Electric Consumption

FrizzleFried

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Every so often I like to go through my games and run them through a KILL-A-WATT device to determine consumption to make sure I'm not overloading any one circuit.

Here are the results for today:

Code:
CIRCUIT (AMPS)    NAME                LOW AMPS    HIGH AMPS  AVERAGE AMP
1 (20)        Williams Multigame        1.05        1.06        1.06
1 (20)        Armor Attack              1.00        1.47        1.30
1 (20)        Star Castle               0.82        1.12        1.00
1 (20)        Battlezone                1.77        2.06        1.90
1 (20)        Black Widow               1.60        2.04        1.95
1 (20)        Star Wars/ESB             2.12        2.63        2.45
             TOTAL                     08.36       10.38       09.66
2 (20)        Asteroids Deluxe          1.61        1.69        1.65
2 (20)        Tempest                   2.12        2.61        2.35
2 (20)        Marble Madness            2.15        2.25        2.20
2 (20)        Horizontal MAME           1.43        1.65        1.50
2 (20)        Super Punch Out           1.62        1.77        1.71
2 (20)        Multi-DK (Arcadeshop)     0.98        1.08        1.02
2 (20)        Golden Tee/Siver Strike   2.54        3.27        3.05
2 (20)        Race Drivin' (upright)    1.58        1.77        1.72
2 (20)        Rush The Rock Alcatraz    2.19        2.79        2.60
             TOTAL                     16.22       18.88       17.80
3 (15)        Arachnid Super 6 Darts    1.33        1.56        1.56
3 (15)        Cocktail MAME/Jukebox     1.69        2.17        1.95
3 (15)        Paperboy                  2.60        2.70        2.68
3 (15)        Multipede (ArcadeSD)      0.98        0.99        0.99
3 (15)        Spy Hunter                1.66        1.73        1.69
3 (15)        Seeburg "Disco" Jukebox   1.95        2.25        2.10
3 (15)        Multi Pac Man (96-in-1)   1.05        1.06        1.06
3 (15)        Gorf                      1.51        1.69        1.65
3 (15)        Wizard of Wor             1.46        1.47        1.47
             TOTAL                     14.23       15.62       15.15
(thanks for cleaning it up gwarble)


As you can see... I have potential problems in with circuits 2 and 3. To catch any problem before it occurs, I'll be moving Asteroids Deluxe to Circuit 1 from Circuit 2 freeing up 1.65amps bringing me very close to the 16amp goal (16.15amps or so)... I will also move the cocktail and Super Six cabs from the 15amp Circuit 3 to circuit 1 freeing up 3.51amps from circuit 3 bringing the average down from an unaccepable 15.15 amps to a more comforable 11.64 amps (that 15amp circuit should run no more than 12 amps optimally)... which will bring Circuit 1 up from 9.66amps to 14.82amps. Omega Race is currently down and usually runs on that circuit. I am guessing OR will draw about 2 amps bringing the total up to 16.82 amps... luckily the Super Six Dart cab usually isn't running when the games are all running and vice-versa so there should be no problem. That said, I am pretty damn close to my max draw... I sure as hell can't run any heat or A/C if I'm running all the cabs... and also luckily I have a 4th shared circuit (shared with our living room) that I use to power the two pins... Ideally I'd add another 20 amp circuit dedicated to heat/AC but the panel is full... and if all games are running I don't really need heat anyway... though A/C in the summer is pretty much needed so I just don't run all the games at once then (and the portable A/C's use about 7amp each ... much less than the 12amps each heater sucks down.

A few surprises this time around... first off, I've never seen a vector game run as low powered as the two Cinematronics games I have. Atari B&W games take about 50% more power. Another oddity... Black Widow. The game uses significantly less power than Star Wars or Tempest... both also running WG6100 monitors... why? Paperboy is again toward the top of the power hungry list.. which I thought was a "medium res" thing, but look at Marble Madness... a System 1 title... being a 19" standard res raster game I figured it would use 1.00 to 1.5 amps... at most. Nope... 2.2amps. I have no idea why. Even Super Punch Out, with TWO monitors running, comes in at 1.71... a full half amp less than Marble Madness. At this point my best guess is Atari's linear power supply isn't the most efficient... My highest consumer of power is now my Golden Tee Complete/Silver Strike Bowling cabinet which makes sense considering the cab has two complete PCB sets (one being a full on PC) inside it. Rush the Rock beat Paperboy by a whopping .02 amps... and another thing to take note of is the Gorf / Wizard of Wor numbers... they both run on the same hardware... the difference being the additional lighting in Gorf.
 
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very cool, thanks for the info... i'll try to do the same for my games this week and add the info here

this is yours, a little cleaner: (edit: not needed)

edit: here's my data:
Code:
NAME              STARTUP         RUNNING         NOTE
                   (AMPS)      (AMPS)  (WATTS)
Missile Command     1.9...      1.44    145  with Multi (SMA)
Star Wars           2.5...      2.36    238
Defender            1.5         1.37    133
Galaga              3.9...      1.40    143
Millipede           3.85...     1.70    147  with Multipede
Smash TV            3.2...      1.62    168  with MultiJamma and Total Carnage
60-in-1             3.85...      .77     76  cocktail
Dig Dug             3.95...     1.42    152  cocktail
Ms. Pac-man         3.74...     1.27    124
Bubbles             3.87...     1.42    141  Clay's MultiWilliams
720°                2.0...      1.39    133
Video Pinball    ...1.2         1.42    143
Robotron: 2084      4.25...     1.85    181
Rampage             2.53...     1.27    118
Sinistar            4.13...     1.78    177
Tron                2.5         2.40    193
Lunar Lander        3.12...     1.72    170
Hook             ...1.1     1.2-2.0 140-200  pinball, varies a lot
Pachislo            1.3...       .69     59  made 1995
you can see (with the "...") some games startup by creaping up and some start by peaking out, but i don't trust the actual measurements because there is a refreshing period on the meter, no actual peak reading

also you can see some watts/amps are not the same correlation, because of the inductive load i think (versus a direct relationship on a resistive load or something)
 
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Thanks for this. Based on your measurements and some estimating I've done for my pins, I've estimated that I would use a total of 21.5 amps to run all of my games at the same time.

That equals 2365 watts per hour (21.5 amps x 110 volts).

At an estimated $.15 per Klwh, that's about 35 and a half cents per hour to run my games.

If I had a party where I left the games on for 8 straight hours, that would cost me $2.84 to run my games for 8 hours.

Seems pretty cheap to me. I'd better double check my electrical rate. But still, that's cheap.
 
You can swap the 15amp breaker for a 20amp. That would give you a little more headroom. They are only about $8.

I thought I had 2 20A breakers for the games, but when I blew the breaker last week, I saw that they were only running on a single 15A. I kinda remember doing that with the intention of adding more breakers later (I must have thought they were expensive or something). This weekend, another electrician friend came over to add the breakers. Now I have 3 20A breakers just for the games.

Were the games all warmed up when you tested? I think mine were drawing significantly more current when cold. I was tripping the 15A sometimes with only 5 19" games running. Over the summer, I had 9 or 10 games running fine on the same breaker (thinking there were 2 20A, of course).

After the swap, we turned all of the games on and played for a few hours. It is really nice to have them all on and not have to worry about tripping the breakers. I don't think I can fit enough games out there to have a problem now. 11 vids and 2 pins take up a lot of space.

I run the heaters on the original garage circuit, so shouldn't have any problems there.

Thanks for reporting those numbers. I thought these old monsters were drawing a lot more than that.
 
You can swap the 15amp breaker for a 20amp. That would give you a little more headroom. They are only about $8.

You can only do this if you have the correct gauge wire for the circuit.

15amp breaker will usually have 14 guage wire
20amp breaker will usually have 12 guage wire

Note: DO NOT add a 20amp breaker to 14 guage wire. You will have a potential fire hazard.
 
You can swap the 15amp breaker for a 20amp. That would give you a little more headroom. They are only about $8.

You do realize that if you do this without swapping out the proper gauge wire you are introducing a serious fire hazard, right?

The wire thickness must match the breaker or if you over power you're thinner gauge wire will heat up and can cause a fire.

What sucks about that is when the insurance investigator drops by to assess the damage and determines that someone wired in a 20amp breaker without upgrading the wire, they deny the insurance claim based on that fact.
 
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How 'bout a graph?

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/S7Eah0aj_pqtgmPQsqSRdg?feat=directlink
frizz_current.JPG
 
I was pretty wowed when I found out that the local library has Kill-A-Watts available for checkout.

I haven't measured too much, but I found that leaving Crazy Climber on 24/7 adds about $8.50 to my electricity bill and my home computer being up all the time costs over $12 a month.

I've been turning them off regularly since then. I'm currently measuring the power to my laptop which stays on all the time too.
 
I was pretty wowed when I found out that the local library has Kill-A-Watts available for checkout.

Where in the Dewey Decimal system were they filed?
I'll have the check the card catalog at my local library next time I'm there...
 
Interesting data. So when all of your games are on, pulling an average of 15A, times 120V, equals about 1800W, or 1.8kW. Figure about 15 cents/kW-h in California, and that works about to a little over $0.25 per hour to power your arcade :)
 
I'm just gonna make a "breaker popper" dongle I plug into the wall every coupla months to make sure the breaker still works, and then just plug shit in wherever I feel like. So much easier :D

-E- I just did some math... I don't really need a dongle. Port multiplier, two 900W space heaters, and throw in a 20W light bulb... that's 1820W or a hair over 15A at 120V. If that doesn't pop the breaker immediately, it's not sensitive enough.
 
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Thanks, interesting post. Always thought vector games were the amp hogs, didn't realize Atari games were so greedy. Wonder why...
 
Thats pretty cool to see it broken down per game. Thanks for posting it. I usually measure total games on a circuit via the surge strip they sure.

FrizzleFried, you need to add a circuit(or 2)!!
 
This is a cool thread. Thanks for posting. Eventually I may do this when I'm all set up. My rule of thumb anyway will be 12-2 wire and 15A circuits. Overkill, but safe safe safe.

I actually run all my new circuits in the house with 12, unless it is a lights only circuit, then I do 14. Plus then if I run out of circuit spots, I can always upgrade the outlet to 20A, but that will be last resort. I have been replacing circuits over time in the house since it was built in 1890 and still has some knob and tube (Open Ground) :eek: which I am slowly replacing with proper wiring.
 
I would add if I was able to edit... as measured today...

Cruis'n Exotica - Low: 1.31a High: 1.51a
Cart Fury - Low: 2.0a High: 2.38a
 
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