Re: N:Vision CFL's

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>      http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/an/4042.pdf
>
>PDF?  I don't support no stinkin' proprietary document formats when you
>consider all the effort that's gone into the Web to make it free from such
>lunacy.  (-:  But I've read about the problem elsewhere.  It threatens to
>become an issue, as you note, only if there's a large scale conversion to
>CFLs.  Australia's wholesale switchover will probably tell us soon enough if
>it's a serious issue.

For commercial users, PDF makes sense because they are not as easily
tampered with as other formats. OpenOffice makes creating them easy (and
free) while Adobe supplies a free reader.

Here's the pertinent paragraph...

"... a standard 115VAC wall socket should be able to deliver the
nominal 15A to a common load.
In similar conditions, a "non-corrected power factor" SMPS (typical value of
0.6) drops the available current from 15A to only 9A. For example, from one
wall socket, four 280W computers each equipped with P.F.C. can be supplied
instead of two with no P.F.C."

It will be a bigger problem for Australia than for the US. Australia uses
240V so typical currents are half what we see and wire sizes are smaller.
That's why Europe has already mandated Power Factor Correction for PC power
supplies.

The ST paper exagerates. While the PSU may be rated for 280W, actual usage
is probably much less but it still illustrates the issue. My most power
hungry PC (300W PSU) uses 75-80W depending on activity. Its PF is 0.63. 3-4
CFLs will have the same effect as the PC.

I think the utilities are sandbagging us. Once residences exhibit lower PFs
they will petition for rate increases or PF based surcharges.

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