to unplug or not to unplug

[1980'slover]

i leave my 2000's stuff plugged in, even my 80's stuff i leave pluged in, good thing my 90's stuff dosnt have those blinking red leds or they wouls suck power

[mr_fixer]

I always plug my things into a switched power strip and turn the strip off when i am done watching listening etc, i've had several things which the power zip cord is decaying or has nicks in it and a zip cord can cause a fire too.

[mkoser]

I unplug. When I was younger, we had a lightening strike close to the home. The computer, which was plugged into a power strip, took a hit. The lightening arced across the switch in the power strip and went kablooey.

MK

[ablethevoice]

My boatanchor rigs get powered down with a plugstrip, too. And for the same reason as peverett does. The only time the strip gets pulled from the wall is when we have lightning storms (a very common event here in FL.)

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by mr_fixer

I always plug my things into a switched power strip and turn the strip off when i am done watching listening etc, i've had several things which the power zip cord is decaying or has nicks in it and a zip cord can cause a fire too.

It's like I tell people, the best lightning protection is to pull the AC plug and disconnect the antenna/cable.

The only time I'll leave a vintage piece of equipment plugged in is if it has been gone over (i.e., new capacitors, good AC cord, etc). I will unplug my vintage equipment if I leave home for an extended period or if there's bad weather. I usually don't leave any vintage equipment in operation unattended. This is especially true of TV's. I've known people to go on vacation for a week or two and they would leave their modern TV's on. Even though modern TV's are newer and are supposed to be safer, I don't advise leaving them on, unattended, fot days or weeks at a time.

[MRX37]

This TV was left on and "unattended" for awhile.

I never could find out what brand the TV was. Whatever brand/model it was, it was built very well...

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

It's like I tell people, the best lightning protection is to pull the AC plug and disconnect the antenna/cable.

The only time I'll leave a vintage piece of equipment plugged in is if it has been gone over (i.e., new capacitors, good AC cord, etc). I will unplug my vintage equipment if I leave home for an extended period or if there's bad weather. I usually don't leave any vintage equipment in operation unattended. This is especially true of TV's. I've known people to go on vacation for a week or two and they would leave their modern TV's on. Even though modern TV's are newer and are supposed to be safer, I don't advise leaving them on, unattended, fot days or weeks at a time.

The problem is modern sets are dangerous too in my opinion some modern sets are more of a fire hazard than vintage sets,as a tv serviceman that works on modern and old equipment recently I saw a philips cd/tape/tuner/amp combo that had a standby power supply that was un-fused that went up in smoke due to a shorted FET and due to it being un-fused it melted the input inductor on the board so bad that two pins came unsoldered from the board,thank god for that otherwise it would have caught on fire,I will post pictures of the board if I can find it.Also I have seen power supplies in modern sets notably wally world specials built by orion self destruct violenltly due to poor design or faulty chinese electrolytics.Also I have noticed that sets more prone to this are newer than 1999 not saying it can't happen with any set but that is when they really started to cheapen designs.

[mr_fixer]

I guess it might depend on the law of diminishing returns. you could completely unplug everything in your house, when you go on vacation. but there is the possibility that the house wiring itself, might arc and create a fire "which happened to my dad's house in 1996" At least with a potential faulty power strip there is the possibility for a lawsuit against the manufacturer. Logan