Electronics; best to leave it on all the time, or switch it off after use?

[Sparrow]

Electronic equipment is it best to leave it on all the time, or switch it off after use?

I'm having one of my periodic anxiety attacks regarding my now venerable Minolta 5400 mkI scanner ... what's the best way of insuring its long and fruitful life?

[xxloverxx]

If you're going to be using it regularly throughout the day, just leave it on and turn it off when you go to bed.

I don't think there's much about on/off and wearing out electronics — my only worry would be for any mechanical movement that happens at startup (like flicking a hard drive on and off all the time can kill it faster than just leaving it on).

[rxmd]

I don't think you can say in general. For example, in a scanner the mechanics might be subject to wear from being switched off and on, while the light source might suffer from being left on all the time.

I think if you worry all the time the one who suffers most is you. Just keep the device clean and use it with care and it will be fine.

[Richard G]

Globes are usually not powered except when scanning, I think, so leaving it on for some hours should be fine. With hard drives I leave them on for long periods. With anything new I leave it on for a couple of days so that if something will fail through heat it might happen early while I still have the receipt and the box and remember where I bought it. Probably a worthless manouevre.

[Sparrow]

The lamp, I think it's a LED only comes on when I'm scanning, I never switch the mac or its back-up drive off, but I've never known what was best with scanners

[xxloverxx]

As long as you don't move/bump the scanner while it's on, you should be fine (some scanners have a switch that locks the scanning head in place so you don't damage it while moving it).

I think it really should be okay to leave on 24/7. I mean, computers can take it, and they're far more complex than scanners…

[zauhar]

My philosophy is to leave it on all the time, provided you have it connected to a good surge protector.

I have a small audio amplifier attached to the computer in my office that has been on for the most of 25 years. ;-(

Randy

[davidtan]

Another dimension to all this that might be of concern to you is the electric bill. You end up using quite a bit of electricity when you leave your electronics on, including when they are off and plugged in. If you turn off your gadgets and unplug them when not in use, you might stand to save a good amount on your bill.

[Sparrow]

I had a contract with a technician back in the old days (1980 and 90s) and remember clearly reconciling his advice to leave the design computers on and our insurers to switch them off ... mind back then each of the five workstations drew around a kilowatt, state of the art massive power-supply tray, Motorola 147s and twin 40mb winchesters

[FrozenInTime]

By leaving things turned on 24-7 you avoid the stresses of inrush current and thermal cycling - so they should last longer.
However I've just replaced the fan on my Mac mini that provided Internet,Netflix,hulu,Skype etc. to the living room TV.
After two years uptime the bearings on it's little consumer grade fan started to fail and whine.
My plan going forward is still to leave it on 24-7 : in another two years, the computer will be probably be too obsolete to play the latest streaming HD media and need replaced.

[t6un]

A warm scanner pumps more air thru it, thus leaving it on increases the accumulation of dust.

[JoeV]

Depends on the type of system. For electronics that have many discrete electrolytic capacitor components in close proximity to heat-sinked components, like power supplies, after years of use the electrolyte could dry out in the caps, causing their ESR to increase with the result that, if powered off and left to cool down, the circuit would not fire back up. It was considered best practice to leave such devices powered on.

Mechanical devices like spinning HD platters will eventually fail just because the bearings have a finite life time.

As for flatbed scanners, the electro-optics are probably best left powered off when not in use, though the mechanics like the rail that the scanning heads rides up and down could in theory bind up through disuse if the lubricants dry out. This probably has more to do with your local climate. I'm in a dry, high desert climate where drying of components through disuse is a real problem.

Also, dust in your home environment can affect these mechanical systems. I've seen many problems with optical drives (CD, DVD) where the rod that the head rides along gets contaminated with dust, and the lubricants dry out, causing the head not to track properly because it sticks and binds on the rod. This is especially problematic with many of the designs that use a linear drive rod like what flatbed scanners use.

In the early days of CD technology, I recall that the Philips brand were more reliable than the Sony because the Philips used a pivoting mechanism to drive the head between center and edge of the disc, while the Sony used the linear drive rod method that more easily would bind up due to dry lubricant and dust build up. That was many years ago, so I don't know if that's still the case with those brands today. But keeping your scanner clean and dust-free, in a normally humidified environment, is probably more important than whether it's left powered on all the time.

-Joe

[btgc]

I switch scanner on only when I scan, and then I go through the whole roll (rolls). If I'd scan seven rolls a day, seven days a week, probably I'd consider keeping it ON all the day. Normally lamp switches on only during actual scanning.