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Monitor Draws Zero Power In Standby

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the green-screens dept.

fifthace writes "A new range of Fujitsu Siemens monitors don't draw power during standby. The technology uses capacitors and relays to avoid drawing power when no video signal is present. With political parties all over Europe calling for a ban on standby, this small development could end up as one of the most significant advances in recent times. The British Government estimates eight percent of all domestic electricity is consumed by devices in standby."

3 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. The biggest wastage is in the power supply itself by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Informative
    You don't need much power to run a very small 8-bit micro, enough to wake a sleeping monitor. We're talking about nano Amps here. A cheap capacitor can keep that going for months.

    The biggest wastage in taditional designs is that they use switch mode power supplies designed to run at full power. They don't operate very efficiently at very low (standby) power. It is far better to completely turn off the power supply and just use a local capacitor to keep the micro going.

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    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  2. Re:The most frustrating thing is.... by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Informative

    CRT != LCD...

  3. Re:The most frustrating thing is.... by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, he was talking about CRTs. And you are wrong on both counts. On a CRT more current flows to make the screen white. For an LCD, just remove the signal or power from the screen, but not the light and the pixels go "black". However...transmitting black over air takes more energy. And the sync pulse, even more.

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    What?