[mythtvnz] FrontEnds Controlling Audio Mains Power

[Steve Hodge]

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 12:14 PM, Tortise <tortise at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

> Well maybe... with some (considerable legal fine print) limitations:
>
* the sense threshold appears fixed at 30W
> * its not compatible with some plasma screens and laser printers
>

These are the same issue: you can't use a device that draws more than 30W in
standby mode as the master. But you'd have to use your Myth system as the
master anyway as you can't have it just losing power as a slave, it needs to
be shut down cleanly (I guess you could set it up as a slave if you used a
UPS to shut it down cleanly). My desktop machine uses about 10W when off. I
can't imagine a PC using more than 30W


> * does not have the software control possibility that I presume the kit
> does.  (See the circuit diagram)
>

You can switch the PC off via software so with that as the master you've got
some control. With USB sensing kits you'd have to be able to switch off USB
power from a particular hub to get more control. I'm not sure if that can be
done or not. You'd be better off with some x10-type gear if that's the
requirement I suspect.


> * it is limited to 500W on the sensing circuit
>

Unless you're using a high end gaming rig for Myth (in which case: why?),
this is not a problem. My desktop draws 150W max (measured) with an Athlon
64 3500+, 7600GT and 4 drives. If you went really high end on the CPU and
something like a GT 240 (combined fe/be with vdpau for display and lots of
CPU for transcoding) it'd draw about an extra 80-100W. 500W is really high
for a PC - I think you'd need an SLI setup to get there.

So I'm not convinced any of these limitations are relevant to a Myth system.

Cheers,
Steve
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