mco@slimer.UUCP (Mark C. Otto) (10/04/90)
In article <1454@svin02.info.win.tue.nl> wsinpdb@svin02.info.win.tue.nl (Paul de Bra) writes: >In article <258@ramecs.UUCP> car@ramecs.UUCP (Chris Rende) writes: >>My electric bill increased by $20 per month! >> [...Other good points deleted...] > >So part of a solution to your problem is to mess with the internals a bit >to install a power switch for the screen. > >Paul. >(debra@research.att.com) Yeah. I've been wondering about this a bit myself. If either of you decide to go ahead and try to install such a switch, be sure to post a message in this group so we can all benefit (especially if your results are good). I personally know of at least four people who would be interested in this modification if good, knowledgeable, people like yourselves were to do a nice, clear concise writeup of the procedure. I *KNOW* I could save at least $10.00 monthly on my electric bill and probably *DOUBLE* the life expectancy of my monitor in the process. Yeah. That's the ticket. -- Mark C. Otto EMail: mco@slimer, {teemc | hpftc}!slimer!mco Voice: 1-313-441-4264 USnail: 5133 Heather #208, Dearborn, MI. 48126 Quote: "Yeah. Right. Kermit my a*s." - Mark C. Otto, '90
jon@jonlab.UUCP (Jon H. LaBadie) (10/08/90)
[ comments about installing a monitor power switch in a 3B1 deleted ] > ... . I *KNOW* I could save at least > $10.00 monthly on my electric bill and probably *DOUBLE* the life > expectancy of my monitor in the process. > Maybe not, sometimes the bigger threat is the temperature and other transitions that occur on powerup/powerdown. I recall talking to Teletype engineers about turning off terminals versus just using the screen-saver. Their testing said if you were going to cycle once a day, constant power was a big win. Jon -- Jon LaBadie {att, princeton, bcr, attmail!auxnj}!jonlab!jon
jep@oink.UUCP (James E. Prior) (10/09/90)
In article <1556@slimer.UUCP> mco@slimer.UUCP (Mark C. Otto) writes: >In article <1454@svin02.info.win.tue.nl> wsinpdb@svin02.info.win.tue.nl (Paul de Bra) writes: >>In article <258@ramecs.UUCP> car@ramecs.UUCP (Chris Rende) writes: >>So part of a solution to your problem is to mess with the internals a bit >>to install a power switch for the screen. > >... I *KNOW* I could save at least >$10.00 monthly on my electric bill and probably *DOUBLE* the life expectancy >of my monitor in the process. Yeah. That's the ticket. Yeah right. :-| The monitor doesn't take much power, probably less than an amp at 12V. 10W * 24hours/day * 30 days/month yields 7.2kWh a month. Unless you're paying more than $1/kWh, you're not going to save anywhere near $10 a month. Even if you are using air conditioning, you're not going to save $10 a month. In winter time, electrical power consumption contributes to heating you house, albeit, at a higher rate than gas, coal, or wood, in any rate reducing the effective rate for using electrical appliances in the winter time. I have the most expensive kind of heating: Electrical resistance heating. I can leave everything on in the winter time, and it just doesn't affect my electric bill. If you REALLY want to do it anyway, you should consider keeping power applied to the filament. Turning power on and off subjects the filament and things around it to thermally caused mechanical stress. Everytime you turn your monitor on or off, you subject it to these streses. Ever notice how light bulbs _usually_ quit working when turned on? It's the damned thermal stress. Bulbs turned on and left on will last much longer than one turned on and off. Unless you only use your screen once a week, it's not clear that you'll be making the monitor last longer. Of course, there is also "wear" on the monitor during its steady on (but dark) state. The "wear" from power cycling is considerable. You'll have to weigh these two "wear" factors that I can't quantify for you. If you really want to control the monitor power anyway, it's not dificult to do. You use a one shot to look at the pixels. If the one shot doesn't see any pixels for, oh, about a second, it would turn the monitor off with the help of a couple transitors (darlington) and diode (for any possible inductive spikes). You could make this as a module that goes between the motherboard and the monitor cable. This way, any changes made would be reversible, and better yet, no software mods. You might want to add some tristate buffers that are disabled with the monitor is turned off, just in case the monitor looks like a short to the signals from the motherboard. I really don't think it is worth your time and money. The only reason I could think of for doing it is just to demonstrate that it can be done. -- Jim Prior jep@oink osu-cis!n8emr!oink!jep N8KSM