Cab power questions

[portnoyd]

Hey guys,

Soon moving to a place of my own, and we already have several cabs to call our own. However, we just learned that the current amp limit is fairly low. What does that mean for our arcade room? How much does the average cab use, amp-wise? Here's the current rundown:

Xenophobe (dedicated)
Dragon Spirit (dedicated)
Neo Geo MVS (dedicated)
MAME Cab (in progress of building)
3 prize/ticket machines with no monitors

What will each one of those draw? We plan on asking the rental office to draw another line to the place, but if we can't, we want to know the likelihood of having our arcade room with everything on at once. :\

Thanks for the help in advance.

dave

[Bratwurst]

Lifted from Arcade Game Buyer's Guide:

A: Speaking in general, the *average* amperage / wattage usage on most standard upright
video arcade and modern electronic pinball machines is:

Amps : 2.0 Amps Min | 10.0 Amps Max - Watts : 300 Watts Min | 1000 Watts Max

Almost all of our standard upright video arcade and modern electronic pinball machines can
be plugged in and played straight out of the box on any standard home or office electrical
system. When thinking of adding 3-4 or more games on one circuit, it may be neccessary
to have a local electrician make a simple upgrade the breaker in your circuit box, which
usually runs from $75-$150, depending on where you live in the country

http://www.bmigaming.com/buygamefaq.htm

[Flack]

I have 15 or so cabinets running off of 3-4 wall outlets. I have fired them all up at once, no problem. The only problem I had was when my wife ran an extension cord and hook up the pool filter to the same breaker. Poof.

[chadtower]

They take a good amount of draw upon power up, but after that, they take little more than a 19" (or 25") TV.

If your apt has a limit THAT low, I'd worry about the place burning down because it's not up to standard code.

[ClubNinja]

Right. Avoid switching them all on at once.

[Stingray]

As the last two said, just turn one on, give it a minute, turn the next on, and so on. They only draw a lot of current right when they start up.

-S