I've been playing around with a Kill-A-Watt electricity monitor for the last couple of weeks, measuring the watts for various games when in attract mode. I was surprised at the spread between the highest and the lowest. The best of the bunch? WrestleMania with Stern's new Spike system. Here are the games I tested, along with the wattages, highest to lowest:
Theatre of Magic - 223
Star Wars Episode I - 199
Monday Night Football - 198
Demolition Man - 185
Tri Zone - 133
Power Play - 125
Strikes and Spares - 119
Captain Fantastic - 93
Metallica (Pro) - 88
Medieval Madness (LEDs) - 84
The Walking Dead (Premium) - 82
Star Trek (Premium) - 77
Big Shot - 71
Spanish Eyes - 67
Nip-It - 61
WrestleMania (LE) - 50

#2 7 years ago

AMS

barakandl

nvram.weebly.com

10y 125K 9,593

That is pretty impressive for the new spike system.

#3 7 years ago

MRH

swedishc

Pinside member

Oakland, CA

9y 47,650 473 10 10

Are you testing with incandescent bulbs in the older machines, or LEDs?

#4 7 years ago

STJ

msadan

Main Street Amusements

Lafayette, IN

10y 55,150 173 3

Quoted from swedishc:
Are you testing with incandescent bulbs in the older machines, or LEDs?

Medieval Madness is the only one with LEDs.

#5 7 years ago

CNK

CNKay

Pinside member

East Aurora, NY

12y 70,550 3,438 11 10

Funny jpops spare no expense even on power consumption seems to follow his legacy.

All kidding aside some nice info thanks for collecting.

What did you use to measure? Model brand power meter.

#6 7 years ago

FRX

Frax

Pinside member

Dallas, TX

10y 100K 16,633 3 9 1

OP
Quoted from msadan:
Medieval Madness is the only one with LEDs.

Wrestlemania does too, but that should be obvious.

#7 7 years ago

ORJ

Jenk540i

Pinside+ Member

Arden, NC

8y 66,050 1,089 12 12

I have all my games set to drop to the lowest setting on power saver level (GI illumination power saver setting) after 2 min. Did you test that feature to see what difference it makes?

#8 7 years ago

SLM

Slim64

Pinside member

7y 60,550 2,012

Used to own tri-zone....surprised to see an oldie so far up that list.

#9 7 years ago

STJ

msadan

Main Street Amusements

Lafayette, IN

10y 55,150 173 3

Quoted from Jenk540i:
I have all my games set to drop to the lowest setting on power saver level (GI illumination power saver setting) after 2 min. Did you test that feature to see what difference it makes?

On all of my games where that is an option that's how they are set up. I measured each game for around two hours so the readings should be pretty close to what you would see at the power saver level. Maybe I'll pick a game and try it both ways to see what the difference is. Actually now that I think about it Theatre of Magic is not set to reduce the GI power, maybe that's why it's so high up on the list.

#10 7 years ago

STJ

msadan

Main Street Amusements

Lafayette, IN

10y 55,150 173 3

Quoted from CNKay:
Funny jpops spare no expense even on power consumption seems to follow his legacy.
All kidding aside some nice info thanks for collecting.
What did you use to measure? Model brand power meter.

I used a Kill-A-Watt P-4460. I'm not sure how accurate it is but it's probably okay for comparing various games to each other.

#11 7 years ago

DOG

Whysnow

Pinside member

10y 186K 35,235 10 1

cool stuff

#12 7 years ago

MJO

Mocean

Pinside member

9y 67,900 1,288

All the new sterns have LEDs so those should be low. Possibly led based DMD too?

Old games had very few lamps at all, so I guess that makes sense.

The real shocker is swep1 which is powering both a playfield EoD full of incandescent lamps, but also an older computer and CRT. I guess powering the crt and the trade off for the flourecsent backglass bulb works out even to a lot of incandescence with the old 80v+ plasma DMDs?

#13 7 years ago

LAD

skywalker

Pinside member

Rowville Melbourne

9y 75,900 1,569 1

Thanks for putting this info up, Always wondered this,

#14 6 years ago

ORJ

Jenk540i

Pinside+ Member

Arden, NC

8y 66,050 1,089 12 12

OP
Quoted from msadan:
On all of my games where that is an option that's how they are set up. I measured each game for around two hours so the readings should be pretty close to what you would see at the power saver level. Maybe I'll pick a game and try it both ways to see what the difference is. Actually now that I think about it Theatre of Magic is not set to reduce the GI power, maybe that's why it's so high up on the list.</blockquote

That would be interesting to know.

#15 6 years ago

FMH

yonkiman

Pinside member

Pacific Grove, CA

10y 51,150 591 2

I bet the power difference between attract mode and full-on gameplay isn't very large - for the most part the only difference is having a solenoid firing every second or two. Sound doesn't make much difference.

Good to see Stern seems to have figured it out. I'd guess they went to switching power supplies / switching regulators throughout (so much of the heat / power draw in old machines is from the linear power supply losses) and LEDs (most of the rest of the power is from incandescent lights). Maybe they also have a more modern microprocessor with a good low-power mode.

Now I'm curious about the power draw of the new boutique games...

#16 6 years ago

MEF

LouMatt

Pinside member

10y 76,650 710

Very Cool - thanks for posting this info.

#17 6 years ago

ORJ

Jenk540i

Pinside+ Member

Arden, NC

8y 66,050 1,089 12 12

Would love to see results of same game before power saver mode and then after power saver mode starts.

#18 6 years ago

AUK

ArcadeUpkeep

Benton, PA

10y 52,650 348 21

You could save even more power on your stern machines with a self dimming backbox panel.

http://www.arcadeupkeep.com/backbox-kits/4587457160

Saves over 75% power usage, compared to the fluorescent tube, at full brightness. Over 95% power savings when dimmed, save more power while the power draw is the heaviest!

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