One of the usual Indians rolled up the other day but instead of per usual trying to flog off an alternate electronic company he was giving away free (his company would sell Carbon credits to the gubmint) a power board. This has sockets one marked normal, and some master and slaves.

It has a IR chip as well and what happens is after an hour if it doesnt detect any remote control action it will flash for three minutes, if during these three minutes you do not adjust the TV by the remote (he said just move the volume up and down) it will power down the unit completely, no standby.

Seems to work ok and even without the standby the TV (50 inch Plasma) seems to start up without waiting too long. My only question is is this equivalent of switching it off at the mains likely to cause any problems with the TVs innards?

>My only question is is this equivalent of switching it off at the mains likely to cause any problems with the TVs innards?

Probably not.

the mains switch goes to the tv on/off switch first so it doesn’t matter which one you use. doubtful if there are spike suppressors or anything like that before the tv on/off switch.

but remember i’m not an electrical engineer. but i do like a beer.

sibeen said:

>My only question is is this equivalent of switching it off at the mains likely to cause any problems with the TVs innards?

Probably not.

Cheers. In a way I reckon it might actually lead to increased electricity use. I wouldnt but I have been in familys where the TV is on a lot and I reckon kiddies will just learn not to turn off TVs (something they struggle with anyway) because it turns itself off. Multiply by millions of TVs in homes with young familys and a habit they will take into adult life…

…and I reckon kiddies will just learn not to turn off TVs

there are ways of learning them. not sure of the legalities though.

Did you have to sign something saying that you had taken the board and would use it? Will they be tracking your electricity use?

Boris said:

…and I reckon kiddies will just learn not to turn off TVs
there are ways of learning them. not sure of the legalities though.

Not sure there are legal ways. The little monsters cant seem to get the hang of it, or they go to the kitchen, get distracted and before you know it the TV has been on all day with no one watching. Ooops hoisted on my own petard.

morrie said:

Did you have to sign something saying that you had taken the board and would use it? Will they be tracking your electricity use?

Yes, the board had a sticky ticket on it, which he attached to the top copy of his paperwork, (no doubt his commish based on this), name number and address taken he then gave my the carbon copy below his stickered version, said there might be a customer feedback call, and that was it. I didnt note how the number was formatted to get any clue if it was just to track sales or goes deeper. You would imagine (you would freaking hope) that the govt at least would be interested in spotting usage change.

the only reason that power prices are going up is because all of the power authorities are in serious debt

the price rises are simply paying for the interest on the mounting debt

saving a little money on standby won’t solve the problem

if you want to save money you should study your local authority’s legal agreement. energy australia last time i looked compensated you for outages

have a talk to the neighbours and get everyone to turn on their appliances at the same time, it will pop the fuses at the local transformer, when they finally turn up wait for it to happen again and pop them again

next bill you should get some healthy compensation, if everyone did this they would have a hard time trying to meet their obligations

this has been a wookimeister lite production

enjoy the cool flavour of wookiemeister lite anytime

We use outdoor lighting controllers (Kambrook RF3405) for much the same thing – Hit one button and everything plugged into the Unit is shut down at the GPO.

>Hit one button and everything plugged into the Unit is shut down at the GPO.

So your the one who had been rooting up Australia Post’s delivery system.

Insert a ‘you’re’ in the appropriate place.

The little monsters cant seem to get the hang of it, or they go to the kitchen, get distracted and before you know it the TV has been on all day with no one watching
—————-
My TV seems to have this device already built in. If you leave it on and don’t change channels or volume for a while then it tells you it is gunna shut down. As we don’t have the TV on that much normally, we only noticed during the Oylmpics where we sorta left it on in the background (in the desperate hope that we might see something other than replays of Australia winning, Australia losing and Australia talking about itself…)