POFFHOTMAIL.COM Posted November 28, 2000 Share Posted November 28, 2000 Can anyone fill me in on the advantages/disadvantages of leaving a dedicated system (Yamaha AW4416 or Roland 1680) powered up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 28, 2000 Share Posted November 28, 2000 I am not sure of any advatages to leaving one of those on all the time... is that what you mean? I don't know if the 1680 has a fan or not. I know the 880 does not. I run two 880's, and I wouldn't leave them on for fear of frying something...electricity is a fickle mistress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 The issue of whether to leave something powered up or not is controversial. Here's my take. There's no real good answer, because there are tradeoffs. For example, when you turn on a computer from a cold start, it definitely stresses out the semiconductors. But the life of a hard drive is specified in total number of revolutions. So if you leave your computer on all the time, your chips will be happier, but your hard drive will be aging. It's like cars: the most damage to an engine occurs during the first ten minutes of driving the car. But continuing to drive ages the engine too. With something like a stand-alone recorder, I'd say to leave it on if you're going away for no more than 2 hours. You don't want to be constantly turning it on and off. But when you end a session, turn it off. Heat is an issue, especially in small boxes. Also, there are environmental considerations. There's no point in sucking energy if it's not needed. [This message has been edited by Anderton (edited 11-30-2000).] Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 I forgot one other thing... Get an uninterruptible power supply. It's one of the best investments you can possibly make for any microprocessor-controlled gear. Post here if you need more convincing, I'd be glad to expound. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alphajerk Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 "But the life of a hard drive is specified in total number of revolutions." its actually measured in time. the Mean Time Before Failure [MTBF]. SCSI drives are the most robust with figures pushing 1.2 million hours now. which is 13.7 YEARS. so in essence you could leave it on constantly for 13 years straight. equipment IMO is best left on constantly. power up and down like craig said is where the damage comes from. the only time i turn off my equipment is over vacation where its unattended for a week. Computers are the most favorable where you can go into sleep mode which uses minimal power yet the system doesnt lose total power. i dont use the standalone systems but they are computers as well, just dedicated to a specific task so im sure the same rules would apply. alphajerk FATcompilation "if god is truly just, i tremble for the fate of my country" -thomas jefferson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faeflora Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Originally posted by Anderton: I forgot one other thing... Get an uninterruptible power supply. It's one of the best investments you can possibly make for any microprocessor-controlled gear. Post here if you need more convincing, I'd be glad to expound. Ok, please expound. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gifhttp://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif I have an equitech 1.5TR and I know I can plug in a UPS but it would cost a few hundred to buy enough of em. Expound, expound! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif If you live in the Washington Metro area, check out Slave Audio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alphajerk Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 you dont want your gear to shut down quickly and start back up again. also it provides a consistant stream of power to your equipment. also if the power goes out in the middle of the perfect take, you dont lose it. they provide surge protection as well. the only thing they dont do is provide balanced power. they dont cost that much and can get them in various sizes and even in rackmount. you can run power strips off them to increase # of outlets but be sure to stay under the amount of amps it can handle. im sure im missing other very valid points. main point is. GET ONE for all your precious equipment. its a lifesaver if the power does go out. alphajerk FATcompilation "if god is truly just, i tremble for the fate of my country" -thomas jefferson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 I understand MCI did a survey in the 70's regarding equipment failure and their conclusion was: Main cause of failure: 1. Power on 2. Power off 3. Full Moons http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/eek.gif cheers john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted December 1, 2000 Share Posted December 1, 2000 >>"But the life of a hard drive is specified in total number of revolutions."<< >>its actually measured in time. the Mean Time Before Failure [MTBF].<< Just to make sure no one gets confused...time is the time the hard drive is actually on and rotating. If, for example, you have a power-saving feature that shuts the drive off after X minutes of inactivity, the time it sits there before spinning up again does NOT count against MTBF. That's why I correlate time to revolutions. >> SCSI drives are the most robust with figures pushing 1.2 million hours now. which is 13.7 YEARS. so in essence you could leave it on constantly for 13 years straight. << Again, so that no one gets the wrong idea...this is correct, but it is the MEAN time between failures. A drive could fail after a week, while another continues to work for 20 years. Of course, I always wonder about life tests -- when LEDs first came out, they were claimed to last 100 years. What I want to know is, who invented the time machine where you can go 100 years into the future and make sure the LEDs are still glowing? And will CD-Rs REALLY last 75 years? Sure, I know the theory about accelerated life testing...but it still seems weird to claim something invented a few years ago is going to last for a hundred more, eh? Good points about sleep mode, by the way, I was remiss in not mentioning that. If I take a break for dinner or something, then I put the computer to sleep. But I still have a problem with leaving gear on all the time due to the energy considerations. We're way too wasteful with energy as is. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted December 1, 2000 Share Posted December 1, 2000 Alpha nailed the basics of why you want a UPS, here are some details. Most of them have an audible alarm that lets you know when the power goes away. You would be astonished how often that little sucker beeps, and you don't even notice the lights dim. The outages aren't long enough to make your computers reboot or anything, or even cause your digital clock to lose time, but they CAN put wicked transients on the line. I have a friend who lives in a rural area with ADATs and he kept having all kinds of unexplained glitches. After installing a UPS, all the glitches went away. Make sure your UPS also has a surge protector built in for your phone line, or get a separate surge protector. My local computer store says that most of the fried motherboards they have to repair had surges coming in through the phone lines that got into the serial ports (or onto the MOBO in the case of a modem on a card), rather than being fried due to AC problems. OF course, this is Florida, where there are a lot of lightning storms. Still, it's something to consider, especially given all the solar storms that have happened lately. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted December 1, 2000 Share Posted December 1, 2000 Ooooops...two other points I forgot. 1. Make sure you buy a UPS with a user-replaceable battery. 2. It's better to have several smaller models than one giant one. For example, I have one UPS for my Mac, and one for my PC. I could have gotten a UPS capable of handling both, but then if there was a problem, I wouldn't be able to protect either computer. With my current setup, I can limp along with one until the other is fixed. Craig Anderton Educational site: http://www.craiganderton.org Music: http://www.youtube.com/thecraiganderton Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/craig_anderton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 2, 2000 Share Posted December 2, 2000 Originally posted by alphajerk: you dont want your gear to shut down quickly and start back up again. also it provides a consistant stream of power to your equipment. also if the power goes out in the middle of the perfect take, you dont lose it. they provide surge protection as well. the only thing they dont do is provide balanced power. they dont cost that much and can get them in various sizes and even in rackmount. you can run power strips off them to increase # of outlets but be sure to stay under the amount of amps it can handle. im sure im missing other very valid points. main point is. GET ONE for all your precious equipment. its a lifesaver if the power does go out. Alpha - I'd like to point out that the cheaper UPS systems (designed for keeping PCs alive during outages) are NOT good for sensitive analog audio gear - many of these output a square wave, which can really stress older non-switching power supply components. I'd think twice before plugging a preamp or mixer into one of those cheapie UPS's. There are UPS's that output sine waves (the preferred flavor of AC power) but they are not cheap... ------------------ philbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alphajerk Posted December 3, 2000 Share Posted December 3, 2000 the differences are trapazoidal and sine wave outputs, not square. also a difference is continuous and switching power supplys. continuous supplys regenerate the power and are always "on" where switching supplies are onlyin use during outage and are prone to spikes getting through. the sine wave isnt as important as most equipment cuts up the 60hz cycle to higher frequencies anyways. alphajerk FATcompilation "if god is truly just, i tremble for the fate of my country" -thomas jefferson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uh Clem Posted December 3, 2000 Share Posted December 3, 2000 Originally posted by Faeflora: Ok, please expound. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gifhttp://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif I have an equitech 1.5TR and I know I can plug in a UPS but it would cost a few hundred to buy enough of em. Expound, expound! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif Check the Equi=tech site - they don't recommend using a UPS on the output side of those systems since you'll defeat the balanced power aspect of it. You have to plug the 1.5TR into the UPS. I think at that point you need some sort of industrial grade UPS - not the PC Mart kind. Steve Powell - Bull Moon Digital www.bullmoondigital.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 3, 2000 Share Posted December 3, 2000 Originally posted by alphajerk: the differences are trapazoidal and sine wave outputs, not square. also a difference is continuous and switching power supplys. continuous supplys regenerate the power and are always "on" where switching supplies are onlyin use during outage and are prone to spikes getting through. the sine wave isnt as important as most equipment cuts up the 60hz cycle to higher frequencies anyways. Alpha - Sorry, my information on the waveforms might be out of date. And you are correct in many cases - most modern equipment uses a switching power supply to convert the AC voltage from the UPS, which switches it up to 100KHz or so before converting it to DC. What I was cautioning about was using the UPS to power older equipment that uses a linear (non-switching) power supply. In this case, a square wave can cause excessive DC to be generated in the equipment, and is hard on the power transformer. I don't know for sure that the UPS's with trapezoidal output are better... I would guess that they are, since the RMS value of a trapeziod would be a lot closer to that of a sine than a square wave would be. Anyway, sorry if I passed out some out-dated info... ------------------ philbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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