On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 09:24:44 +0100 Ralf Mardorf via freebsd-chat wrote: > Hi, > > does anybody know about papers related to the sustainability of > switching power supplies? > > In my very limited experiences they are seemingly less sustainable > than old school power supplies. > > I'm curious, if any paper does exist related to energy efficiency of > usage of a power supply, but also taking into account how much energy > is needed to repair or replace those switching thingies and classic > stone age power supplies.
In theory the difference in losses can be huge. You can see this more starkly with audio power amplification. Linear amplifiers typically have big transistors bolted to big heatsinks. Switched amplifiers may just use a small plastic chip with no heatsink at all. In practice the typical switched computer supply is not hugely efficient, but it there's a significant advantage that it's easy to build them with a near perfect power-factor. This doesn't much matter in the home, but commercial electricity customers pay extra for a poor power-factor because it would create higher losses in the the supply network if not compensated. I think that meeting power-factor regulations was the main reason for the switch. > My experiences with modern computer power supplies aren't bad, but > my impression about switching power supplies in almost everything and > the sustainability of this approach ... voltage undersized caps etc. > isn't good. Generally things are getting less over-engineered than they used to be. One problem with linear supplies is that they tend to have much larger smoothing capacitors and so contain more corrosive liquid to drip onto a more expensive circuit board. _______________________________________________ freebsd-chat@freebsd.org mailing list https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-chat To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-chat-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
