Power consumption list

wrkey

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In my attempt to put together a cost to run list, I purchased a 'Kill-a-watt' device that allows you to see the exact power consumption of electrical devices and determine how much it will cost to run per hour, day, month. Tonight I put a few machines through the tester and here's what I got so far.

I ran test with the machine in Standby or Attact mode and then with it running. The numbers below were the average as there was some flucuations during game play.

Galaga - 128 attract, 128 play
Ms PacMan - 128 attract, 128 play
EM Pinballs - 100 standby, 160 play
SS Pinball - 125 attract, 150 play
Pachislo w/video - 100 attract, 140 play

I hope to test other devices tomorrow including Neon lights, crane game, SkeeBall, jukebox, slot machines (EM and SS) and possibly a few other things.

All measurements above are in Watts.

This test is worth every penny of $30 I spent for it at Fry's. You can easily not only how devices you think are 'off' are really drawing power and just how much it cost to run them.
 
There are alredy numerous posts here regarding K-a-W measurements. They can vary from machine to machine even with the same name based upon the original-ness of the game (what monitor, what power supply, what isolation transformer, etc...).

One thing to remember, especially with pinballs, you are only getting an average rating, the only true way to know what the maxium potential draw is to have all the playfield lights lit up, as many solenoids engaged at the same time, flasher lamps running, etc... I think you'll find that many SS pins will run at least 250 watts average and 400 max like in a test mode where all lamps are flashing which would be closer to a real-life multi-ball play where both flippers are engaged, multiple pop bumpers or slingshots or kickers engaged, all at the same time.

Finally, power on draw is what will matter when you are trying to judge the # of games to connect to a circuit for safety. An example is a 60-in-1 machine running a 17" computer monitor draws under 100 watts running normally (somewhere around 75 typically), yet will blow anything lower than a 3Amp fast blow fuse when powered on due to the inrush current. Power on a couple machines at once and you are tossing 2-4 additional on the circuit momentarily that could trip your breakers.


BTW--the typical price of these are $15 for the P4400? model, $30 is a bit extreme if that's the one you got. Their other models are more expensive but just do calculations that you can simply multiply yourself.

http://www.amazon.com/P3-Internatio...F8&qid=1354207931&sr=8-1&keywords=kill-a-watt
 
A lot of late model Williams pinball machines are energy hogs. Try it with an Addams Family or Dirty Harry or Twilight Zone machine during a multi-ball.
 
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