Classic Gamer Powerstrip Solutions: I don't want to die in a house fire for video games.

[Dormond]

Okay, so I'm working on putting together a new gaming and entertainment room in the coming weeks and I've been trying to figure out how to devise the most elegant solution to get all my systems plugged up that will 1.) not burn my house down and 2.) not suck up a huge amount of power. I'm posting here to get second opinions as to if I'm setting up a risk of doing that.

Here are the powered devices I'm going to be working with.


HD TV
HDMI Switch
Cable Box
xRGB Mini "Framemiester"
NES
SNES
Gamecube
Wii U
Xbox
Xbox 360
Playstation 2
Playstation 3
Playstation 4
Genesis Model 1
Sega CD Model 2
Saturn
Dreamcast

The space I'm working with will have 3 different duplex outlets within reach of my systems cords. (Meaning 6 places to plug things up.)

Here's what I have in mind. In one duplex outlet I plug a strip and plug up the "always on" devices. I can turn this strip off, but these would be the devices that more or less always need to be active when using my set up. I also chose this set up means I can watch TV and Blu-Rays without ever turning on a second power strip.


HD TV
HDMI Switch
Cable Box
xRGB Mini "Framemiester"
Playstation 4 (it gets smart with me if I shut off my power strip without shutting it all the way down, so I'm putting it here.)

At the second duplex outlet I will plug a second and third power strip. These ARE NOT daisy chained, simply plugged into different outlets in the duplex. I'd only turn on the strip with the device I am currently using at any given time and when I'm not using any of them, they both remain off.

So it would be like this...

Strip A

NES
SNES
Gamecube
Genesis Model 1
Sega CD Model 2
Saturn

Strip B

Wii U
Xbox
Xbox 360
Playstation 2
Playstation 3
Dreamcast

In short, at most I'd have two strips active at any given time and they would be plugged into separate duplex outlets. I'd never have more than 1 strip active in a single outlet.

So the question remains, is this safe? I know NOTHING about this subject and I'm sure someone here has more experience with this stuff than I do. I assume shutting off the strips when not in use reduces the cost of electricity, but does anything about this prove to be a fire hazard?

If I did a poor job explaining all of this, sorry I'll try to explain it better. Anyway, thanks for any help and sorry for the long post.

[celerystalker]

The biggest thing is if they're all on the same circuit. It's best to leave strips not in use switched off, and if you're planning to be out for an extended period or are in the area of a potential electrical storm, unplug them. Use quality strips with proper surge protection, and ensure you have a good breaker for the circuit they're plugged into.

[Dormond]

The biggest thing is if they're all on the same circuit. It's best to leave strips not in use switched off, and if you're planning to be out for an extended period or are in the area of a potential electrical storm, unplug them. Use quality strips with proper surge protection, and ensure you have a good breaker for the circuit they're plugged into.

I honestly don't know how to tell if they'll be on the same circuit. Anything to help me here? Feel free to talk to me like I'm dumb, lol. I tried to take a course in electricity and electronics once and ended up having to drop it, so know this stuff is pretty beyond me.

As for turning the strips off, I typically do do that when I'm not using them anyway, but sometimes I get lazy or forget. I always unplug everything during storms or long time away from the house though.

I'm also going to try and keep powered on devices to a minimum. At most, I'll have something like Television, HDMI Switch, xRGB Mini, Sega Genesis, and Sega CD all powered on at once, with the later two running on a separate strip.

Are there any good suggestions for power strips? What do I need to look for?

[celerystalker]

To tell if you're on the same circuit, plug in one simple device like a lamp or night light in each outlet. Then, flip the breaker for that part of the house and see if they all go out, or just some. That's the quick way. Any outlet that loses power is on that circuit.

As far as power strips go, you'll see on the packaging what sort of current they are rated for, as well as safety features (most commonly a simple fuse). Several offer surge damage guarantees, but you'll want to read those terms thoroughly, as proper use and not chaining strips is part of the deal in most cases.

[Aussie2B]

That sound perfectly safe to me. If anything, if you're putting too much strain on a power strip, it'll probably shut itself off on its own, like when I tried powering my vacuum with the same strip that was powering my AC, which combined I'm sure drains a lot more electricity than a bunch of systems that are all off except for one.

You could always try to consolidate, though. There's backwards compatibility with some of those systems, of course, and if that's not appealing to you, you could do cable swapping at the backs of the systems with some at least, if you place the systems in proximity and can reach the back of them. The Saturn, Dreamcast, and non-slim PS2 all use the same kind of cable, I believe. The Nintendo systems are a no-go in that regard (even though the NES and SNES bricks look similar they are definitely NOT exchangeable), but I don't have all the Sony and Microsoft systems you have so I can't say on those.

Though if you're reaching to your second and third strips to turn them on and off when you want to play stuff, anyway, why not just keep the plugs somewhere accessible nearby and plug them in when needed?

[RP2A03]

You will be fine as long as you don't turn everything on at once. If you are still concerned, you could add the rated current draw of everything you would actually have running at once.

[Einzelherz]

Maybe I'm dumb, but I just use an extension cord to move to each wall wart lying with their prongs facing up. I don't need to be able to turn on any/every system at any moments notice though.

[bb_hood]

For your sega systems you can get one of those Sega Trio power adapters, you can hook up genesis, sega cd, and 32x though one ac adapter.
Totally worth it, even though they cost like 30 or 35$. It makes owning a 32x worthwhile (especially if you own an everdrive)
Otherwise, I would just suggest not plugging them all in at once. Personally I dont jump around between systems all that often. With me its more like I play just my NES for a few months, then kinda switch over to Turbo Grafx or SNES for a month, and lately Ive been playing Saturn alot.
I also think that having them plugged in constantly causes the AC adapters to wear down faster. Maybe its just me but I have had 3 SNES ac adapters fail on me within the last few years (nintendo brand ones, not 3rd party crappy ones).

[Dormond]

For your sega systems you can get one of those Sega Trio power adapters, you can hook up genesis, sega cd, and 32x though one ac adapter.
Totally worth it, even though they cost like 30 or 35$. It makes owning a 32x worthwhile (especially if you own an everdrive)
Otherwise, I would just suggest not plugging them all in at once. Personally I dont jump around between systems all that often. With me its more like I play just my NES for a few months, then kinda switch over to Turbo Grafx or SNES for a month, and lately Ive been playing Saturn alot.
I also think that having them plugged in constantly causes the AC adapters to wear down faster. Maybe its just me but I have had 3 SNES ac adapters fail on me within the last few years (nintendo brand ones, not 3rd party crappy ones).

The Trio looks great, thanks for the tip. Sadly the guy who makes the it has shut his store down until further notice or else I would buy one. I still will buy one once he's open for business again. As for me, I've never had an AC adapter go out in the 20 years I've owned any of these systems. I've used the same NES, SNES, and Genesis adapters since I was a kid.

[Az]

Talk about coincidence. I'm reading this thread on my phone due to my desktop being out of commission at the current time. Reason being that after a tree took down a power line at around 3am the repairmen fucked up and cut the power back on prior to checking my house, which resulted in a non-stop power surge for about 2 hours. We woke up due to the smoke from burning plastic which was from two Philips brand surge protectors that were _on fire_. If we weren't at home the house would have burnt to the ground and if we didn't wake up we'd have all been fucking dead.

In all I had 6 surge protectors with thousands of dollars of equipment plugged into them. I'll post a separate thread in a few days once I get all this lined out and list which brands actually saved the equipment and which ones _will burn your fucking house down_.

[Dormond]

Talk about coincidence. I'm reading this thread on my phone due to my desktop being out of commission at the current time. Reason being that after a tree took down a power line at around 3am the repairmen fucked up and cut the power back on prior to checking my house, which resulted in a non-stop power surge for about 2 hours. We woke up due to the smoke from burning plastic which was from two Philips brand surge protectors that were _on fire_. If we weren't at home the house would have burnt to the ground and if we didn't wake up we'd have all been fucking dead.

In all I had 6 surge protectors with thousands of dollars of equipment plugged into them. I'll post a separate thread in a few days once I get all this lined out and list which brands actually saved the equipment and which ones _will burn your fucking house down_.

Wow man, hope everything is okay. I notice you live in Ky too, was that from the storms that came through lately? Trees were down everywhere in my neck of the woods.

Look forward to seeing that list. It would definitely be good to know how these things handle a worst case scenario.

[drunk3nj3sus]

In all I had 6 surge protectors with thousands of dollars of equipment plugged into them. I'll post a separate thread in a few days once I get all this lined out and list which brands actually saved the equipment and which ones _will burn your fucking house down_.

Shitty that happened but thankfully it wasn't worse, a list of surge protectors that made it through that would be a good quality guide since that's a hell of a stress test.

To the OP you should be fine as long as you get good surge protected strips and don't leave a bunch of systems on at the same time. I don't think the way you have it laid out will work so well though since a lot of the older systems use the bricks so you'll probably have to split them across the two. Personally I unplug all my modern systems if I'm not using them just because the "idle" lights annoy me. Since you said all 3 of the outlets are close enough for all the cords to reach I'd venture to guess that they're all on the same circuit, while what you're running shouldn't draw a whole lot of power I'd check to see if any major appliances are on that circuit as well and see if it's possible to move them to an outlet on a different circuit so you don't run the risk of overloading the circuit. Another thing to keep in mind with that many systems is to have a decent amount of space around the more modern systems so their cooling fans aren't blocked, it's not really a fire risk but a lot of them run fairly hot inside in an ideal setting so it doesn't take a whole lot for them to overheat which can cause damage, happened to an xbox that I had crammed into an entertainment center shelf that it barely fit in before.

[TheBenenator]

Big warning: those surge protector strips use metal-oxide varistors, which have a hard limit on how many Joules of power surge they can absorb (total, not per-surge) before they fail and become just ordinary power taps.

Have a competent electrician install a series mode surge protector, or have your landlord do it if you don't own the house. These suppress surges coming in from the power line and have a long life in typical use (assuming they're installed correctly); they do require the outside feed to be disconnected during installation, and they tend to be >US$130, but they protect the whole house.

*DO* still use the surge protection strips, of course -- many, many surges (rarely more than 35 Joules) happen from INSIDE the home, when appliances turn on/off (washing machines, driers, refrigerators, CRT TVs, etc), and replace them every 10 years or so -- just not by themselves if you can help it.

[dendawg]

Also OP, you may want to consult an electrician and have the outlets you're using replaced with GFCI outlets, as an extra layer of protection.