AC power on front panels

15 Jan 2006

...

  So? DEC did that in their power controllers. I am
quite sure you have
 plenty of trnasformers powered all the time anyway -- the doorbell, the
 clock/timer in the cooker/microwave oven, the VCR, ATX PSUs, etc.... OK,
 some of those are SMPSUs running in standby mode, but the point is that
 there's plenty of circuity energised all the time.  
 Not really - I make a point of avoiding things that draw power when
 they're not in use.  I want to keep as much stuff as I can when I move
 back up north, and the house there is going to be off-grid. 
Sure...

But surely you don't leave your classic computers plugged in all the 
time. I certainly done for several reasons -- I don't have enougb mains 
sockets, I'd rather not risk having 30-year-old insulation break down 
when I'm not there to turn it off, for example.

So even if you use a transformer PSU to operate a relay, it's only really 
wasting power when the machine is plugged in but the console switch is 
off. For example when you're using the machine and need to turn it off to 
pull one of the cards. When you're not using it at all, you unplug it 
...
 from the mains. 
-tony

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AC power on front panels