California State Law regarding PC Power Supplies

[Mehridian Sanders]

As this came up in another thread, I am clarifying this for our California Denizens. This is pertaining directly to Title 20.

 

Information gathered from (Energy Code Ace)

Requirements Title 20 Section 1605.3(v)(6) requires workstations, rack-mounted workstations, mobile workstations, small-scale servers and high expandability computers manufactured on or after January 1, 2018 to meet all of the four following criteria: 

1. Be powered by an internal power supply that meets or exceeds the standards in Title 20, Table V-9 (see below) or an external power supply that meets efficiency level VI as described in the International Efficiency Marking Protocol for External Power Supplies Version 3.0 (IEMP) 2013; Title 20, Section 1605.3(v)


2. Incorporate Energy-Efficient Ethernet functionality; 
3. Transition connected displays into sleep mode within 15 minutes of user inactivity and 
4. Transition the computer into either the computer sleep mode or computer off mode within 30 minutes of user inactivity. If the transition is to a computer sleep mode, that sleep mode shall either: 
	a. Be a computer sleep mode as described in ACPI as S3 or 
	b. Consume power less than or equal to 10 + 0.03 * C, where C is the system memory capacity in gigabytes minus 32 gigabytes (see Table V-6 in Title 20 Section 1605.3(v)) Small-scale servers and 		rack-mounted workstations are not required to comply with #4 above (see Title 20 Section 1605.3(v)(6)(A - D))

So, basically, my boss did not give me ALL the information. I think that the Retro Computing Community of California will be largely unaffected by this. Be careful selling power supplies. Make sure they conform to this code.

 

Thanks for making me search it out @cbmeeks (which I do mean ? )

 

[jrhodes]

"This absurd inconvenience brought to your life by the loopy leftist of California."

Edited November 9, 2019 by jrhodes

[DragonGrafx-16]

Wut... lol how can they even force power sleep modes? You can just turn it off in Windows.

Consume power less than or equal to 10 + 0.03 * C, where C is the system memory capacity in gigabytes minus 32 gigabytes

WTF does this even mean? Does it mean HD capacity or RAM? I'm assuming disk space but IDK. lol

 

2 hours ago, Mehridian Sanders said:

I think that the Retro Computing Community of California will be largely unaffected by this. Be careful selling power supplies. Make sure they conform to this code.

I think power supplies intended for old systems would be exempt even if brand new. There's no way an AT or other retro power supply would meet the requirements.

 

Geeze, California is getting so stupid.

Edited November 9, 2019 by DragonGrafx-16

[Mehridian Sanders]

Forgive me but I  am unable to answer that question as I am covered by an NDA.

2 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

I think power supplies intended for old systems would be exempt even if brand new. There's no way an AT or other retro power supply would meet the requirements.

 

Geeze, California is getting so stupid.

I used to consider myself democrat.... now at 40... I like to think of myself as a Reformed Druid Centrist of the Ordered Chaos Party. I want more plant life on this spinning rock than mammalian.

 

Anyone know where a good place to live outside this den of iniquity? Along the coast to keep my wife happy? And need an Electrical Engineer ?

I know I ask too much.

 

[pjduplooy]

Mehridian

 

Slightly off topic here, but your last two paragraphs in the previous post has absolutely made my morning.  

[+FarmerPotato]

I wondered, how long have such power supplies been on the market?

 

There are many articles about 80-Plus, in the past ten years. This is a badging system for power supplies that exceed 80% efficiency. California is mandating the "80 Plus Gold" standard, which means 90% efficient and Power factor 0.90. I looked up my Corsair 650TX, a builder's PC favorite, that I got 7 years ago. It's not compliant today, at a mere 80% efficiency.

 

I wondered what does Dell put in their systems? They don't say exactly. They do mention the availability of "80-Plus Bronze" and "Platinum" if you want. So I wonder if the basic power supply is the Gold type at Dell now?

 

The usual economic statements will apply:

 

1. This regulation strengthens the monopoly power of the largest vendors like Dell, HP, etc, who probably wrote the numbers into the law

2. The regulatory burden will fall on small business

3. It will do nothing to change the incentives for the largest operators of server farms (Google for instance) because they'd do this without a law!

4. In case the law mandates the 80-Plus efficiency that is average for products sold by Dell today, why bother? (but see #1)

5. Californians will pay more for PCs

6. There will be unintended consequences (start making the list)

 

No further comment about the state of California from me today. 

 

[wierd_w]

Soooo....

 

For DC-DC converter based PSUs, like PicoATX, is this rating applicable at the PSU board itself, or does it include the wall wart?

[Opry99er]

Maybe they'll finally save the delta smelt with this one...

[+OLD CS1]

The power factor requirement has me thinking.  I see that as a utility money grab as it is more difficult, but not impossible, to figure power usage when current draw and voltage are not in parity.  With a low power factor your apparent power usage is lower.  For one desktop or server on a single-phase drop that is not much -- just dollars and cents -- but spread out across a population that adds up, and more so when multiple power supplies are involved.

 

In any case, this would immediately outlaw a good 75% or more of Chinese or otherwise cheaply-made power supplies if applied across the board (to wall warts and chargers,) but it appears to be limited to larger electronics.  If they do decide to expand this to all power consumption (I can see it happening,) then anything made with an in-line capacitor for dropping voltage will go bye-bye and novelty products will become more expensive.

[RXB]

15 hours ago, jrhodes said:

"This absurd inconvenience brought to your life by the loopy leftist of California."

No try the  Corporations that force you to buy the product they make and not modify it, as they lose money on HOMEBREW!

That is who enacted this law, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, and others.

 

[apersson850]

Good idea to reduce power transmission losses. Computers are frequently bad there.

[+OLD CS1]

Interesting aspect, that this would codify against right-to-repair.

[apersson850]

Now I'm far from California (most of the time), but it does say it's applicable to computers manufactured in 2018 or later. Our TI 99/4A computers for sure are not, even if they do qualify as "highly expandable"!