[Elecraft] K3EXREF Query

[Lynn W. Taylor, WB6UUT]

Ed,

I spent a lot of time over the past few years looking at this exact 
problem.  It becomes interesting if your power company charges tiered 
rates and baseline is under a dime, while 300% and over is nearly $0.50.

The government's EnergyStar program did not initially look at standby 
power, but about a decade ago they got pretty heavily involved.  My 
half-watt standby number came from the EnergyStar web site, and is 
typical of a good-sized LED television.  Same is true of DVD players, 
video games, etc. -- they use almost no power when the only thing 
they're doing is waiting for someone to pick up a remote control.  Under 
1/2 watt is pretty typical on anything new.

At a half-watt, the electronic device is cold -- not much of a fire hazard.

The sum of all of the standby loads can be significant if you have lots 
of older stuff, or it can be pretty low.  Twenty half-watt devices 24 
hours/day is 7 kilowatt hours a month.

By the way, if you're worried about fire hazards, replace all your 
incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs -- especially the ones in 
closets and storage spaces.

If you want to know where your power dollars go, eBay and most home 
improvement stores (Orange or Blue) have a gadget called a Kill-A-Watt.  
You can actually measure.

73 -- Lynn

P.S. when energy rates soared several years ago, I measured our (old) 
refrigerator with a Kill-A-Watt and found that the energy savings alone 
would pay for a new one in about a year.

On 10/15/2014 9:29 AM, Edward R Cole wrote:
> Lynn,
>
> That was a guess and probably way too high.  I have 3-year old 46-inch 
> LED flat-screen.  But also a home theater receiver rated to 125w audio 
> and two DVD drives, a VCR and satellite receiver. So all the remote 
> control power supplies do add up - to what? I do not know - haven't 
> measured the total load.
>
> But since the TV is on from 5pm-10pm and off the rest of the day it 
> seems there would be some savings by disconnecting the ac power.  We 
> have a six outlet strip which makes that simple.  It does reduce fire 
> hazard.
>
> On the other hand I keep my Astron station 12v supply on full time 
> which supplies the OCXO, so I do not have any delay waiting for it to 
> stabilize.  I have my ham gear on more frequently than the TV.
>
> We make a pot of coffee (fresh ground) in the morning and turn-off the 
> maker after it finishes.  Coffee pot draws quite big load keeping 
> water and coffee pot hot.  And that only ruins the coffee.  We just 
> reheat a cup in the microwave when we want hot coffee.  Do we save any 
> power this way??  But the coffee tastes better :-)
>
> 73, Ed