DISQUS

I hope they discover the similarity between their product's name and the word "embalm" sooner rather than later...

A charger typically consumes less than 0.03 W while it is not charging anything.

If powered continuously for a year, then it consumes 1/4 of a kilowatt-hour (kWH). The electric company charges you about 10 cents per kWH, so you'll pay about 2.6 cents per charger per year.

The reason why people are making an issue of it (and other still-powered-when-off devices like DVD players) is that if each house has 10 devices like this plugged in at the same time, and there are a million homes thus outfitted in the US, then we're wasting, as a nation, over 1/4 million dollars in electricity.

Which is a collective drop in the bucket, and quite frankly not worth caring about. More power is lost in the distribution and transmission lines than in chargers and similar devices.

And, quite frankly, to reduce that by 90% the charger and other devices will cost several dollars more in parts, which would completely swamp any electrical savings over decades worth of use.

-Adam

Freefall (or hang time) is the point at which a body is accelerating toward the earth at the same rate gravity is pulling them toward the earth. Since these two forces are opposite, then the individual feels absolutely no "gravity" or acceleration, even though they are accelerating toward the ground.

The accelerometer measures acceleration in three axis. If you place it on a table, it will measure 1G of acceleration just sitting there, because gravity is pulling it downward, but it can't move due to the table, so it can sense the force.

If you drop it then it will experience no force internally until it hits the ground, at which point it will experience a force several times normal 1G, and then the normal 1G once it has stopped bouncing.

So the accelerometer in the hangtimer simply looks at all three accelerometers, adds up the total acceleration, and if it's 0, then it starts a timer until the acceleration suddenly spikes (landing) and settles at 1G again.

I suppose I ought to put up an accelerometer tutorial on my website...

-Adam

Moving in southeast michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/
Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com

If each LED runs at 20mA and 2.4V, then 1,500 LEDs consume 72 watts - which is easily created via bicycle. Even those that don't exercise regularly can generate 72 watts.

A string of regular Christmas lights takes 2.5V at 170mA, which would require 638 watts. Lance Armstrong can average 400W for hours at a time, and could drive 638 watts for a short period of time. Your average person would be hard pressed to light them dimly.

Interesting demonstration.

-Adam
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Moving in southeast michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/
Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com
Building your own house? Check out http://ubasics.com/home/

I had a Radio Shack 300-in-one electronics kit with the little spring contacts and wires. I've been interested in seeing how these snap circuits (which have been around for quite some time now) worked in real life, but figured they'd disappear sooner or later along with all the other electronics that's disappearing.

Back when you didn't have a computer in every house, and tapes were still cool it was neat for kids to design a "big ear" amplifier, or a buzzer that turned on when the lights went out.

Now that you can go to the toy store and get a video games system for the cost of the snap circuit pro, or toy cellphones that really work, or an MP3 player - there isn't as much draw.

What we need now is a electronics kit that let's kids use the ARM9 processor with the color LCD display and the GSM cell phone internet connection. Attach the processor to the lcd and modem, drop in the TCP/IP software and JPEG interpreter, and *poof* an instant photo frame that not only your grandparents will be surprised at, but your peers at school will want.

Lego's NXT is about as close as we can get now, and it's as expensive as newly released video game systems.

I suppose I'll have to do it myself.

-Adam
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Moving in southeast Michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/

Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com

Building your own house? Check out http://ubasics.com/home/

No this would be a worthwhile addition to my meeting folder...

-Adam
_________________
Moving in southeast Michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/

Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com

Building your own house? Check out http://ubasics.com/home/

That's 16.8mpg for those too lazy to type ".14 l per km to mpg" into google.