Hewitson
New member
Poor power supply design would be the main factor. It would be interesting to do a comparison between a linear PS and a switcher on the same game.
Electric Consumption
- Thread starter FrizzleFried
- Start date
OP
OP
What surprises me the most are System II games. I've measured two different cabs running Paperboy and both consumed 2x the energy that standard res 19" game does. Look at the chart above... Paperboy is the 2nd highest energy consumer next to Golden Tee / Silver Strike Bowling which (A) Has a 27" medium res monitor, and (B) has BOTH games installed and powered up at all time (Golden Tee complete and Silver Strike Bowling both have hard drive... one is more a PCB "set" like an arcade game the other is more like PC.... AND has both marquees lit up...
Think about it... Paperboy uses more energy that Rush The Rock, Cart Fury, or Cruis'n Exotica... all with 27" medium res monitors... all with FORCE FEEDBACK motors...
Damn.
Think about it... Paperboy uses more energy that Rush The Rock, Cart Fury, or Cruis'n Exotica... all with 27" medium res monitors... all with FORCE FEEDBACK motors...
Damn.
TraderSteve
Member
Yup, and the Atari's are DAMN HEAVY too.
As far as power consumption my 2 biggest offenders are:
RoadBlasters (upright) at 3.8 amps and
Afterburner (Upright) which spikes to 3.9 amps when the feedback kicks. but is usually around 3.3 / 3.4 without it.
IMO - If you're running new wire / breakers anyway it doesn't pay to go with any less than 20 amp on 12 gauge wire. It really isn't saving any money to go less and I'd rather have some wiggle room on the wall for extra games, or moving the power hogs. In fact my 1 wall has 8 switched plugs split evenly between two 20 amp breakers so I can pretty much move anything in there (looking at sit down racers with force feedback and maybe another Atari game
).
OP
OP
You might want to double check that Road Blasters... Marble Madness uses 2.2a and it's the same system (System I)... unless you're running incandescent lamps or something, I can't see why there would be a such a huge difference between Road Blasters and Marble Madness.
shertz
Well-known member
I finally bought a Kill-a-Watt meter. I was only able to measure the amps to about half of the games only cause i was unable to get to all the outlets at the moment. With measuring 14 games (out of 25), i clocked in at 25amps out of the 120amps I am (supposedly) allowed.
Here's the kicker....
I had all but 4 (out 25) games turned on. So with only 21 games turned on, my voltage DROPPED to 108 volts!!! ZOINKS!!
Im no electrical wiz, but I thought with all the AMPS available the Voltage wouldnt drop so much!!
Any idea how this would happen??
Here's the kicker....
I had all but 4 (out 25) games turned on. So with only 21 games turned on, my voltage DROPPED to 108 volts!!! ZOINKS!!
Im no electrical wiz, but I thought with all the AMPS available the Voltage wouldnt drop so much!!
Any idea how this would happen??
billyb2084
New member
What is the voltage before the drop? 108 is not uncommon, but the percentage in drop might be more telling.
shertz
Well-known member
118volts. I think I forgot to mention I'm running on 2X60amp breakers.
Do you mean the 60-amp breakers are feeding 20-amp breakers? Normal outlets should not be fed with anything more than 20-amps, since that is the highest they are rated for. Also, 12-gage wire is the proper choice for a 20-amp receptacle circuit, and it will not handle 60 amps. You would need something like a #6 wire to feed a 60-amp circuit, which you would not be able to connect regular receptacles to.
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gwarble
Well-known member
Damn if paperboy eats that much juice i wonder what 720 sucks up
I'll have to dig out the kill-a-watt i borrowed from my brother last time and never returned
Edit: derrrr, i guess i already had it back when i posted
1.39 amps... surprisingly low compared to the paperboy numbers... Then again a lot of factors come into play, including the unique machine's parts and/or condition
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showpost.php?p=1858726&postcount=2
I'll have to dig out the kill-a-watt i borrowed from my brother last time and never returned
Edit: derrrr, i guess i already had it back when i posted
1.39 amps... surprisingly low compared to the paperboy numbers... Then again a lot of factors come into play, including the unique machine's parts and/or condition
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showpost.php?p=1858726&postcount=2
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There's a pretty good deal on a power meter on 1saleaday.com today.
$19.99
http://1saleaday.com/wireless/
$19.99
http://1saleaday.com/wireless/
adamzero
New member
Just bumping this thread to provide some more info for folks based on some readings I took for my games. Also, some locales have Kill A Watt devices free to check out at the library... otherwise, spring for one online for $20. It's very much worth it...
Here are my readings for Amps. I only focused on levels when "running" since I don't turn all my games on at once, but I included the highest amps pulled during start-up as well.
Here are my readings for Amps. I only focused on levels when "running" since I don't turn all my games on at once, but I included the highest amps pulled during start-up as well.
Code:
Game Startup Running
60-1 (with standard monitor) 1.75 0.76
Toobin' 1.58 1.48
Police Trainer (25" monitor) 1.37 1.30
Crystal Castles 1.75 1.38
Pengo 1.25 1.20
Mr. Do! (Dedicated) 1.24 1.23
Arkanoid 2 1.60 1.42
Q*bert 2.00 1.88 w/o knocker… with knocker, 2.00
Asteroids 2.00 1.96
Space Invaders 1.06 1.00
Track & Field 1.66 1.36
Smash TV 1.79 1.13
Strata Bowling 1.44 1.10
Pole Position 2.00 1.51
Rolling Thunder 1.69 1.07
Pacman 1.52 1.36
Ms Pacman 1.56 1.49
Battlezone 2.20 1.95
Red Baron 1.83 1.65
Rampage 1.73 1.45
Bubbles (Jrok) 1.41 1.00
Moon Patrol 1.43 1.42
Defender 1.68 1.51
Joust 1.63 1.26
Dig Dug 1.79 1.58
Zaxxon 1.63 1.29
Bad Dudes 1.32 1.29
Centipede 1.46 1.39
Gorf 2.01 1.93
Galaga 1.34 1.23
Elevator Action 1.75 1.53
Burgertime 1.53 1.30
Asteroids Deluxe 1.88 1.81
Missile Command 1.75 1.65
Warlords (UR) 1.40 1.27
Tetris 1.80 1.40
OP
OP
Are you using incandescent bulbs in marquees like for Pac Man? I ask because your Pac Man numbers are 35-40w higher than mine... but I use 2 4w CFLs....
adamzero
New member
They're incandescent ones, I think. I don't remember changing them out, but good call Friz... I'm going to check/swap them tonight. Years ago when I got my Gorf, I replaced pretty much all the main bulbs with CFLs... I can imagine those would pull considerably more using old-style bulbs.
OP
OP
It's crazy that sometimes people will use two 40w incandescent lamps for the marquee... that is 80w in just lighting the marquee... the rest of the game is only 90w more (give or take).
adamzero
New member
It's crazy that sometimes people will use two 40w incandescent lamps for the marquee... that is 80w in just lighting the marquee... the rest of the game is only 90w more (give or take).
I couldn't find any CFLs, so I just mounted one of these in Pac's marquee. It's a little dim, but your forehead stays pretty warm.
(ok, not really.)
tbbk
Well-known member
I am still trying to figure out how to turn on all my games at once. I am not really helped by the fact that the labels on my breaker box seem to have very little relationship to what they are wired up to.
I seem to have 3 15 amp circuits in the basement with wall outlets. One for the laundry room, one for the bar and one that has the rest of the outlets on it. The ceiling lights seem to be on 2 more 15 amp circuits. The 3 15 amp circuits should be just enough (I can offload a game to each lighting circuit if I have to, since they seem to be very underused).
However I still need to go through the rest of my house and make sure these basement circuits aren't sharing outlets with anything on the main floor, which going by the labeling they seem to be.
I seem to have 3 15 amp circuits in the basement with wall outlets. One for the laundry room, one for the bar and one that has the rest of the outlets on it. The ceiling lights seem to be on 2 more 15 amp circuits. The 3 15 amp circuits should be just enough (I can offload a game to each lighting circuit if I have to, since they seem to be very underused).
However I still need to go through the rest of my house and make sure these basement circuits aren't sharing outlets with anything on the main floor, which going by the labeling they seem to be.
Fuck electricity
Madaracs
Well-known member
Here are my latest readings from a troubleshooting post located here.
Code:
Machine Amps (Running) Watts
Star Wars 2.5 240
Star Trek 2.8 250
Tempest 2.3 225
1943 1.2 120
Donkey Kong 1.2 107
Gorf 1.3 106
Centipede 1.2 102
Galaga 1.4 123
Monaco GP 1.7 153
Ms. Pac-Man 0.91 93.5
Neon - Tron 0.3 23
Robotron 1.0 96
Neon - Adam's Arcade 0.85 93
Super 6 II Darts 1.3 131
Missile Command 1.4 122
Pinball Xenon 1.7 185
Pinball Mr&Mrs Pac-Man 1.4 175
Moon Patrol 1.2 96
Jukebox 1.5 115
Joust TBD TBD
Omega Race TBD TBD
Defender TBD TBD
Total 27.16 2555.5adamzero
New member
I ran a couple of my newer games on the Kill-o-Watt last night... these are peak amps, rather than average/running levels, which I previously included for other games...
I was somewhat surprised that the EM Rifle was that high... as well as the ICB being so low. And I'm not sure why my Paperboy is pulling less than Friz's. There's a few more games I didn't get to that have joined the roster since my previous list on here, so I'll try to get to those. I have the freedom of 80A (though I wouldn't go over 66-70), so I'll run out of space before power.
Code:
Chicago Coin Fun Land EM Rifle 4.1
Paperboy 1.7
Taito Ice Cold Beer 0.7
NBA Jam. 1.4I was somewhat surprised that the EM Rifle was that high... as well as the ICB being so low. And I'm not sure why my Paperboy is pulling less than Friz's. There's a few more games I didn't get to that have joined the roster since my previous list on here, so I'll try to get to those. I have the freedom of 80A (though I wouldn't go over 66-70), so I'll run out of space before power.
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