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From: AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Suspension losses
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2025 15:58:57 -0600
Organization: Yellow Jersey, Ltd.
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On 1/16/2025 3:35 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
> On 1/16/2025 1:38 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
>> Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@gXXmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On 1/15/2025 1:28 PM, Zen Cycle wrote:
>>>> On 1/15/2025 1:16 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
>>>>> On 1/15/2025 1:05 PM, Zen Cycle wrote:
>>>>>> On 1/13/2025 11:03 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It's certainly true that 100% of the electricity 
>>>>>>> consumed by an
>>>>>>> electric blanket becomes heat.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No, that isn't true either.
>>>>>
>>>>> Please explain. What electrical energy goes elsewhere?
>>>> A very small amount of power is used for the indicator 
>>>> lighting and
>>>> electronic controls.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> I write "either" because even _if_ it were true that 
>>>>>> electric
>>>>>> heaters are 100% efficient (which isn't true), saying 
>>>>>> 100% of the
>>>>>> electricity consumed by the device become heat is very 
>>>>>> different
>>>>>> than saying it's 100% efficient.
>>>>>
>>>>> What's your definition of "efficiency?" As I said 
>>>>> earlier, I think
>>>>> a common one used for engineering matters is Desired 
>>>>> Output divided
>>>>> by Required Input, or something similar.
>>>>>
>>>>> Do you have a different one?
>>>> Nope, it's the notion that every watt of power directly 
>>>> goes into
>>>> heating the targeted space that I'm stuck on.
>>>
>>> You're moving goalposts. You objected to my statement 
>>> "It's certainly
>>> true that 100% of the electricity consumed by an electric 
>>> blanket
>>> becomes heat."
>>>
>>>> There are other losses in the cabling and plug interface 
>>>> which -
>>>> while realized as heat - do not contribute the heating 
>>>> of the
>>>> targeted space. The heat generated by the plug and cord 
>>>> are rather
>>>> well insulated.
>>>
>>> But it's still heat, delivered into the room. It's not 
>>> lost elsewhere.
>>
>> Not necessarily true.  Heat is conducted thermally into 
>> the electrical
>> wires, which often run inside exterior walls, and can thus 
>> be conducted
>> to the outdoors without heating a room.
>>
>> But these are quibbles.  The definition of efficiency 
>> depends on the
>> purpose of the device, and the theoretical model used to 
>> compute the
>> minimum energy (or whatever) required to achieve that 
>> purpose.
>>
>> The purpose of an electric blanket is *not* to heat a 
>> room, it is to
>> make an individual human being more comfortable *without* 
>> heating the
>> room. 
> 
> I guess it's possible to define the Desired Output more and 
> more narrowly, down to "The heat delivered to the parts of 
> the body that have nerve endings that detect temperature." 
> IOW, if Grandpa's hair and toenails get warmer, that's 
> wasted heat. But I think few people want to go to that extreme.
> 
> Slightly more reasonable would be to demand wrapping the 
> electric blanket around Grandpa, like a sleeping bag, then 
> wrapping that with a perfectly adiabatic blanket. All the 
> heat would eventually go into Grandpa.
> 

+1
That's marketing not physics.

-- 
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971