Re: PAL vs. NTSC (drifing way - WAY off topic...)


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Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, July 12, 2001 at 7:01PM :

In Reply to: Re: PAL vs. NTSC (drifing way - WAY off topic...) posted by Lonnie on Thursday, July 12, 2001 at 6:23PM :

Voltage isn't frequency (the PAL/NTSC topic), though I don't expect the politicians know the difference. Lowering the voltage would reduce power consumption by ordinary light bulbs, but that's about it. Heating and cooling loads will have to transfer the same amount of heat regardless of line voltage so they'll just run longer. Electronic equipment like computers have internal voltage regulators and act like "constant-power" loads (too much of which makes the grid unstable, but that's another topic) so they'll draw MORE current as the voltage drops. Motors may save a little power if they were lightly-loaded to begin with, or they may stall and/or overheat if they were marginal. All that said, line voltage generally IS too high in urban areas. Used to be 117 volts was standard. Most times I check, it's over 125 these days and often pushes 130. Since light bulb life decreases as about the 4th power of line voltage a 10% increase in voltage causes a 46% decrease in bulb life.



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