement.

In the days of instant start CRT TVs - where the valve and CRT heaters were left on - now that was a lot of standby power. And the sets sometimes caught fire when people went away for holiday and left them in standby. (I don't think there was any visible indication.)

This stopped in the mid 70s I think - I bought my first CTV in 1978 and it genuinely started up in five seconds.

For years after, people continued to unplug their TVs when they want to bed - and the aerial in case of a lightning strike. (I don't know whether the latter was worthwhile.)

Very worthwhile if the aerial ever got a strike, not at all otherwise.

Next door's chimney was struck one day, with some sort of side shoot travelling between our roof tiles to the TV aerial. The felt was pushed away from the tiles and had a hole in it. The front element of the aerial was bent back at 45 degrees on both sides, but there was no other damage to it.

The aerial plug was hanging loose downstairs, and the socket just wasn't there. No trace of it, just a burned wire end inside. The TV tuner and power supply were destroyed.

Unfortunately, the TV was plugged in and on at the time, and everything that was turned on in the house was damaged. The spike didn't seem able to cross open switches. My receiver was off at the time, but the aerial cable crossed a speaker cable, and that power amp was dead. The washing machine was on, and the heater gained a short to ground. Even neon bulbs died.

All covered by insurance, of course, but still annoying. The local repairer couldn't get parts for the Rotel receiver, so I bought a couple of Crimson Elektrik amp modules and fitted them, and the insurer paid the cost.

Funny stuff, lightning.

So, if the aerial had been unplugged from the TV, do you think the lightning would have harmlessly dribbled out of the socket and soaked into the carpet!?

No, it would need to be moved some distance away and preferably the mains plug removed. But presumably that would have reduced the attractiveness of the aerial itself, inside the loft of the adjacent house and no longer being at earth potential, and the lightning offshoot may not have happened or at least been much weaker.

As I said, funny stuff. I'm aware of a somewhat local case of a lightning offshoot *leaving* an earthed lightning conductor at a right-angle bend. The moral being, don't route a lightning conductor to ground through any sharp bends. Points at high potential have a very high electrostatic gradient with respect to the rest of the world, and charge is more likely to leak in or out of them. Hence the charge collector of a Van de Graaf generator being as near a sphere as is possible, with no sharp bits.

Yes, they use power all the time, but it's so little, it's not worth bothering about - one, just like a plug-in charger, might cost 22p a year! 0.1W, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 25p a unit.

With the right lead a USB A outlet will still charge a phone with a USB port, but slowly. The current standard seems to be to provide USB A and USB C ports, outputting 3a on the USB C and 2.4a on the USB A, total 4.2a, so charging lower if both are used simultaneously. Previously, they had 2 USB A ports for a total of 3.1a. Those that I had that I have now replace will be relocated elsewhere that they might be useful, and where I'm not bother about charging speed. One of them is already in the garage, where it can charge an LED work light. I have one of the 1st generation sockets with USB ports that is in the loft, so I can't tell you what its ampage is, less than 2 I think.

It's very unlikely, but yes. a strike to an antenna could be as disastrous as my strike on the telephone drop wire

Andy Burns snipped-for-privacy@andyburns.uk wrote:

When I was young Dad used to remove the lead when a storm approached, we were an isolated dwelling and just about at the top of a hill* so reasonably vulnerable to lightning strikes. The aerial arrangement was a typical 1950’s VHF installation where the coax ran down the roof and came in through a hole drilled in a wooden window frame and terminated in an aerial socket mounted on the inside of the window frame, from there five or six feet of aerial fly lead plugged into the socket and down to the TV. The actual aerial was very large as when it went up there was no official ITV contractor for the region but Dad found he could using the large aerial just about receive ITV from the adjoining area whose franchise was in operation. This meant there was a large amount of metal sitting on a tall pole some feet above the chimney. As a storm approached he removed the fly lead but pulled it out of the socket rather than the TV, as was often the case once the storm came close the electricity went off so the old oil lamp was ready on the table by the Window, Mother decided to sit at the table . Soon after as the sky darkened an arc of electricity flew out of the socket and hit the metalwork of the oil lamp about a yard away, next stop would have been Mother and she was suitably startled. I don’t think it could have been a direct strike as there was no damage that could be noticed, perhaps a charge had built up on the aerial or it had grounded the cloud that was now around us before it built up too much charge to be a full strike but anyway after that Dad always removed the plug from the telly and let it lie on the floor so any charge had far less distance to cross.

• SWEBs. pole mounted transformer in the adjoining field was fractionally higher , they have lost two to lightning that I am aware of with some rewiring the house needed afterwards. GH

Once some years ago, a colleague and I were assigned the job of reading the airflow in a whole set of paint shop exhaust stacks on top of a car assembly plant in Tennessee. This meant that, for a whole afternoon, were were inserting a 6-foot long stainless steel tube into holes drilled into these steel stacks, and reading the pressure created by the airflow. Soon after we started, the sky darkened and we saw a dark cloud appearing over the horizon and heading our way. The assembly plant was in a depression and we watched as the storm cloud went up one side of the surrounding hills, then turned and came down the other side. We could see lightning occasionally. Amazingly, although we were ready to drop everything and flee at a moment's notice, the storm eventually petered out and disappeared, much to our relief.

The project manager had been hit by lightning twice, he had no sensation of hot or cold.