Asklemmy

43918 readers

2024 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

409

Do you often hear the ringing of switching power supplies and devices when you are in a quiet space? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by j4k3 to c/[email protected]

154 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm curious, how many people are aware of these sounds. I have designed, etched, and built my own switching power supplies along with winding my own transformers. I am aware of the source of the noise. So, does anyone else hear these high frequency sounds regularly?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] SLO 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

We have a VR system set up in our living room. I don't even want to talk about how long it took me to figure out the receivers were making a steady, high pitched noise. There are 4 of them and they are situated near the ceiling.

I hear it from a lot of things when it's quiet enough. Clock radios, tvs, monitors, my pugmill, heaters. There was a noisy power strip with a flashing one-off switch that I'm still convinced was going to kill someone.

I DON'T know anything about electricity - so mostly it makes me anxious that my house is going to burn down. I have bad enough hearing loss that I have to use closed captions on my TV - but it IS mostly because deep voices are extremely muddled. I'm surprised a bit by how many "not really" answers I see.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I still don't get why the lighthouses can't be turned on/off via SteamVR. There's no reason they should stay running if I'm not actively in VR, and with the amount of noise they create, I have to imagine it's negatively impacting their lifespan.

One of these days, I'll get a smart plug for them, but I really shouldn't need to imo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You can.

You have to enable Bluetooth in the SteamVR Settings, and they'll automatically turn off when you quit VR, and back in when you start it up again. Only downside is (at least for me) when you don't use it for a longer time the connection seems to drop, and they won't turn on automatically anymore. But nothing that can't be fixed with a quick un- and replug

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Whaaaaaa? I'll have to look into this.

[–] xpgld 2 points 9 months ago

There's an app I use on my phone to turn mine off through Bluetooth as well. I noticed they will turn back on if the power ever goes out here so it's nice having the ability to turn them off without having to turn on my pc and go through steam.

[–] SLO 2 points 9 months ago

I leave mine unplugged. It would be nice if they would turn off.

[–] j4k3 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well the flashing light is just a tiny low current neon tube that can't hurt anything. The main thing to worry about with power strips is that they securely hold the connectors in place and not overloading them with more than their rated power, and the power of the circuit they are attached to in your home.

Switching power supplies for cheap consumer stuff are usually operating in the 20-30 kilohertz range. This is just outside of the audible range. What you are hearing is usually the windings or powder ferrite core of the miniature transformer physically vibrating. The audible sound is likely some lower order harmonic resonant peak that is in the audible range.

At the manufacturing level, the frequency of switching can be tuned to avoid unwanted noise, and the magnetics can be potted in a resin or other techniques used to dampen the vibrations. If you build your own power supplies like I have, they tend to make a lot more noise at the first prototype stage.

[–] SLO 3 points 9 months ago

It's all Science Magic to me. I am continuously thrilled that the world is filled with people who are much smarter and more curious than I am.

I'll sleep a little better knowing the quiet strip flickering under my aquarium isn't a ticking time-bomb though.