Argh. Gone google-blind trying to find what these are called.
The extension leads that one would use on a hifi or PC setup where one socket has the main load put through it and a detector then switches on the rest of the sockets.
Cheers, Scott
Intelligent power socket.
Bill
I call them "crap".
standby saver extension lead produces a selection
Probably lots on ebay as British Gas gave loads away as freebies a couple of years ago.
Owain
Thanks guys. Found the BG ones but they all rely on remote controls which I can imagine gets them into a state after a while (eg TV goes on, everthing else goes off) which would be a pain for the (slightly bizarre) end application it'll be used in!
Bill's suggestion is on the money but finding them is hard. Amazon list a Masterplug one but doesn't price it, though I did find it up at "The Aluminium Warehouse"! Searching for Mains Slave got me a few more, CPC do one for £21 and finally found one on ebay at £15 (make is Omega?)
Probably end up shelling the thing for its precious contents :-)
Scott
Make your own:
Oooh, nice one. Found a couple of circuits earlier but they were direct connect jobs (measure the current through a 0.1R resistor, etc) which I didn't want to do. Did wonder if the current transformers would be readily available but ebay says I may have my pick of them :-)
Scott
This is a pretty old circuit, needs 5V power which, if comes from a constantly plugged in power supply, may defeat the purpose of having a current-activated switch in the first place (if you're trying to minimize power consumption for example). These days it should probably be done using a microcontroller that can go to sleep and draw something like nanowatts of power, have analog inputs for the current sense transformer and can survive for a year on a coin battery or perhaps even a photocell. I think you've just given me inspiration for the next weekend project :)
I'm not convinced they were that reliable with todays weird standby settings and switch mode psus.
Brian
This will be sensing a good kilowatt or more so should trigger fine.
Scott
I have one on my PC. It turns off the monitor when the PC is off. If I put the PC in deep standby it turns the monitor off too - so I just don't do that.
Andy
Do some monitors stay on when there's no video input? Mine all just switch off when the output from the PC isn't there.
Bill
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