INcreasing Voltage in Power Outlets/Breakers?

DreamTR

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Since I know nothing about electricity, can someone give me an idea what is necessary to increase power on a circuit or outlet?

I have one outlet that won't accept heavy duty loads (in a garage). Essentially allowing only one pinball on at a time or else there is resetting.

The other instance is a building where I am going to open an arcade that used to be a clothing store that has a decent number of outlets, but I am afraid I am going to blow the breakers.

Question is, do I need breakers changed to allow these types of loads?

And I am certain only someone who knows wtf they are doing should do that, correct?

Someone please give me an idea of how I can go about doing anything with both scenarios
 
Well, you are not looking to increase Voltage, that will stay at 120. What you are looking to do is increase the load capacity or maximum current. There are many factors to consider including size of wire, length of the run and the load that it will be servicing. I suspect that the circuit you mentioned in the garage is already near maximum load and should really not be used much if it trips under a minor additional load. If you just pop in say a 20 Amp breaker in a circuit wired for 15 amps (14 gauge wire/romex) you run the risk of potentially overheating the (now undersized) wire and starting a fire. This isn't as uncommon as you might think.

Basically, if you have normal house wiring which is usually 14 gauge romex you absolutely can not and should never drop in a higher amperage breaker. If you are unfamiliar with it at all I would hire an electrician to quote you on running a few more (unloaded) circuits. You might be lucky in the other situation.
Commercial wiring sometimes but not always is wired for 20 amps. If it was wired to code you can usually just tell by the outlets themselves. 15 amp just have the two straight vertical tabs and a ground, 20 amp are identical except the neutral tab (larger slot on the left) will have a small horizontal slot intersected in the center. Or you can always just look at the breaker itself to determine that as well.
 
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The breakers are sized based on what the wiring can handle. If you arbitrarily increase the breaker size you WILL start a fire. Pulling too much current will cause the wiring to overheat.

The voltage is not something you can really adjust it is essentially fixed by the utility or building transformer (for the advanced readers, yes I have greatly simplified this...I'm aware of changing transformer tappings, but that won't help the OP here).

If you need additional power, then you have to add additional circuits. i.e. more breakers and wiring from the main panel.

For your home, you should look to see if you have any other outlets available that might be on a different circuit. Otherwise you will need to have an additional circuit added.

The number of outlets really has nothing to do with the amount of power available. It all depends how those outlets are wired. If you have 8 outlets on the same circuit (breaker) then you don't have any more power available than if you only had 1 outlet. What is important is to determine what outlets are on what circuits.

You will need to determine how much current your games draw. Keep in mind they will pull more when you first turn them on for a short instant (called in-rush) pinball machines will also pull more when they are being played.

Let's say they pull an average of 4 amps each and you have a circuit with a 20A breaker. This does not mean you can put 5 games on that circuit. You can only put 4. The reason is that breakers are only designed to operate at 80% of their rated load for continuous duty. That other 20% is there to handle momentary in-rush and flucuations. If you try and run at the nameplate rating, then you will get a lot of nuisance tripping and premature failure of the breaker. You will also be violating the electric code. The 80% rule is not just a good idea....it's the law!

Hopefully this helps you some.

Scott
 
SO basically I have to call an electrician to add more circuits to my house if I want the garage to have more power....

And...I need to figure out what is going on at the other place (i.e what can go on each circuit) before I do anything else?


IS that what I gather from all this? Thank you for the detailed responses.
 
SO basically I have to call an electrician to add more circuits to my house if I want the garage to have more power....

And...I need to figure out what is going on at the other place (i.e what can go on each circuit) before I do anything else?


IS that what I gather from all this? Thank you for the detailed responses.

Yes, you are right on the money. You'll definitely want to have an electrician out for your house. Make sure he understands you need another circuit and not just another outlet. Far too many electricians out there will just do what you ask rather than understanding what you need.

As far as the other location, you'll want to figure out what outlets are on what circuits and then you can go from there in determining whether you have enough power available already. Easiest way to do it is flip the breakers one at a time to find which breaker controls which outlets.
 
SO basically I have to call an electrician to add more circuits to my house if I want the garage to have more power....

And...I need to figure out what is going on at the other place (i.e what can go on each circuit) before I do anything else?


IS that what I gather from all this? Thank you for the detailed responses.

Another thing about the commercial building - you could have one outlet on a 20amp circuit, or it could be a wall of outlets (there are some rules about how many outlets). It just depends on how it was wired up.
 
Does your breaker box have any open slots? If so, you should be able to cheaply add more circuits.

The Black & Decker guide to wiring has the basics, and using that, I added several circuits to our house - a 220 for tablesaw, 220 heater, light circuit, and several garage outlets on one.

Whatever you DIY, do it by the book, or just hire an electrician. It will cost more if you have to add a subpanel or the current panel/wiring is just hard to get to and pull.
 
I am an electrician, all of the above responses are great (except the DIY one :(, not encouraged in our game)

Some of the locals here have got me out to wire up workshops and pinball rooms and arcade rooms

Considerations were:
A. How many games running together
B. how much capacity the house presently had
C. Cost
D. Is it easier to feed from adjacent different circuits

In each case we went for a cost effective happy medium

All rooms used for games had at least 2 circuits in them so no overloads occurred, some had 3 circuits

Must have got it right, as I have not been called back

It's a balance

You will know straight away if the guy understands what you need, as will be looking at ways to help and try to keep the cost to you down also.

Good luck
 
Does your breaker box have any open slots? If so, you should be able to cheaply add more circuits.

This is not the best advice. There is more in properly adding an additional circuit than just there being an open slot. You have to ensure there is enough capacity in the building to support the additional loading. If the upstream breaker that feeds that panel is already near it's max, it doesn't matter how many open slots the panel has available.
 
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