Wall-Warts Power Usage and Power Supplies

[Dantanna]

The main point of my question is to get a general idea on what kind of power
usage AC power adapters consume when plugged into a household outlet. Why?
Because even if you have nothing feeding off of the walwart it is still warm
to the touch and that would indicate that it is wasting electricity and
costing money.

For example - I have a Sony Clie which is a rechargeable version of a Palm
Pilot. I noticed that the adapter is rated to output 5.2V at 2000mA. My
first thought was wow! What does a Palm Pilot need 2 Amps for??? So does
the output rating with the Palm Pilot out of its cradle mean that the
walwart is burning up my AC putting out a constant 5V/2000mA?

Are they putting out a steady voltage and only providing current when
current is called for? Or is the current also measurable even with the
device absent?

Bottom line is if these things are consuming power in idle mode - they need
to be updated to be intelligent enough to turn off when the downstream
device is off or removed.

 

[Fritz Schlunder]

The main point of my question is to get a general idea on what kind of power
usage AC power adapters consume when plugged into a household outlet. Why?
Because even if you have nothing feeding off of the walwart it is still warm
to the touch and that would indicate that it is wasting electricity and
costing money.

Indeed most wall cubes do waste a not totally negligible amount of energy
when idleing. Exactly how much depends on the size and design of the wall
cube, but an estimate of something around 2-4 watts while idleing isn't too
unreasonable for normally sized wall cubes. If in your house you have 30 of
these cubes all plugged in 24/7 each taking say 3W, and you pay 10 cents a
killowatt hour that amounts to around $6.50 a month down the trapper. Most
equipment you purchase will often specifically recommend you unplug the wall
cube when you are not using the product (somewhere in the manual, but who
reads or follows those?).

For example - I have a Sony Clie which is a rechargeable version of a Palm
Pilot. I noticed that the adapter is rated to output 5.2V at 2000mA. My
first thought was wow! What does a Palm Pilot need 2 Amps for??? So does
the output rating with the Palm Pilot out of its cradle mean that the
walwart is burning up my AC putting out a constant 5V/2000mA?

Surely the Sony Clie doesn't need 10.4W during normal use, the high current
is surely needed for recharging the battery. If you want to charge the
battery in a reasonably short amout of time it takes a relatively high
current. I don't have a Sony Clie, but it probably uses a switching power
supply type of wall cube instead of the standard transformer + rectifier +
capacitor arrangement. Switching power supply wall cubes can (although it
doesn't mean they have to be) be designed to use much less power while
sitting around at idle. These types of wall cubes usually do have higher
efficiency while under load as well. Unfortunately they cost more, so low
end cheap consumer products won't normally use them. Fortunately high tech
products like cell phones normally include them these days.

Are they putting out a steady voltage and only providing current when
current is called for? Or is the current also measurable even with the
device absent?

Indeed a 5.2V 2000mA rated wall cube won't likely waste 10.4W when at idle.
They only supply 2000mA if the load wants that much. On the other hand most
wall cubes will waste something while idleing, and the current flow is
measureable. Although measureable, it isn't guaranteed that simple
power=current*voltage formula can be used to accuratly measure the wasted
power. An idleing transformer is an inductive device and therefore will not
have unity power factor when at idle. Additionally capacitive loads fed
through a rectifier don't draw current in a nice sinusoidal pattern, and
they too lower the power factor (although this mainly only applies when the
wall cube is loaded).

Bottom line is if these things are consuming power in idle mode - they need
to be updated to be intelligent enough to turn off when the downstream
device is off or removed.

Well that would cost more and make things more complicated. If you like you
could go out and replace all of your standard mains frequency transformer
based wall cubes with switching power supply ones, and assuming you get well
designed ones this may make the idle power consumption negligible as well as
improve the efficiency while under load.

But if you really are concerned about waste make sure not to buy fuel
wasting vehicles.

 

[Dantanna]

Lol - Thank you so much for that very detailed reply Fritz! This should be
a FAQ or added to the faq.

Thanks again - .

 

[Toni Ylisirniö]

I should add that it's wasted energy only if you don't /need/ the heat...

If you have electric heating system in your house, then it's all the
same which devices generates the heat. If you have some other system,
then you're simply substituting part of it with electric heating (which
may be chaper or more expensive depending on the price of kW for each).

If you don't need the heat, then you just pay for the few watts and blow
it out of your windows.

If you don't need the heat AND have air conditioning unit removing the
heat then you pay five times the energy. Once to generate it in the
wallwart and then four times to move it away with the AC unit. (It costs
about 4 times as much energy to move a unit of heat, as it does to
create a unit of heat)

And for prespective, having 10 wallwarts in the wall all times will take
about as much energy as a single regular (40-60W) incandescent bulb
running 24/7.