Someone should really standardize DC power distribution. Each house could have a centralized set of transformers, that provide a variety of voltages to sockets around the house... Would really save on all these stupid tangles of power bricks I have to carry around with my laptop and two external hard disks...
I can handle plumbing and carpentry, but electricity I never got the handle on (odd I suppose for a computer nerd).
I love this idea. But I suppose you would have to have dedicated outlets for DC?
Thats a pain.
However, as everything these days seems to have processors and need DC
--and as these power bricks are not only a PITA
--but also tend to drain trickle charges of electricity that can add up
--so a whole house solution could be awesome.
Anyone out there know enough about electrons to know if it would be possible to set something up like this without the trickle loss of electricity? Or is there something about having a hot AC outlet that is inherently wasteful?
Anyone out there know enough about electrons to know if it would be possible to set something up like this without the trickle loss of electricity? Or is there something about having a hot AC outlet that is inherently wasteful?
If I remember reading somewhere AC is used because it is best for transmitting huge amounts of electricity through towers, etc.
In the home though, wiring up DC outlets kinda makes sense. The problem(?) though is that the power brick doesn't just convert AC to DC but it also transforms the voltage. In otherwords, every power brick will transform AC240V or 110/120V or whatever is standard for *that country* or in the case of Mac laptop power adaptors it will handle 110-240V, into a *particular* DC voltage.
If I am not wrong, it is possible your Mac Mini, AirportExtreme, Modem, Modem/Router, ExtHardDisk all run off different DC voltages. If you had DC sockets in your house, what voltages would you have them at?
I can handle plumbing and carpentry, but electricity I never got the handle on (odd I suppose for a computer nerd).
I love this idea. But I suppose you would have to have dedicated outlets for DC?
Thats a pain.
However, as everything these days seems to have processors and need DC
--and as these power bricks are not only a PITA
--but also tend to drain trickle charges of electricity that can add up
--so a whole house solution could be awesome.
Anyone out there know enough about electrons to know if it would be possible to set something up like this without the trickle loss of electricity? Or is there something about having a hot AC outlet that is inherently wasteful?
There are probably quite a few reasons why no solutions exist.
It's one thing to hardwire a bunch of DC circutry for say 12 volts, or 24v. The problem is every device you own, is going to have different power requirements. If you have 5 different devices they probably run at 5 different voltages, so they're still going to need 5 different transformers/rectifiers.
Another thing is that DC transmission isn't as efficient as AC. As much as powerbricks suck, it's more efficient to have the 3 ft of wire from your powerbrick to your device running DC than 30+ft running though your wall to a transformer in your basement. Also DC typically requires larger guage wire to carry the equalvelent Amperage/Voltage Combination of AC.
It's a tradeoff, lets say someone made a magic transformer box that say had 24 circuits that came out the back, and you could dial in a voltage and amperage per circuit. Now you're adding to the complexity and expense of the wiring in your house. Now you'll have to get some standardized plug to use with it. What happens if you accidently plug in your cellpohne, into your Mac Mini Socket? Your cellphone is probably toast, or at least the battery is.
I think it probably comes down to KISS, Powerbricks suck, but they're pretty easy to use, and hard to screw up.
It could be possible to come up with a solution for this, but when it's all said and done It's not necessarily going to be better, just different and more expensive.
Also, I am by no means an electrican, or electrical engineer, I just hang out with a bunch of wind power nerds.
I just checked, my MacBook says 100-240V AC in, output 16.5V (DC). The cordless phone takes 240V AC and outputs 9V (DC). Now either my dslmodem/router or the wireless transmitter (I wasn't going to pull the plug to find out which and the wires are all jammed in the back) ... that outputs AC.. at a much lower voltage.
Your phone line = voice + DSL. Lightning strikes phone line (if phone lines are overhead not underground) = power surge going down phone line = fried cordless phones, fried DSL modem. If you live in a country that has thunderstorms, you'll know.....
Phone lines will be grounded out at the box before they fry the internal home circuitry. If you've got ADSL in the states and your outside box hasn't been added to include phone, cable and satellite grounding then contact your tech to do it.
The odds of frying the phone line via lightning is extremely remote. I live in an area with yearly lightning storms and haven't lost a phone yet in over 3 decades.
One can surmise they didn't want to release 2 different models to satisfy either market segment. They are interested in being the next level of the infrastructure.
Phone lines will be grounded out at the box before they fry the internal home circuitry. If you've got ADSL in the states and your outside box hasn't been added to include phone, cable and satellite grounding then contact your tech to do it.
The odds of frying the phone line via lightning is extremely remote. I live in an area with yearly lightning storms and haven't lost a phone yet in over 3 decades.
My parents house in Malaysia, the outside phone box is rather, well, just tragic. the box isn't even closed, the lid is like hanging off it and the pole it sits on is near collapsing. The phone and DSL company (TM and TMNet) refuses to do anything about it.
As you can see, the 802.11n protocol reached about half the speeds of a wired 10/100BASE-T network and a little less than 1/3 the speed of a Gigabit connection. For a wireless protocol, that's pretty impressive! Unless you're doing heavy A/V work and need to move gigabyte files across your network on a regular basis, this 802.11n protocol may be sufficient for most networking needs.
Is it just me, or are those numbers rather disappointing?
C.
Well, I'm still working off the original Airport with my Ti Book so I have no frame of reference for speedy wireless, but the review didn't seem too concerned...
Quote:
you can see, the 802.11n protocol reached about half the speeds of a wired 10/100BASE-T network and a little less than 1/3 the speed of a Gigabit connection. For a wireless protocol, that's pretty impressive!
and even more glowing:
Quote:
One thing I found particularly impressive was the fact that my overall Internet speeds increased two-fold after installing the AirPort Extreme. Previously, I was getting an average of 2,400kbps with my 6mbps Comcast connection (using Motorola's SB5120 modem and speakeasy.net's speed test).
After I hooked up the AirPort Extreme base station and configured it for encrypted 802.11n running at 5GHz, my average speed tests ranked closer to 5,900kbps down and 350kbps up! That's awesome! Even directly connected to the cable modem, speeds never jump over 6,100kbps, so to have 6mbps wireless is a real treat. On a day-to-day basis, this will be much appreciated and nearly justifies the $179 price tag of the AirPort Extreme.
The only compliant I saw in the review in terms of speed was the AirDisk feature...
The problem(?) though is that the power brick doesn't just convert AC to DC but it also transforms the voltage. In otherwords, every power brick will transform AC240V or 110/120V or whatever is standard for *that country* or in the case of Mac laptop power adaptors it will handle 110-240V, into a *particular* DC voltage.
If I am not wrong, it is possible your Mac Mini, AirportExtreme, Modem, Modem/Router, ExtHardDisk all run off different DC voltages. If you had DC sockets in your house, what voltages would you have them at?
Bear with me here as I have already admitted my shaky understanding of electrons...
Don't devices like a laptop vary the voltages for the different components already? don't the screen, the HDD, the airport card and so on have different power requirements? My assumption is that converting voltages is something that devices could do on their own with simple (i.e. no power-brick) solutions.
Of course, I may be missing something obvious like volts versus amperage which I don't get so well... {Sorry Mr Kuper/HS Physics}
Then there is the problem of inefficiency. I don't know how bad the inefficiency problems for whole house wiring are and that could be significant. I don't like power-bricks and I believe that nearly every appliance beyond the light-bulb is likely to need DC for processors in the future, but I don't want a solution that wastes MORE electricity...
Bear with me here as I have already admitted my shaky understanding of electrons...
Heck, I ain't so good either :-0
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bageljoey
Don't devices like a laptop vary the voltages for the different components already? don't the screen, the HDD, the airport card and so on have different power requirements? My assumption is that converting voltages is something that devices could do on their own with simple (i.e. no power-brick) solutions.
Yes there are separate "rails" for example in desktop computers with different voltages. For the laptop power-brick though, that does a big job of taking 100 to 240 Volts down to just 16.5 Volts for my MacBook power adaptor... That's quite a bit of a job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bageljoey
Then there is the problem of inefficiency. I don't know how bad the inefficiency problems for whole house wiring are and that could be significant. I don't like power-bricks and I believe that nearly every appliance beyond the light-bulb is likely to need DC for processors in the future, but I don't want a solution that wastes MORE electricity...
Here's a good site about why AC is used widely [Because easy to transform via electromagnetic coils], and why AC is transmitted at high Voltages [Because more efficient overall]....
Hmmm maybe I will replace my old d-link with the new airport after all.
You may want to keep it ...Unless assuming you are having your home network to run in 802.11n-only-@5ghz. Running 802.11n/b/[email protected] or [email protected] seems to only give G-level speeds.
2.4ghz is the bogeyman here. Naughty spectrum. Teh messy. 802.11b/g latest devices with MIMO can handle it quite well, for say 10-30Mbit/sec throughput. 802.11n/b/g playing in this space pushes 10-30+Mbit/sec throughput. But the true trick of 802.11n is running at 5ghz where it can do channel bonding and be out of the way of all those 2.4ghz wifi networks flooding the airspace... 802.11n-only@5ghz seems to be able to break the 50Mbit/sec "throughput barrier".
The ideal solution is instead of running [email protected]/b/[email protected], is to run [email protected]@5ghz. 802.11n-clients connect to this and this only. All 802.11g (or heaven forbid devices connect to an older or your existing 802.11b/g router. The magic part is bridging of some sort via ethernet so that the [email protected]@5ghz network is seamlessly the same network as the 802.11b/g older crappier one.
Actually this works out well if you have an existing DSLmodem/router/wired/wireless Device (Let's call it OldDevice). As shown in Apple Manual:
DSL/Cable WAN is handled by OldDevice. OldDevice also feeds wired ethernet to one or to old computers. OldDevice serves up 802.11b/g to the non-N-enabled computers. For teh sexay new 802.11n@5ghz clients, they connect to the AirportExtreme at high speeds which then communicates with OldDevice (and hence Internet and other 802.11b/g wireless and wired computers) up to 100mbit/sec...
Once you set up the AirportExtreme to 802.11n-only@5ghz wireless, then under Internet Access you bridge it to the OldDevice (dsl/cable/wirelessRoutercombo) as shown here:
Comments
Someone should really standardize DC power distribution. Each house could have a centralized set of transformers, that provide a variety of voltages to sockets around the house... Would really save on all these stupid tangles of power bricks I have to carry around with my laptop and two external hard disks...
I can handle plumbing and carpentry, but electricity I never got the handle on (odd I suppose for a computer nerd).
I love this idea. But I suppose you would have to have dedicated outlets for DC?
Thats a pain.
However, as everything these days seems to have processors and need DC
--and as these power bricks are not only a PITA
--but also tend to drain trickle charges of electricity that can add up
--so a whole house solution could be awesome.
Anyone out there know enough about electrons to know if it would be possible to set something up like this without the trickle loss of electricity? Or is there something about having a hot AC outlet that is inherently wasteful?
Anyone out there know enough about electrons to know if it would be possible to set something up like this without the trickle loss of electricity? Or is there something about having a hot AC outlet that is inherently wasteful?
If I remember reading somewhere AC is used because it is best for transmitting huge amounts of electricity through towers, etc.
In the home though, wiring up DC outlets kinda makes sense. The problem(?) though is that the power brick doesn't just convert AC to DC but it also transforms the voltage. In otherwords, every power brick will transform AC240V or 110/120V or whatever is standard for *that country* or in the case of Mac laptop power adaptors it will handle 110-240V, into a *particular* DC voltage.
If I am not wrong, it is possible your Mac Mini, AirportExtreme, Modem, Modem/Router, ExtHardDisk all run off different DC voltages. If you had DC sockets in your house, what voltages would you have them at?
I can handle plumbing and carpentry, but electricity I never got the handle on (odd I suppose for a computer nerd).
I love this idea. But I suppose you would have to have dedicated outlets for DC?
Thats a pain.
However, as everything these days seems to have processors and need DC
--and as these power bricks are not only a PITA
--but also tend to drain trickle charges of electricity that can add up
--so a whole house solution could be awesome.
Anyone out there know enough about electrons to know if it would be possible to set something up like this without the trickle loss of electricity? Or is there something about having a hot AC outlet that is inherently wasteful?
There are probably quite a few reasons why no solutions exist.
It's one thing to hardwire a bunch of DC circutry for say 12 volts, or 24v. The problem is every device you own, is going to have different power requirements. If you have 5 different devices they probably run at 5 different voltages, so they're still going to need 5 different transformers/rectifiers.
Another thing is that DC transmission isn't as efficient as AC. As much as powerbricks suck, it's more efficient to have the 3 ft of wire from your powerbrick to your device running DC than 30+ft running though your wall to a transformer in your basement. Also DC typically requires larger guage wire to carry the equalvelent Amperage/Voltage Combination of AC.
It's a tradeoff, lets say someone made a magic transformer box that say had 24 circuits that came out the back, and you could dial in a voltage and amperage per circuit. Now you're adding to the complexity and expense of the wiring in your house. Now you'll have to get some standardized plug to use with it. What happens if you accidently plug in your cellpohne, into your Mac Mini Socket? Your cellphone is probably toast, or at least the battery is.
I think it probably comes down to KISS, Powerbricks suck, but they're pretty easy to use, and hard to screw up.
It could be possible to come up with a solution for this, but when it's all said and done It's not necessarily going to be better, just different and more expensive.
Also, I am by no means an electrican, or electrical engineer, I just hang out with a bunch of wind power nerds.
Your phone line = voice + DSL. Lightning strikes phone line (if phone lines are overhead not underground) = power surge going down phone line = fried cordless phones, fried DSL modem. If you live in a country that has thunderstorms, you'll know.....
Phone lines will be grounded out at the box before they fry the internal home circuitry. If you've got ADSL in the states and your outside box hasn't been added to include phone, cable and satellite grounding then contact your tech to do it.
The odds of frying the phone line via lightning is extremely remote. I live in an area with yearly lightning storms and haven't lost a phone yet in over 3 decades.
just wish it had an ADSL modem built in
I second that with my first post too!
It just doesnt make sense to have a nice looking router and an ugly adsl modem sitting there, more wires too!
Phone lines will be grounded out at the box before they fry the internal home circuitry. If you've got ADSL in the states and your outside box hasn't been added to include phone, cable and satellite grounding then contact your tech to do it.
The odds of frying the phone line via lightning is extremely remote. I live in an area with yearly lightning storms and haven't lost a phone yet in over 3 decades.
My parents house in Malaysia, the outside phone box is rather, well, just tragic. the box isn't even closed, the lid is like hanging off it and the pole it sits on is near collapsing. The phone and DSL company (TM and TMNet) refuses to do anything about it.
http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/review4331.html
Is it just me, or are those numbers rather disappointing?
C.
1. 2.4GHz unencrypted 802.11g/n Avg. 1.7MB/s
2. 2.4GHz encrypted 802.11g/n Avg. 3.4MB/s
3. 2.4GHz unencrypted 802.11n Avg. 2.3MB/s
4. 2.4GHz encrypted 802.11n Avg. 20KB/s (yes, 20KB/s)
5. 5GHz unencrypted 802.11n Avg. 6.2MB/s
6. 5GHz encrypted 802.11n Avg. 6.1MB/s
7. Wired-only via AirPort Extreme Avg. 11MB/s
8. Wired-only with Gigabit LAN Avg. 20MB/s
Let's break it down. Convert to Megabit/sec (x8)
1. 13.6 Mbit/sec
2. 27.2 Mbit/sec
3. 18.4 Mbit/sec
4. 0.16 Mbit/sec
5. 49.6 Mbit/sec
6. 48.8 Mbit/sec
7. 88.0 Mbit/sec
8. 160 Mbit/sec
.......Um, gotta run, so... Thanks for the numbers and the review link.
Told y'all so about the 100mbit/sec ethernet outs on the AirportExtreme.
Told ya so... muah haah aah h ha
Great to hear the range is fantastic but the no. 5 and 6 above should be closer to 100Mbit/sec.
As you can see, the 802.11n protocol reached about half the speeds of a wired 10/100BASE-T network and a little less than 1/3 the speed of a Gigabit connection. For a wireless protocol, that's pretty impressive! Unless you're doing heavy A/V work and need to move gigabyte files across your network on a regular basis, this 802.11n protocol may be sufficient for most networking needs.
Here's a review of the Airport Extreme....
http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/review4331.html
Is it just me, or are those numbers rather disappointing?
C.
Well, I'm still working off the original Airport with my Ti Book so I have no frame of reference for speedy wireless, but the review didn't seem too concerned...
you can see, the 802.11n protocol reached about half the speeds of a wired 10/100BASE-T network and a little less than 1/3 the speed of a Gigabit connection. For a wireless protocol, that's pretty impressive!
and even more glowing:
One thing I found particularly impressive was the fact that my overall Internet speeds increased two-fold after installing the AirPort Extreme. Previously, I was getting an average of 2,400kbps with my 6mbps Comcast connection (using Motorola's SB5120 modem and speakeasy.net's speed test).
After I hooked up the AirPort Extreme base station and configured it for encrypted 802.11n running at 5GHz, my average speed tests ranked closer to 5,900kbps down and 350kbps up! That's awesome! Even directly connected to the cable modem, speeds never jump over 6,100kbps, so to have 6mbps wireless is a real treat. On a day-to-day basis, this will be much appreciated and nearly justifies the $179 price tag of the AirPort Extreme.
The only compliant I saw in the review in terms of speed was the AirDisk feature...
The problem(?) though is that the power brick doesn't just convert AC to DC but it also transforms the voltage. In otherwords, every power brick will transform AC240V or 110/120V or whatever is standard for *that country* or in the case of Mac laptop power adaptors it will handle 110-240V, into a *particular* DC voltage.
If I am not wrong, it is possible your Mac Mini, AirportExtreme, Modem, Modem/Router, ExtHardDisk all run off different DC voltages. If you had DC sockets in your house, what voltages would you have them at?
Bear with me here as I have already admitted my shaky understanding of electrons...
Don't devices like a laptop vary the voltages for the different components already? don't the screen, the HDD, the airport card and so on have different power requirements? My assumption is that converting voltages is something that devices could do on their own with simple (i.e. no power-brick) solutions.
Of course, I may be missing something obvious like volts versus amperage which I don't get so well... {Sorry Mr Kuper/HS Physics}
Then there is the problem of inefficiency. I don't know how bad the inefficiency problems for whole house wiring are and that could be significant. I don't like power-bricks and I believe that nearly every appliance beyond the light-bulb is likely to need DC for processors in the future, but I don't want a solution that wastes MORE electricity...
But you *can* convert AC voltages. (using inductance)
And then you can turn AC into DC (using a rectifier)
It's all very clever.
C.
Bear with me here as I have already admitted my shaky understanding of electrons...
Heck, I ain't so good either :-0
Don't devices like a laptop vary the voltages for the different components already? don't the screen, the HDD, the airport card and so on have different power requirements? My assumption is that converting voltages is something that devices could do on their own with simple (i.e. no power-brick) solutions.
Yes there are separate "rails" for example in desktop computers with different voltages. For the laptop power-brick though, that does a big job of taking 100 to 240 Volts down to just 16.5 Volts for my MacBook power adaptor... That's quite a bit of a job.
Then there is the problem of inefficiency. I don't know how bad the inefficiency problems for whole house wiring are and that could be significant. I don't like power-bricks and I believe that nearly every appliance beyond the light-bulb is likely to need DC for processors in the future, but I don't want a solution that wastes MORE electricity...
Here's a good site about why AC is used widely [Because easy to transform via electromagnetic coils], and why AC is transmitted at high Voltages [Because more efficient overall]....
http://www.school-for-champions.com/...ansformers.htm
................ Next:
The AC to DC is done by something called a "rectifier"
*random web snippet*
A rectifier is an electric check valve. A check valve is a pneumatic or
hydraulic device allowing only one-way flow. One-way flow is the key.
An early vacuum tube rectifier was called a Fleming Valve. Electrons
would flow from a cathode to an anode but not the other way because the
cathode was heated and the anode was not. Vacuum tubes are still called
valves in the United Kingdom.
Today's rectifiers are almost all solid-state based on the PN junction. A
PN junction is made of a single crystal (usually silicon) with impurities
called "dopants" that change the nature of charge flow in the dopant
area. If you put a voltage across a cube of pure silicon, half the
current will flow in the form of electrons free of atoms, and half will
flow in the form of holes (places where the crystal "thinks" an electron
should be). The holes are effectively positive charges. So, if you dose
one half the cube with "donor" dopant, 99.9% percent of charge flow
becomes electrons, and the material is now called "N." The other half can
be dosed with "acceptor" dopant, and 99.9% of charge flow becomes holes
and the material is called "P." The border is called a PN junction.
A PN junction rectifies because only voltage polarity that pushes holes
and electrons toward the junction causes current flow. The holes and
electrons "recombine" at the junction. The opposite polarity pulling
holes and electrons away from the junction, prevents current flow because
when the holes come to the attached wire they cannot go further. Metal
does not allow "hole flow."
PN junction is hard to visualise without some sort of diagram, of which there are a lot out there...
Most modern rectifiers today may make use of both alternate states of the AC current to create DC current.
Okay, my mind is clogged now, this is the little bits I know... Now need to flush brain cache to focus on other stuff.
Fascinating, no?
You can't convert one DC voltage into another.
But you *can* convert AC voltages. (using inductance)
And then you can turn AC into DC (using a rectifier)
It's all very clever.
C.
Yeah, what he said ^^^^
Hmmm maybe I will replace my old d-link with the new airport after all.
You may want to keep it
2.4ghz is the bogeyman here. Naughty spectrum. Teh messy. 802.11b/g latest devices with MIMO can handle it quite well, for say 10-30Mbit/sec throughput. 802.11n/b/g playing in this space pushes 10-30+Mbit/sec throughput. But the true trick of 802.11n is running at 5ghz where it can do channel bonding and be out of the way of all those 2.4ghz wifi networks flooding the airspace... 802.11n-only@5ghz seems to be able to break the 50Mbit/sec "throughput barrier".
The ideal solution is instead of running [email protected]/b/[email protected], is to run [email protected]@5ghz. 802.11n-clients connect to this and this only. All 802.11g (or heaven forbid
Actually this works out well if you have an existing DSLmodem/router/wired/wireless Device (Let's call it OldDevice). As shown in Apple Manual:
DSL/Cable WAN is handled by OldDevice. OldDevice also feeds wired ethernet to one or to old computers. OldDevice serves up 802.11b/g to the non-N-enabled computers. For teh sexay new 802.11n@5ghz clients, they connect to the AirportExtreme at high speeds which then communicates with OldDevice (and hence Internet and other 802.11b/g wireless and wired computers) up to 100mbit/sec...
...................................
Here's a review of the Airport Extreme....
http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/review4331.html
Is it just me, or are those numbers rather disappointing?
C.
Hard to say. It would be easier to tell if tested in the same environment as other draft-n routers.
But yes, seemed a tad slower than the majority of numbers posted. Now that its out I'm sure it'll get reviewed in more places.
Vinea