sadly no, most of the power used to run the monitor is used by the deflection circuitry, and those are also the parts that fail. turning down the brightness will slightly help the flyback transformer, at least the hv winding on it but will do little for the other windings used to power the mac and the deflection circuitry for the monitor.
i will be working on a project with an se/30 this winter, that will be on all the time as a sprinkler controller (yes, it's overkill, but it's a nice user interface!) and i plan to have the drive spin down and will also try to add a switch to actually turn off the monitor and it's sync circuits (which aren't part of the power supply on the se and se/30, but are on the plus and earlier machines). i'll just have to make sure that the power supply can handle the load being that low, some power supplies don't like it if you draw too little power. in any case, the monitor part of the compact does use the most power by far, but turning down the brightness has a minimal effect on the power draw. also, while turning down the brightness prevents screen aging, you are still running the filament in the crt and shortening it's life, they have to liberate electrons easily when hot and the coating on them tends to wear out with age. it will age more slowly with the brightness down, but you will still slowly age the filament and slowly reduce it's ability to produce a bright display. that's why old tv sets get more and more dim, because the cathodes (filaments or metal heated by the filament) ages and liberates electrons less and less well. there are "tricks" to partially restore an aged filament, but they aren't trivial and when i've done it i've always been rather nervous about the risk of blowing out the filament (you run it extra hot briefly, which lets the atoms move around and hopefully gets some fresh ones to the surface, and run a real risk of melting the filament in the process). the pickle wrote: > > At 10:33 +1000 on 02/10/02, Jan Wawrzynczak wrote: > > Note > that the CRT draws much of the power on the fanless Compacts; I suspect (though > I haven't done formal testing) that running these 24/7 with the brightness > turned all the way down when not in use will be substantially less detrimental > to the analogue board's components than it would be otherwise, both in terms of > power draw and heat generated. > > Insert standard "don't waste energy if you don't need to" disclaimer here. -------------------------- -- "Promise me, promise me this day, promise me now..." he asked. "Even as they strike you down, you will remember: humanity is not our enemy. The only thing worthy of you is compassion...Hatred will never let you face the beast in human beings. One day, when you face the beast alone, with your courage intact, your eyes kind...out of your smile will bloom a flower. and...on the long, rough road, the sun and the moon will continue to shine." Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk -- Compact Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/>. Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Compact Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/compact.shtml> The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/compact.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
