I was doing some gameroom planning and am wondering about electricity requirements. I used my kill-a-watt on a pin to get some idea about consumption. I used WCS. It seems to use a little over 1 amp at most times, but there are some interesting spikes. I thought the ball motor might use a lot, but it didn't. But when a magnet activates the power usage can spike to 5 amps. I still need to check some older Williams games and modern Sterns, has anyone done this?

Has anyone run into issues with triggering circuit breakers? What current and how many pins did you have that triggered? It seems if several machines are being played at once and you happen to activate magnets on multiple it could easily overload. I suppose that'd be a rare coincidence though.

I'm basically wondering what's a safe value to determine number of pins on a circuit. Maybe about 1.5A/per, about 14 pins on a 20-amp circuit. Anyone have some real world experience?

Oh yes, the WCS was LED'd... that's a good point. I should measure some non-LED'd.

Interesting variety of experience so far. Would really like to know who's triggered a breaker and the circumstances!

Also, anyone have thoughts on how to load test a circuit? It looks like you can buy some testers for $150-$200. I wonder if a tool rental place has these. Any other ideas? Line up some space heaters maybe...

Yeah, my measurements suggest 18 pins on 20A would be about acceptable if no unusual circumstances (multiple magnets) triggered on pins simultaneously. I wouldn't be confident in that level though. I have two opposite walls where I can put about 14 each, and each wall has 20A. I think I will upgrade the breaker to at least 25A maybe a bit more.

I'm going to do some more consumption readings on various pins this weekend, and will update here. I also realized, will be interesting to see if shaker produces some spiking.

Damn wire thickness... thanks for that reminder!

Ha... funny that it's recommended for the LOTR magnet though... I suppose it's safe sometimes...

Excellent, I may be golden, thanks for weighing in. But if I knew an electrician who'd do it for around $300, I'd upgrade the breakers and wire on my 2 circuits. I may call around. Anyone know someone in Seattle?

Oh yeah, I have the kill-a-watt, I mentioned using it earlier. I'm talking about load-testing the circuit, ie. putting a load on the circuit to see exactly how much it would take to trigger the breaker.

Wow, there's a Vid's guide for this too, didn't think to look for that, well done.

I did a bit more consumption testing on some machines (note, all LED'd):

Game, Idle, Playing, Max

WCS (WPC), 1.2, 1.4-2, 4.6 (magnet)
T3 (Whitestar), 1, 1-2, 2.5
ST Prem (Sam), 1, 1-3, 5.5 (magnet)
Black Knight (W7), 1.2, 1-2, 3 (both magnets)

Yes, it's definitely the magnets that max the current. That explains why you can trigger the breaker with 4 or 5 if you're unlucky, but also can run 14 simultaneously.

I'd be curious to know how a machine like TAF that uses the Power magnet continuously would measure.

But the max number is clearly machine dependent and related to magnet features and their usage.