Why do surge protectors continue to draw power from the wall even if switched off or if nothing's connected to them?

Comments

• mvirts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  When nothing is connected, the capacitors used to smooth power spikes will leak some current and draw power that way

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  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Surge protectors don’t use capacitors.

    They use a variable resistance circuit- usually metal oxide varistors. When the supply is at the correct voltage, it just goes through them. When it’s too high (a surge,) the resistance increases and excess voltage is sent out a fork to ground

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    • mvirts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Oh! Yeah that makes sense… idk why I thought they mainly used a capacitive circuit. So those varistors must dissipate power in normal operation right?

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  • mvirts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Side note, if you ever want to get real mad about paying money for something open up a cheap surge protector or power conditioner 😹

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    • Alchemy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Just empty shell with low grade solder and cheap wiring?

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• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  switched off? no. that breaks the circuit, no power, no usage. it’s basically the same as unplugging it from the wall. if nothing is connected to them, many surge protectors have a small indicator light that shows the surge protector is on. that’s about the only power use being used if nothing is plugged in and drawing power.

  you might be confusing turning the surge protector off itself, vs the devices it’s connected to- many of which will rather enter a standby mode which still draws some power. (for example, microwave ovens will draw some power continiously so that they’re always ready, even if they’re not always drawing enough power to cook food.)

  A surge protector (and the outlet it’s plugged into,) will only draw enough power to meet it’s demand; even if the supplied power is potentially greater- for example, computer power supplies. A PC with a 60w power supply will operate quite happily with a 120w power supply.

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  • Epicurus0319@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s good to know, so I actually don’t need to physically unplug it to trim down the bill. I’ve been doing it wrong for a while

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    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Well, you can keep doing it that way, if you want. It’s still a good idea if you get surges during storms or something; mind. for both the protector and whatever its protecting. but as far as power usage goes, yeah, you can just flip the switch.

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  • Synnr@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Surely you thought of this, but a lot of surge protectors have (used to have?) a battery backup for short outages. Keeps the PC on so you can save your data.

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    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Those are not surge protectors, but uninterruptible power supplies.

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• SquiffSquiff@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It didn’t used to be this way, but modern power adaptors are required to implement standby power:

  In the past, standby power was largely a non-issue for users, electricity providers, manufacturers, and government regulators. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, awareness of the issue grew and it became an important consideration for all parties. Up to the middle of the decade, standby power was often several watts or even tens of watts per appliance. By 2010, regulations were in place in most developed countries restricting standby power of devices sold to one watt (and half that from 2013).

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• mvirts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Maybe they’re actually listening to us.

  Do they draw power when switched off completely???

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  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Do they draw power when switched off completely???

    Nope. so that rocker switch physically breaks the connection between the wall socket and whatever is plugged into it’s sockets. as far as power consumption goes, it’s basically identical to unplugging from the wall.

    Maybe they’re actually listening to us.

    Do… you know about your cell phone? they don’t need to but bugs in surge protectors because we so very handily take the world’s greatest spying device with us everywhere we go. willingly. without a second though.

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    • mvirts@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So true 😁 George Orwell was a bit off on the timing and missed the scale of surveillance by a mile, but got the idea spot on.

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