Keeping appliances unplugged

[kwired]

I've read that it's not good for the engine to idle when cold. The basis for this was that the oil pump is crankshaft driven and at low revs it doesn't pump the oil round as well as it would at normal operating speeds, particularly when the oil is cold.

Most modern diesel engines automatically boost the idle speed when cold for this reason. Mine does. Can't say that for gasoline engines, but they also don't use same oil as a diesel engine.

 

[gar]

120102-0918 EST

Besoeker:

In this country many diesel trucks idle all the time during non-driving parts of a trip, sleeping and eating. On gasoline vehicles the use of oils like Mobil 1, and Motor-Kote I believe greatly reduce the problem of loss of oil film.

Late spring in 1951 early in the morning, probably around sunrise, we arrived in the Firth of Forth at Edinburgh with a heavy fog over the river. This was after spending many days in a very rough North Atlantic storm, 80 ft waves and +/- 26 deg rolls. As we came up the river only Edinburgh Castle was visible and it appeared to be floating in the clouds. We anchored somewhat north of the Castle in easy sight of the bridge.

There was an old bridge made of riveted steel plates over the river. Is that bridge still there?

Continuing on my stadium lighting energy cost. From this site http://www.gelightingsolutions.com/...ge-ingenuity-scores-at-dallas-cowboys-stadium it looks like about 12 W per person is required to light the football field. Assume 5 hours on time and that is 60 watt-hours per person. At $0.10 / kWh the cost per person is about $0.006 . Totally insignificant.

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[Besoeker]

Most modern diesel engines automatically boost the idle speed when cold for this reason. Mine does.

Well, I also run a Diesel. And it is fairly modern - just approaching four years - and I can't say I've noticed that it idles at a different speed but I'll check it tomorrow morning. It's forecast to be quite with temperatures in the low single digits or maybe zero. It is winter so, to be expected, I suppose.

 

[tom2050]

Electrical equipments use lot of power

Electrical equipments use lot of power

The reason is even if you are not using any appliances, even in standby mode the electrical circuit consumes some power, specially the electronics circuit and good example is microwave oven, the as the electrical terminals are live and provide current to the circuit it consumes power.

 

[kwired]

Well, I also run a Diesel. And it is fairly modern - just approaching four years - and I can't say I've noticed that it idles at a different speed but I'll check it tomorrow morning. It's forecast to be quite with temperatures in the low single digits or maybe zero. It is winter so, to be expected, I suppose.

Mine is a 2004 Dodge Ram. It is very noticeable. It will idle at the usual 5 - 700 RPM (not really sure but close to that) for only a minute or so then if it is cold will step up to maybe about 1200 RPM. Will stay there until it is warm enough to back off itself or as soon as you touch the brake pedal it will slow back down.

I'm pretty sure it is not ambient temperature but an internal temperature that is being monitored.

 

[iwire]

Well, I also run a Diesel. And it is fairly modern - just approaching four years - and I can't say I've noticed that it idles at a different speed but I'll check it tomorrow morning. It's forecast to be quite with temperatures in the low single digits or maybe zero. It is winter so, to be expected, I suppose.

My work truck is a diesel van and yes it will go to a high idle at low temps.

I start it, it runs normal for a minute or two and then will go to high idle until warmed up.

My wife's gas truck I just bought a remote starter for as I would rather it warms up the oil before she starts flooring it. She is perpetually running late so she would start it and immediately start driving before the oil pressure was up to normal.

 

[Besoeker]

120102-0918 EST

Late spring in 1951 early in the morning, probably around sunrise, we arrived in the Firth of Forth at Edinburgh with a heavy fog over the river. This was after spending many days in a very rough North Atlantic storm, 80 ft waves and +/- 26 deg rolls. As we came up the river only Edinburgh Castle was visible and it appeared to be floating in the clouds. We anchored somewhat north of the Castle in easy sight of the bridge.

I'm a little surprised that, from the Atlantic, you put to port on the Firth of Forth. Wrong side of the country for the Atlantic. Did you go round the north of Scotland and down the North Sea or round the south of England and up the English Channel? I've heard that the northern route can be pretty rough. I've been up that way a few times but not at sea and I can personally attest to the extreme weather.

There was an old bridge made of riveted steel plates over the river. Is that bridge still there?

I guess you mean the railway bridge. Cantilever construction? Yes, that's still there. Large as life and twice as ugly. There is now a road bridge too. A very much more elegant suspension bridge, similar to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Continuing on my stadium lighting energy cost. From this site http://www.gelightingsolutions.com/...ge-ingenuity-scores-at-dallas-cowboys-stadium it looks like about 12 W per person is required to light the football field. Assume 5 hours on time and that is 60 watt-hours per person. At $0.10 / kWh the cost per person is about $0.006 . Totally insignificant.

I did a similar exercise for the Singapore motor racing circuit. There is a night time F1 race there once a year. Super bright lighting. A waste some people said. Well maybe. But the event takes place over three days. Friday practice, Saturday qualifying, and the race on Sunday. Three days once a year and then only for the duration of the event. It amounts to 0.000067% of the country total consumption. For staging a world class event. In return, there's all the revenue that it generates.

Yes, common sense as you already mentioned. Numbers tell the story. But not everyone is in the same field as those of us on this forum and don't have the knowledge to do the calculations.
But, all too often, it's a knee jerk reaction.

 

[gar]

120102-1155 EST

Besoeker:

I went on board a week after the cocoons had been removed. We put the ship back in operational shape. 200,000 horsepower, 1,000,000 gallons or more of heavy oil, 900 rounds of 16" one ton shells, etc. I had to teach myself the theory of operation of the fire control and surface radar from the instruction manuals.

Before going to Korea we had a main battery fire control radar problem. I concluded it must be an antenna problem. This antenna was on top of the conning tower just above the bridge. So I made up a makeshift test system consisting of a short wire for an antenna, a crystal diode, and an oscilloscope. Also a little bit of low pass filtering. I setup the test equipment on top of the second 16" gun mount essentially in front of the radar antenna. This antenna had four sections, and the RF power was sequentially applied to one of the four sections by means a 60 hZ driven motor and a spark gap switch. The problem was failure to connect to one segment of the antenna array. Dis-assembled the switch and found salt water inside.

It was fun to watch the blip on the 5" gun fire control radar track a 16" shell on its path to a target. Also could see the 16" shell in the 5" gun optical range finder.

After the ship was ready we took it on sea trials, and then to Gitmo. Came back and got ready for the trip to Scotland, Portugal, and Gitmo again. Edinburgh, Lisbon, and Gitmo were the intended ports.

I believe we were originally going to Edinburgh by the north route, but we were driven way south by the storm, and therefore most likely came up the English Channel.

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[weressl]

Since I pay the bill, i don't see any issue.

Yeah, don't you want to save our Planet from extinction? Like the Roman Empire's demise attributed - by some - to the use of led pies for water distribution couple of millennium form now some ETs will visit our Planet and discover that humanity became extint because we didn't turn our idle appliances off.....:lol:

Get with the program or soon we'll have to send you to energy-consciousness re-education camp

 

[weressl]

Counterpoint: You are correct that only $10 savings per year might be a waste of time. I was using your numbers, and probably shouldn't have as most articles report much higher numbers. Before you make your mind up to leave everything plugged in and never try to save any money, read some of the articles by several different sources. I have yet to see an article that has your viewpoint, that saving is a waste of time. Some articles report that 15% could be saved by "unplugging", whether by actually unplugging or power strips. Yes, I could believe that these figures come from houses full of kids with electronic "stuff" plugged in every outlet. At 15%, I could save around $540 per year. For the record, I don't unplug. That doesn't mean I don't believe it will save, it just means I'm too lazy, or it is a waste of time.

15% is missing some decimal points, like 0.15%. The current guidelines are 1W and 0.5W for currently produced appliances. Don't ask though how much it costs or how much energy and resources it takes to actually accomplish those numbers. Show me a series, independently conducted, peer verified study that confirms the 15% and I am willing to listen.

 

[weressl]

Mine is a 2004 Dodge Ram. It is very noticeable. It will idle at the usual 5 - 700 RPM (not really sure but close to that) for only a minute or so then if it is cold will step up to maybe about 1200 RPM. Will stay there until it is warm enough to back off itself or as soon as you touch the brake pedal it will slow back down.

I'm pretty sure it is not ambient temperature but an internal temperature that is being monitored.

The car engines - presume that is what Besoker talking about - are a much smaller mass and I would expect those warm up thoroughly quicker than the truck engines you're talking about in the States. Perhaps that's why the difference in design.

 

[K8MHZ]

Mine is a 2004 Dodge Ram. It is very noticeable. It will idle at the usual 5 - 700 RPM (not really sure but close to that) for only a minute or so then if it is cold will step up to maybe about 1200 RPM. Will stay there until it is warm enough to back off itself or as soon as you touch the brake pedal it will slow back down.

I'm pretty sure it is not ambient temperature but an internal temperature that is being monitored.

Actually, it's both.

It used to be just the coolant temp sensor, now the computers are so sophisticated that all sensors are read and a microprocessor controls the engine precisely in order to operate with reduced emissions. CI engines are the least efficient when they are cold and the computers are programmed to warm the engine up as fast as possible without causing damage. When I worked for Chrysler, the amount of time from cold start to full temp had to happen in less than seven minutes. If it didn't, something was wrong.

 

[Besoeker]

The car engines - presume that is what Besoker talking about - are a much smaller mass and I would expect those warm up thoroughly quicker than the truck engines you're talking about in the States.

I don't know. Smaller mass, yes. But then less combustion to heat up that mass.
As it happens, this is the first Diesel I've had and I've noticed it takes far longer to heat up than any petrol car I've had. And that includes the blue car in my avatar which was a 5.4 litre V12. So possibly comparable in mass to a truck engine.

 

[weressl]

I don't know. Smaller mass, yes. But then less combustion to heat up that mass.
As it happens, this is the first Diesel I've had and I've noticed it takes far longer to heat up than any petrol car I've had. And that includes the blue car in my avatar which was a 5.4 litre V12. So possibly comparable in mass to a truck engine.

Diesel combustion/explosion creates much higher pressure therefore the combustion chambers, engine block is much thicker and heavier. The combustion heat, on the other hand, is less than gasoline.

 

[Jacob S]

I have 5 televisions that are plugged in constantly, along with a desktop computer, printer/fax combo, 2 cableboxes, 2 stereos, and various other appliances that have a clock or a timer working. SMPS's aren't the biggest offenders.

I always laugh when I hear the "green" people say you should turn off your cables boxes. Cable and sat boxes take so long to reboot that it is completely unrealistic to remove power after each use. The ones I have dealt with can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes each time.

 

[hurk27]

The biggest damage to an engine in the cold is the fact the pistons heat up before the block, taking right off and driving a cold vehicle can score the piston walls and rings, not only has the oil not circulated well enough but the close tolerance between the rings and cylinder walls are very tight when cold, this is the number one reason to allow an engine to at least be above 100? F before you start driving, My van Idles at about 5400rpm when warm, and rises to 900rpm when warm, my oil pressure is about 80psi at this time, and when warm it is about 60psi at idle, its a 4800 LR4 315 HP well built as we had 4 of them go over 200k mile in our fleet with no problems and still going as we are still using them after the company shut down, mine was the last one purchased (other then the 2007 I had that was totaled in an accident) and has 112,000 on it and even the brakes are still in good shape, I run nothing but Caster Oil 10w/30 GTX oil (in the newer vehicles, older I used 20w/50 GTX), and have never lost an engine since I started using it, 25 years ago.

Older carburetor aspirated engines had a step cam on the automatic choke which was temp controlled, that stepped up the idle to allow the engine to warm up, newer injected vehicles now use a idle by-pass control that the computer controls to do the same thing, Diesels are hard to keep heated even once they have warmed up which is why we see many of the big trucks with card board in front of their radiators or controlled louvers, also the same problem of cold starting them applies even more to them because of the high compression ratio which they have even closer tolerances between the pistons and cylinder walls, I seen a few people who bought a new pick up with a diesel and didn't know that it is a must to let them warm up before driving and it wasn't long before they had all kinds of problems with the engine, mainly blowing head gaskets and damaged rings/ cylinder walls, but if you read the operator manual it clearly points out to let them warm up before driving.

 

[kwired]

The biggest damage to an engine in the cold is the fact the pistons heat up before the block, taking right off and driving a cold vehicle can score the piston walls and rings, not only has the oil not circulated well enough but the close tolerance between the rings and cylinder walls are very tight when cold, this is the number one reason to allow an engine to at least be above 100? F before you start driving, My van Idles at about 5400rpm when warm, and rises to 900rpm when warm, my oil pressure is about 80psi at this time, and when warm it is about 60psi at idle, its a 4800 LR4 315 HP well built as we had 4 of them go over 200k mile in our fleet with no problems and still going as we are still using them after the company shut down, mine was the last one purchased (other then the 2007 I had that was totaled in an accident) and has 112,000 on it and even the brakes are still in good shape, I run nothing but Caster Oil 10w/30 GTX oil (in the newer vehicles, older I used 20w/50 GTX), and have never lost an engine since I started using it, 25 years ago.

Older carburetor aspirated engines had a step cam on the automatic choke which was temp controlled, that stepped up the idle to allow the engine to warm up, newer injected vehicles now use a idle by-pass control that the computer controls to do the same thing, Diesels are hard to keep heated even once they have warmed up which is why we see many of the big trucks with card board in front of their radiators or controlled louvers, also the same problem of cold starting them applies even more to them because of the high compression ratio which they have even closer tolerances between the pistons and cylinder walls, I seen a few people who bought a new pick up with a diesel and didn't know that it is a must to let them warm up before driving and it wasn't long before they had all kinds of problems with the engine, mainly blowing head gaskets and damaged rings/ cylinder walls, but if you read the operator manual it clearly points out to let them warm up before driving.

Something need adjusted if it is idling at 5400 RPM.... and rises to 900 when warmed up.

 

[hillbilly1]

Don't know if it's true or not, but I have heard that the exhaust from a diesel can be cooler than the ambient temps surrounding the vehicle.

 

[hurk27]

Something need adjusted if it is idling at 5400 RPM.... and rises to 900 when warmed up.

Whoop's:ashamed:

540rpm, hit too many "0's" LOL

 

[hurk27]

Don't know if it's true or not, but I have heard that the exhaust from a diesel can be cooler than the ambient temps surrounding the vehicle.

Not sure if it would be cooler then ambient temps but yes one of the reasons they run cooler, is unlike gas aspirated combustion engines, they have a wide open intake, no throttle valve that closes off in coming air, the engine speed and power is controlled at the injectors by limiting the amount of fuel the engine receives, (you don't want to hit one with either while running) this constant flow of air allows the engine to run much cooler, and when you add super chargers and or turbo's it can run even cooler.

When I ran drags back in the "70's", running a 671 blower, our cooling system was dri, the air flowing through the engine was enough to keep it cool for one run.