Thursday, August 10, 2006

SteppIR Power Consumption

Checking the power consumption of the control system of my SteppIR 3-element Yagi:

ConditionAC power drain
Power Brick only (controller disconnected)1 W
Controller "off"10 W
Controller "on" (idle)10 W
Elements slewing30-40 W
D connector disconnected3 W

(All readings were taken from a "Kill-A-Watt" device.)

It is interesting that turning the "power" on or off has little effect on AC power drain. It just shuts off the panel lights, as far as one can tell. According to Internet sources, a bias current continues to flow to the stepping motors when the controller is "off". This helps prevent the element lengths from drifting.