An invention thats needed and would be worth billions

[iamaboringperson]

Simple - but with one flaw: they're very inefficient.

As mentioned a number of times before they are quite efficient! 95% ? The worst you're likely to find would be 97-98% efficient!

What alternatives are there?

Well, if you're prepared to switch to DC, you could try a plain old voltage divider circuit. It's just two resistors! ...and a great big heat sink to take the heat from the resistors away.

Then there is a voltage regulator circuit.  They too just cause the extra voltage to turn to heat.

The physics teacher that I had when I started my second diploma course enjoyed rambleing on and on about the formula that can be used to work out what value capacitor is required to run a red LED from the mains! The formula contained Pi, and all sorts of things.


So, there you have it. There are alternatives, but they don't really have many advantages (except for size and weight).  And they're all less efficient.

[iamaboringperson]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:

KennyR wrote:

Yeah, you could be right - the problem isn't transformers, it's resistors. Someone needs a way to make a resistor that can't and won't heat up.

That would be brilliant, but the real problem is ....

Whatever energy saving thing you develop, it better be cheaper than what's already being used. Why? Because the guy who's designing the gear you're going to buy isn't going to be paying your power bill so he doesn't have to worry about it.

When it comes to consumer items, consumers are dumb on average and don't care how much they will have to pay for power in the furture in whatever form; gas, coal, petrol, electricity. Cheap to buy trumps saves power over time.

Only big companies and municipalities and governments look into that kind of performance. They have accountants who can figure out the number of beans payed over equipment lifetimes. Joe Blo don't know.

More importantly, resistors produce heat basically due to the fact that electrons keep 'bumping' into the bit's of carbon etc. (other insulator materials) in the resistor.

The electrons are doing work. And in this world you don't get energy out of nothing. Electrical energy converts to heat energy. (So that there is always an equal amount of energy (and matter, for that matter) in the universe)

Heatless resistors are impossible.