Ahhhh, but home appliances are meant to be left on. Lack of maintance normally causes the above referenced problems.
I don't think paranoia has anything to do with it. In this energy wise world I think we can turn off non-essentials (except music?). Originally we would turn everything off. Then a few pieces of gear that had turn on problems appeared. I mentioned a couple up above there. The plasma meter bridge blew up as many times as it turned on. Close enough. So studio guys left the stuff on. A few other non-technical people saw this and thought - hmmm, pro studios leave their gear on 24 / 7. That's the pro way to do things. Bam, home stereos started being left on. Bryston then came out with their problems and recommended the same thing. This re-enforces the fallacy. I can't agree with this practice. I only take exception to extending this idea to others who don't kow better. A personal choice is just that. Hey! I'm pro choice I guess!
Question. How many hours do you listen to the "stereo" compared to the number of hours in a day? Not a good ratio.
-Chris
I don't think paranoia has anything to do with it. In this energy wise world I think we can turn off non-essentials (except music?). Originally we would turn everything off. Then a few pieces of gear that had turn on problems appeared. I mentioned a couple up above there. The plasma meter bridge blew up as many times as it turned on. Close enough. So studio guys left the stuff on. A few other non-technical people saw this and thought - hmmm, pro studios leave their gear on 24 / 7. That's the pro way to do things. Bam, home stereos started being left on. Bryston then came out with their problems and recommended the same thing. This re-enforces the fallacy. I can't agree with this practice. I only take exception to extending this idea to others who don't kow better. A personal choice is just that. Hey! I'm pro choice I guess!
Question. How many hours do you listen to the "stereo" compared to the number of hours in a day? Not a good ratio.
-Chris
Humm, I can't think of many appliances that are left on all time excepting refrigerators, freezers, clocks, and the many power saving appliances that hibernate and are so powered for that part. but after thinking about it I don't leave my Washer, Dryer, stove, furnace, air conditioning, ceiling fans, toaster, waffle maker, coffee maker, etc on all the time. In reality there are very few appliances that do run all the time, except for perhaps some sensors related to them. I only use appliannces as needed and by dictate. But even brand new appliances can fail as my friends window air conditioner did one day by exploding and bursting nto flames.
As for how many hours does my stereo stay on.... Normally as long as I'm going to be around the house including errand running, hikes up in the mountains or trips to the desert all of which may entail a half day or more. So basically for me that could be all weekend or the whole of a long holiday. Since friends happen by at any time its nice to have it warmed up and ready to go. The nice Class A amps also DO HELP take the load off my heating bill(gas) in the wunter months so as far as wasting energy goes that a crock! One offsets the other at least around this house. In fact electricity is the cheaper utility here so I just need another several Krells, or Alephs and I can heat the whole dang house and enjoy the music in what ever room I'm in!
Actually radio stations started this back in the teens and twentys and TV took this to new heights because it was a necessity... and still is. They did it for very good reasons and that is to allow sensitive equipment to stay in calibration and so that none of the equipment took a beating fmor repeated on-off cycles. Take the RCA cameras that I used to maintain back in the late 70's. These cameras were never shut down EXCEPT for me to work on certain parts of them, some sections of them could be worked on with out powering down, including re-tubing them!. All that happened with them at idle was that the Plumbicons were beamed off to save the targets. These TK-45's rarely ever had problems and that was because they were left on 24/7/365. In this catagory the cameras with the most problems were the minicams that got turned on and off 10 times a day or more. I can't think of any ancillary equipment that was ever shut down at the stations I was at except to make repairs to, ditto for radio stations I was familiar with. Except for the transmitters H-V supplies most are left on all the time even when off the air. Too much shock on the filaments in the final PA's from repeated on- offs shortens final PA life.... Some final Klystrons are 150K each!
Mark
Not sure if this is adding anything, but it's common in calibration labs to let the equipment warm up for 30 minuntes before adjustments are made. Not sure there is any real advantage to leaving the gear on other than being ready to go at a moment's notice for any particular reason. Personally I don't take gear so seriously as to keep burning energy all the time, what with the gamble of line surges and such. I've gotten smacked before and don't care to make it a habit.
True but one must go by the manuals spec for warm up time. My Wavetek Synthesized generator for instance specifies an hour, probably because of the crystal oven.... funny as the calibrate LED comes in with in just a few minuites specifing that its ready to ise and with in spec. Whay is this... you might know? Tektrionix normally says a half hour but for tube TEK scopes I've seen 2 hour warmup times in manuals, but 30 min would be a good start if one did not have the factory manual at hand. Another interesting thing regarding scopes is that I can remember that just about every TEK tube scope I ever came across was always left on... Bell labs near where I grew up did this as did all the TV stations that were using them back in those days.
There are actually alot of things in broadcast that require power up all the time, sync generators are one and many have crystal ovens in them, main oscillators in transmitters also come to mind and can take days to stabilize on exact frequency with in the required amount of tolerance. Color monitors generally are as well. As for the cameras they were so large and complex inside that it could take an entire 8 hour shift for one to re-stabilize after being shut down for just an hour. The main problem was registration drift because of temperature shifts in the deflection yokes and tube alignment coils. Those cameras also generated some heat output of their own and had several blowers in them to aid in getting the internal temperature constant through out. The old color orthicon cameras were even far worse!! CCD studio cameras have pretty much eliminated all this headach although most stations still leave those turned on as well. In broadcast it ALWAYS makes for higher reliability and thats why it was done and is still being done today.
Not totally off topic but relevant.....now I'm done!
Mark
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