(Topic ID: 280591)

How many pinballs on a single breaker.

By loanguy7171973

3 years ago



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    #1 3 years ago

    How many Pinball machines can I plug into outlets that are powered by a single 20 amp breaker. How many amps does a Typical 99’s DMD pinball pull?

    #2 3 years ago

    If you have a TZ and TAF I wouldn’t go beyond those on one. I’d say 4 is good but I’ve run 5 if they aren’t power hogs.

    LEDs will make a difference for you too. Incandescent GI is like having an extra toaster plugged in.

    #3 3 years ago
    Quoted from EJS:

    If you have a TZ and TAF I wouldn’t go beyond those on one. I’d say 4 is good but I’ve run 5 if they aren’t power hogs.
    LEDs will make a difference for you too. Incandescent GI is like having an extra toaster plugged in.

    It probably indeed depends on the age and lighting used by the machines.

    I have these 6 hooked into a single 20 amp strip plugged into a single 20 amp outlet all going at the same time without issues:
    Attack From Mars Remake LE
    Medieval Madness RE
    STNG
    Munsters Premium
    Stranger Things Premium
    VCab with Intel i7, shaker, high end sound system, 42 inch 4k HDR playfield, and 32 inch 1080p backglass.

    Haven’t thrown the breaker on the strip or the electrical box. I have 4 outlets total for my arcade each receptacle has its own dedicated 20 amp breaker in a dedicated 100amp box.

    If you want I could hook up my power sensor to it this weekend and and get an idea of what the actual active load is. I’ve been meaning to do it but since everything is working I haven’t needed to.

    #5 3 years ago

    Hahaha.

    Now that all my electrical is done of course it turns out Vid wrote a definitive guide. Good show.

    #6 3 years ago

    Here’s two old threads for reference, a ton of people throw nonsense around without a clue.

    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/whats-the-most-amount-of-pinballs-youve-had-on-a-breaker#post-4066012

    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-size-breaker-would-suffice-for-5-6-modern-pins-

    At my arcade we ran over 9 machines on one 20 amp breaker for over a year before the breaker finally gave up the ghost and literally melted. And it turned out it didn’t melt because of the load, it melted because one power supply went bad in one of the games (it was a mix of pins and arcade machine with CRTs) and it would draw insane currents.
    The bad power supply was cooking itself and cooked the breaker too.

    People mention it’s “safe” to put 5 to 6 games on a 20 amp, but a 20amp is rated for way above that. They have tons of safety built into the electrical code to be conservative because they already factor in that some guy will hook up 4 salamanders and the house needs to be built in a way that careless and clueless homeowners won’t accidentally burn it down.

    Here is an AWESOME Facebook post in the operators group. I can copy paste it for you.

    “ I am an Electrical Contractor by trade so I spend a lot of time with these numbers. A non LED pin draws roughly 250w while playing. 200w in attract mode. A 20A circuit at 120v provides 2,400w of power. If all games are being played at once you can have 9 pins on one 20A circuit. 7 pins on a 15A circuit. Games with LED lighting draw roughly 100w so you can do that math as well.”

    https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTEwMjE3NDE1NDA6Vks6MjczODYzMjY2OTc1NDYyNw%3D%3D

    #7 3 years ago
    Quoted from Isochronic_Frost:

    Here’s two old threads for reference, a ton of people throw nonsense around without a clue.
    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/whats-the-most-amount-of-pinballs-youve-had-on-a-breaker#post-4066012
    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-size-breaker-would-suffice-for-5-6-modern-pins-
    At my arcade we ran over 9 machines on one 20 amp breaker for over a year before the breaker finally gave up the ghost and literally melted. And it turned out it didn’t melt because of the load, it melted because one power supply went bad in one of the games (it was a mix of pins and arcade machine with CRTs) and it would draw insane currents.
    The bad power supply was cooking itself and cooked the breaker too.
    People mention it’s “safe” to put 5 to 6 games on a 20 amp, but a 20amp is rated for way way way above that. They have tons of safety built into the electrical code to be conservative because they already factor in that some guy will hook up 4 salamanders and the house needs to be built in a way that careless and clueless homeowners won’t accidentally burn it down.
    Here is an AWESOME Facebook post in the operators group. I can copy paste it for you.
    “ I am an Electrical Contractor by trade so I spend a lot of time with these numbers. A non LED pin draws roughly 250w while playing. 200w in attract mode. A 20A circuit at 120v provides 2,400w of power. If all games are being played at once you can have 9 pins on one 20A circuit. 7 pins on a 15A circuit. Games with LED lighting draw roughly 100w so you can do that math as well.”
    https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTEwMjE3NDE1NDA6Vks6MjczODYzMjY2OTc1NDYyNw%3D%3D

    Seems like Vid was right on the money according to this guy. 6 pins for 80% load, 3 or 4 more would be at 100%.

    #8 3 years ago
    Quoted from thirdedition:

    Seems like Vid was right on the money according to this guy. 6 pins for 80% load, 3 or 4 more would be at 100%.

    Yes, Vid is correct. The electrical engineer is Kyle McAfee in the FB pinball group. People constantly go way too low for their “conservative” numbers. In actuality the code is ALREADY conservative so you’re really cutting back to almost half load. Take full advantage of that breaker!

    My arcade example is 9 because the are never all running at once. But even if you did that at your house for one night for a party, you’d be fine. The point is that even worse case scenario your breaker will handle it.

    8C0DD71A-8316-40CC-B7B4-AC1D6D976DFD (resized).jpeg8C0DD71A-8316-40CC-B7B4-AC1D6D976DFD (resized).jpeg

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