Linear PSUs Banned in the USA?

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thermionic

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2004
Messages
1,671
Hi,

I've just come off the phone with a US dealer. He tells me there's a new 'power supply efficiency' law coming in, banning most wall-warts and banning any PSU with an efficiency rating below a certain percentage. Can anyone give me a link on this?

From what I understand, the legislation doesn't give a hoot about the other circuitry's efficiency, so you can still have a dirty great class A amp, but its PSU has to be over a certain efficiency...

Please tell me about this. Are all wall-warts banned? The reason I was told WWs were banned was because they don't have an ON / OFF switch.

Justin
 
Currently the closest thing to actual regulations is the voluntary "Energy Star" program, which vendors treat as though it were mandatory.

California does have regulations regarding efficiency that were adopted as mandatory in 2006 for vendors to sell in that state...(here)

I was a project manager for a construction project a year ago in Arizona and when I went to try and implement energy efficiency/and utility reclamation standards I was told by the State that my project would be the first in certain area's (water reclamation which is weird considering that the majority of Az is desert), when I went to find the standards they were really under-developed as far as energy compliance (LEEDS being an exception, but not mandatory anywhere at this point).

What IS happening is that as California makes mandatory efficiency standards other states will follow, and the real effect is that vendors are moving away from linear since the newer switching psu's meet the standards, it is a economic move more than a regulatory move.
 
Yes they were definitely moving to ban inefficient wall warts.  I didn't know that it had come to pass already though.

This doesn't mean that they are mandating a switcher-only move but I don't see linear supplies gaining enough efficiency to meet the specs that I had seen years ago.

I haven't kept up with it though.

Times change and lobbyists can move mountains in the government.
 
*If* what my associate said is true, I find it rather surprising that a piece of legislation that potentially has such a drastic effect on the audio industry has only attracted 2 posts in this thread... Can anyone give me concrete information? The US dealer who told me this was discussing it in relation to a product that's in a steel case with an IEC connector, not a wall wart - he just happened to mention them.


Justin
 
Stephen - if you want to talk about wars, even ones that our own UK govt. has decided to take part in alongside the US, please start another thread. I'd like to get to the bottom of this PSU debacle if you don't mind. Thank you.


Justin
 
Well Justin I agree with you *if there is serious legislation regarding these standards it would have a huge impact not just here but in a lot of places, but in my research there isn't much on the horizon, doesn't mean it isn't coming or here already though...the new administration has a huge hard-on for anyway to tax "non-green" energy...this might be the place we will see it first...after that there will be "grandfather" taxes for running equipment that is not compliant and a different set of energy rates for folks like us...

If true it is huge.
 
thermionic said:
*If* what my associate said is true, I find it rather surprising that a piece of legislation that potentially has such a drastic effect on the audio industry has only attracted 2 posts in this thread... Can anyone give me concrete information? The US dealer who told me this was discussing it in relation to a product that's in a steel case with an IEC connector, not a wall wart - he just happened to mention them.


Justin

I ranted about this in here I believe some time ago, when it was going to take effect in Kalifornia, and occasionally since then.  I had noted when it was proposed and who had lobbied for it, e.g. companies like Power Integrations, who manufacture ICs for small switchers.

Doing away with simple double-bobbin transformers is really stupid.  To achieve the same noise and isolation with switchers is MUCH more difficult and expensive.  Shielding, fancy common-mode chokes, etc. are required.  And you can bet your supposed off-the-shelf replacements will have none of those, and your installations will suffer severely. :mad:
 
In developed countries, it's called lobbying.
In third-world countries, it's called bribing.

The only difference is in the amount of money involved.

Bribing is done discreetly while lobbying is done openly and unashamedly.

In a way, bribing is better. It only benefits one company.

With lobbying, still only one company or one organization benefits, but the changes it brings are permanent and becomes the law.

I don't know what this administration is thinking. Everything is freaking changing for the worst.
 
Don't you just love it when the politicians help us... with technical stuff...

The scary thing is we seem to be following Kalifornia into the abyss.

This seems a minor distraction compared to some of the other tectonic movements.

but to keep this on topic i've already seen switching lumps in musicians friend catalog.

JR
 

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