Number two, is the possibility of voltage spikes. They are sometimes more frequent at night. Furthermore, at least if you're there when one hits, you'll be able to tell what happened. If it's at night, you'll just be scratching your head in the morning.

Okay, if you've got surge suppression that's not an issue. Mercyhurst does and they leave the Media Matrix and the Smart on 24/365. Doesn't hurt 'em a bit. Matter of fact, people say turning them on & off all the time is worse. We just turn the amps off at night.

At TT17, everything goes on in the morning and of at night. (That's over 200 swithces to throw every morning!)
 

We usually install a contactor on the mains to a rack so if the power goes down the rack will not power itself up when the hyfro comes back on but must pe manually powered up

There are several sequencers available for that applications

The only amps I have ever replaced have always been where peoiple power up and down

The power bill issue is moot as a rack of amps ideling usually is only about 200 watts
 

The item of note, however, is that, as I said, these rooms all have very hefty temperature control systems. The temperature is always at an unconfortable 65 degrees in the amp and network systems rooms. The network systems room even has thermometers that read the ambient temp inside the servers and sensors will down a server if it rises above a certain preset.

The projection booth is air conditioned, but we read incoming mains voltages as high as 130V at night, so we shut the processor rack down. It wouldn't be uncommon to come in and find four or five hall light bulbs that are always on, burned out over night....not a good omen. Plus, we don't run film on a daily basis. Given this, I decided not to leave the sound racks on. Last week I got a Triplite power conditioner that will regulate the power to the processor racks.

In the museum booth, some contractor convinced them to install a power conditioner -- it is the size of house. I have no idea why. It stands 6ft tall, 3 ft deep and 4 ft wide. It gives off more noise than the projectors, but worse, it pours HEAT into the booth. That booth, even though it has air conditioning, is always hot -- I mean like 80 degrees all the time. It's a bitch to work and certainly it can't be good for equipment to be left powered in that environment. Everything in that booth goes off at night.

As for all those switches....consider investing in X10 controls-- it's the best thing we ever did. From a single location at the booth entrance, one button can shut everything off -- lights, racks, coffee maker(!!), everything. You can even get a timer controler and set the thing to shut everything down after say 1am. This way, even it a newbie forgets to turn of the single switch, the timer will shut it down for you. The receiver modules only run about $11 and the control box about $9. There is no longer any missed swithes or that 20 min demonstration for newbies coming into the booth for the first time where you have to show him each and every switch.

I've always shut everything down at night. Amps go off first, then after they die the rest is powered down. Reverse that for powering up.
 

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Last week I got a Triplite power conditioner that will regulate the power to the processor racks.

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Is it a monster isolation transformer? I humped one of those up to the booth last year to cut some line noise. Hauling that brick annoyed me more than the pedestals & rectifiers.

Furman's got a box that looks really nice: http://www.furmansound.com/IT-Series.html

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With apologies and a tip o' the hat to Gordon; show me a broadcast facility that leaves everything on (when they sign-off).

As long as we're comparing apples and oranges.

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show me a broadcast facility that leaves everything on (when they sign-off)

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In the U.S., radio stations not in continuous operation are mostly AM daytimers & a few FM public radio outlets.

It really doesn't matter if CD players get turned off nightly. But nobody kills the power to the console, STL's, processing, satellite receivers, etc. Those little LED's glow all their little lives.

As for shutting down a transmitter: by law, if you've got no audio, you must kill your signal, & on an AM transmitter that means killing the plates. And if you've done that, you might as well turn off the filaments! AM is more like plumbing than electronics, & the cost of powering an AM transmitter is probably about the same as electrifying the plumbing network in your house.

TV facilities that sign off nightly will usually kill the transmitter & maybe some tape units at night, but all the other stuff stays up. It would take a long time to walk around & turn off every piece of equipment!

With modern solid state electronics this isn't an issue. Power consumption during non-use times may be the biggest issue. I'd also be concerned about a failure that could cause smoke (and worse!) when unattended. Unless the stuff is used more than 20 hours a day, I'd turn it off when not needed.

 

I have a Furman power conditioner sitting at the top of my rack (with light module) it is designed to smooth out any high peaks in the voltage system,so i'm told.

Another reason I don't like leaving this stuff on unattended is that it is more vulnerable to surge damage due to nearby lightning events, dumb stuff the power company does, etc. Don't trust all those surge protectors, etc. Jeff
 

About the surge protectors, it's better to have one than not. My tech says the filters inside keep the voltage stabel (220volt/in europe) and filters unwanted peaks out.