Engineers are energy wastrels, or so we loudly and frequently assert here at BUNGCO. Wastrels! Electrical appliances are built to hog up much more energy than they actually need, in a manner reminiscent of my neighbor whose sprinklers pour great gouts of water over the grass and into the gutter many times daily. BUNGCO is communally outraged at those wastrels. We will help make it right.

The Energy Diet device attaches to the power cord and features a dial, which is black. With the appliance in use, use the EDD to dial down the energy your appliance receives, until you find the appliance no longer operates in a pleasing fashion. Then take the dial up one notch and viola! Leaner, hungrier appliances now using what they need, not just want, lower energy bills and a greener world!
-- bungston, May 22 2009

Non energy vampire remote Non_20Energy_20Vampire_20Remote
Inspired me, loosely. [bungston, May 22 2009]

It is a rheostat.
-- bungston, May 22 2009


Wastrels!
-- bungston, May 23 2009


A lot of things...lots...no.
-- WcW, May 23 2009


Essential features of an appliance would probably stop working as quickly as the energy hog features. I think with a transformer you could dial down the voltage a little though. Not much, but a little.

An energy diet device already exists and is called the off switch.
-- Bad Jim, May 23 2009


[Bad Jim] So a sort of medieval torture device for wall warts. If the transformer was flexible and in an adjustable clamp then putting the screws on would change the distance between windings and therefore alter the power being transformed.

Whether this would effect the power going through the primary winding is another matter.
-- wjt, May 23 2009


I have been pondering bigsleeps comments on rheostats. When I turn down the lights using a rheostat to the point where I can barely see, I compensate for my blindness with selfpride at my greenness and saving the earthedness. If the energy that would have gone to make light instead just makes heat in the rheostat, I have saved nothing and I am ungreen. Is this true? Rheostats do not save energy?
-- bungston, May 27 2009


A rheostat does waste some power when it's limiting the current taken by the load, and reduces the already appallingly low efficiency with which an incandescent lamp converts electrical power to illumination, but the system necessarily consumes less power at lower dimmer settings, because the current flowing through it is less.

ETA: If you have two incandescent bulbs glowing at 100% brightness, and decide you only need half as much light, turning one off and leaving the other at 100% will save more power than turning both down to 50% light output.
-- notexactly, May 28 2019



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