kushmaster818
Smash Rookie
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2015
- Messages
- 11
Hello, since yesterday's power outage at MVG's Sandstorm I thought I would share some electrical knowledge to help TO's power up their tournaments safely without worrying about electrical issues. Aside from playing smash I am a certified electrician for special events and deal with power consumption daily.
I will attempt to explain this as simply as possible, if anything is unclear or if you have any questions feel free to ask. Note: this is written for use with the U.S. 120 volt power systems, European power systems are different so I won't cover that.
so what is electricity?
for our purposes it breaks down into three parts; Volts, Amps and Watts.
Volts: the potential power. (the power coming out of the wall outlet)
Amps: The amount of power being used. (using 5 setups on 1 wall outlet uses X amount of Amps)
Watts: The measurement of power a device consumes. (a 27" sony trinitron takes about 150 Watts)
so how does this come into play for running a tournament?
well, have you ever been to a tournament and seen a surge protector plugged into another surge protector so that multiple setup can run on the same wall outlet? ever stop and wonder how many setups can one outlet handle? the answer varies, it all depends on the combined amount of watts your setups consume and the amp rating on the breaker.
the most common wall outlet breakers are rated at 15 amps, exceeding the amp rating will cause that breaker to pop and thus power goes out.
so how do you prevent exceeding the breaker's amp rating and popping the breaker? the answer is math. you have to calculate the power load to ensure your setups aren't consuming more power than the breaker can handle.
this is the equation used to calculate amps:
Watts ÷ Volts = Amps
let's try this in a scenario,
let's say you're running a tournament in a venue with only one wall outlet that is on a breaker rated at 15 amps. You have nine gamecubes and nine 27" sony trinitron crt and a couple surge protectors. Can you safely have all those setups running on that one outlet?
lets find out!
the TV's are 150watts a peice, thats 1350watts combined for all nine.
the cubes are 23watts a peice, 207watts combined for all nine.
so the load is 1557watts for our setups.
we live in America so the voltage is 120volts.
so when we put that info into the equation we get:
1557(watts) ÷ 120(volts) =
12.975 Amps
since we have a breaker rated at 15 amps so we are Good! Game On!
of course not all TV's use the same wattage, I've seen some as low and 30 watts and as high as 500 watts. check the label on the back of your tv to see its wattage.
also, it is common for multiple wall outlets to be linked to the same breaker, don't assume that having three outlets gives you three individual 15amp breakers, there's a chance you only have 15amps total between the three outlets. check with the venue's maintenance / engineer to find out how much power is accessible in the given space. this is important especially if you have a tournament with over 50 setups, calculate the load and distribute the setups so that no breaker is overloaded. electricity is no joke, safety is priority, the last thing you need is a fire during grand finals. hope this helps and sorry if someone else has already explained this.
GGz
I will attempt to explain this as simply as possible, if anything is unclear or if you have any questions feel free to ask. Note: this is written for use with the U.S. 120 volt power systems, European power systems are different so I won't cover that.
so what is electricity?
for our purposes it breaks down into three parts; Volts, Amps and Watts.
Volts: the potential power. (the power coming out of the wall outlet)
Amps: The amount of power being used. (using 5 setups on 1 wall outlet uses X amount of Amps)
Watts: The measurement of power a device consumes. (a 27" sony trinitron takes about 150 Watts)
so how does this come into play for running a tournament?
well, have you ever been to a tournament and seen a surge protector plugged into another surge protector so that multiple setup can run on the same wall outlet? ever stop and wonder how many setups can one outlet handle? the answer varies, it all depends on the combined amount of watts your setups consume and the amp rating on the breaker.
the most common wall outlet breakers are rated at 15 amps, exceeding the amp rating will cause that breaker to pop and thus power goes out.
so how do you prevent exceeding the breaker's amp rating and popping the breaker? the answer is math. you have to calculate the power load to ensure your setups aren't consuming more power than the breaker can handle.
this is the equation used to calculate amps:
Watts ÷ Volts = Amps
let's try this in a scenario,
let's say you're running a tournament in a venue with only one wall outlet that is on a breaker rated at 15 amps. You have nine gamecubes and nine 27" sony trinitron crt and a couple surge protectors. Can you safely have all those setups running on that one outlet?
lets find out!
the TV's are 150watts a peice, thats 1350watts combined for all nine.
the cubes are 23watts a peice, 207watts combined for all nine.
so the load is 1557watts for our setups.
we live in America so the voltage is 120volts.
so when we put that info into the equation we get:
1557(watts) ÷ 120(volts) =
12.975 Amps
since we have a breaker rated at 15 amps so we are Good! Game On!
of course not all TV's use the same wattage, I've seen some as low and 30 watts and as high as 500 watts. check the label on the back of your tv to see its wattage.
also, it is common for multiple wall outlets to be linked to the same breaker, don't assume that having three outlets gives you three individual 15amp breakers, there's a chance you only have 15amps total between the three outlets. check with the venue's maintenance / engineer to find out how much power is accessible in the given space. this is important especially if you have a tournament with over 50 setups, calculate the load and distribute the setups so that no breaker is overloaded. electricity is no joke, safety is priority, the last thing you need is a fire during grand finals. hope this helps and sorry if someone else has already explained this.
GGz