I wanted to share this opinion on Hackaday about a topic that is the usefulness of a something that has become ubiquitous relatively fast.
This techonolgyy has a lot of potential, what do you think?
I wanted to share this opinion on Hackaday about a topic that is the usefulness of a something that has become ubiquitous relatively fast.
This techonolgyy has a lot of potential, what do you think?
I laughed and wrote out a list of things in my house using AC but I see you’re talking more theoretically. Most of the things using ac in my house are only ever plugged into one circuit, so we could leave those circuits alone. I don’t think USB C PD could handle a hairdryer though, and they aren’t always used on the same circuits (eg sometimes bathroom, sometimes bedroom)
It’s really tough to displace entrenched standards.
_ I don’t think USB C PD could handle a hairdryer though_
Of course it wouldn’t. The idea would be get rid of USB-C and PD completely.
You’d have 110VDC@15A available for your hairdryer. Heating coils don’t care if it’s AC or DC, and the blower fan would be a brushless fan.
You’re compressors for AC or fridge would be freq drives, which are cheaper because they could drop the rectifier circuit, and highly efficient.
The only real concern about having DC in the home as standard is the safety aspect of DC doesn’t let go if you get shocked.
But that is already being worked on in general as many homes have high-voltage DC circuits from solar panels.
But different devices need different voltages. Does every outlet in my house have to have its own connection to the central rectifier? It’s a lot of re wiring.
PWM DC to DC dropping voltage to what you need is easy/cheep.
So instead of a big transformer + rectifier that each device has now, it would be a much smaller/cheaper step down at like 99.8% efficiency
This doesn’t seem better.
Well, I mean if you don’t understand power electronics I don’t see how you can make that statement.
I understand the electronics. I don’t understand why you think this would be worth replacing all my appliances
Lots of small kitchen appliances would be out of luck. Or how about vacuum cleaners as an example that needs a lot of power but might be plugged in for every room …. Where would I recharge batteries for my lawn care equipment?
What?
Most vaccums are brushless, where they are already converting the AC to DC internally. Your vacuums would be cheaper.
Where would I recharge batteries for my lawn care equipment?
again what? The same way? Your charger is converting AC to DC. You could skip that step.
All of these appliances would work better/cheaper with a 110VDC@15A source.
Yeah I think many of us missed that you’re proposing a full power replacement circuit, rather than USB power everywhere
One of the things you’re missing about USB and would likely lose here is that it’s “smart”. Both sides negotiate an acceptable power profile. If you only have one converter for the house I don’t think you could easily deliver many different power profiles to many points
You wouldn’t have to.
Every device instead of having an expensive PD communication device in it, would have an even cheaper PWM DC Step-down.
No communication needed.
Each device would just draw what it needs to.