2004/07/20 15:47:00
I had a cracking idea in the thinking room today. We are all
told that leaving things on standby is bad, bad, bad. We are all
very lazy and don’t want to do reach for the switch to power
things off.
Step in the StandbySaver(TM). It’s a small box that has a
solar panel on top and two mains cables coming out the back, one
with a plug and one with a socket on. You plug this in between your
TV and the mains plug and you are off.
Setup: Press the setup button on the back and both the green and
red led’s come on. Press the power button on your TV remote
and both start flashing. Press a spare or little used button on the
remote and they go off. You are now ready to use.
Press the power button on the remote the red light will come on and
power will flow to the TV, you may now use your TV as usual. After
an hour with out a remote press the red light will flash and the
box will bleep and if after 10 seconds there has been no more
remote usage then the power to the TV is turned off. Pressing the
spare or little used button on the remote will turn on the green
light and so the power will stay on until you press the button
again, useful for movies and video recordings.
The solar panel is used to charge the device when off so that there
is no mains used. There should be enough power to run a small
PIC
and IR receiver.
An alternative would be to measure the current to the TV when it drops to standby levels then turn off the power!
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