Trying Not to Burn My Apartment Down (Multiple system hook up help)

[CastlevaniaDude]

I know there have been threads about this in the past, but I can't find the ones that I'm looking for, so I'll just ask specifically to my situation.

I've got enough stuff accumulated that I want to start hooking it all up at once. I've basically got an LCD TV and an older CRT TV and various devices to switch, split, splice, and upconvert to get these things all hooked up in terms of video cables, etc. simultaneously. That's not the problem.

My question is:

What should I do in terms of plugging things in safely? I only ever plan to have one TV and one system running at best. Maybe both tv's and two systems if I'm having a party.

Here's what I want to plug in. This would be on the same circuit (2 different outlets on the same wall, I'm no electrician but I assume they're the same circuit. Haven't tested on the breaker, though). Not looking to get super specific, just looking for general suggestions. I don't know if daisy chaining power strips is safe or what...

CRT TV, LCD TV, DVR Cable box, Roku 2, Blu Ray Player, NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, SMS, Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, Playstation, TG16, 3DO, Xbox, Wii U, Xbox 360, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari 800XL, Intellivision, Commodore 64, Wii. That's 26 devices in total. The only things that will consistently be on are one of the TVs and the cable box. Everything else will generally be plugged in but dormant.

In the future, I'll probably add an XEGS, PS2, Neo Geo AES, CD-i, Colecovision, Odyssey, Odyssey 2, Ps3, XBOne, PS4, maybe some other things.

Anyone who knows a little about electricity and/or who has experience with this want to offer some suggestions? Thanks a lot.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I wouldn't even have all those things plugged in the same BUILDING at the same time. Even on standby your power bill will go through the roof!

You could probably connect a bunch of systems into various power strips - especially the older systems - then turn them off when they're not in use. This should keep the power bill down. Other people should chime in, but that's what I'd do.

[Ze_ro]

I would say just get some power/video/audio extension cables so that you can hook up your consoles on your coffee table instead of at the TV... just make it easier to switch them out instead of having giant piles of cables stuffed away where you can't get at them.

If you're absolutely set on having everything hooked up, and you're worried about sparks or power drain, just turn off the power strips when you're not using them.

--Zero

[mailman187666]

I'd do what Kitsune said. Right now, at my house, I have the Gen/32x/cd, NES, SNES, 3DO, Saturn, and Atari 2600 set up on power strips that can be switched on and off. I'd probably go with 3-4 systems per power switch so you can choose which group of systems that you'd want to give power to, while the others are completely off. Just label each power strip so you know which system is on which switch, so its not a guessing game as to which one to turn on.

[CastlevaniaDude]

So I'm okay to daisy chain (for purposes of space) as long as the ones (power strips) I'm not using are off, correct? Again, I apologize for my ignorance of electricity.

[Dashopepper]

I'm sure daisy chaining is not the recommended way of doing it but it should be pretty safe. Get a nice surge protected one to plug into the wall outlet and normal ones to go into that. I have one power strip with all Nintendo (Nes,Snes,N64,GC) and one only with sega (gen/cd/32x) and so forth. Be sure to switch them off when not in use to be safe. My child hood SNES was not working a year or two ago, I looked at the power cord and about 6'' had completely burned up. literally just a burn mark on my glass stand where the cord was. I have 17 systems hooked up and its a complete mess so just check your stuff and be careful.

[Rickstilwell1]

Depending on where you live, the power bill in an apartment won't matter very much. Power bills in houses are much larger most of the time while apartments usually have a much lower rate.

[bb_hood]

So I'm okay to daisy chain (for purposes of space) as long as the ones (power strips) I'm not using are off, correct? Again, I apologize for my ignorance of electricity.

If you are concerned about being safe, I just would not daisy chain power strips. Thats just asking for trouble

[Ozy_98]

Here's my work in progress shelving right now:
I didn't make the stand, it came with the house we just moved into. I did repaint it cause it was in bad shape, and I'm going to have 2" wide strips on the front painted black, that's why I didn't bother painting the front fully.

For power, daisy chaining strips isn't as bad as people like to think, look at data centers, their power blocks are really nothing more than power strips. It does however add resistance and a cheap power strip can cause all sorts of issues.

What you will run into is the wall warts eating power. The simple way to check if something's an off-line power hog, feel the power adapter, if it's warm, it's drawing power while off-line. Best setup would be buy some DJ power equipment, so each outlet is on a switch. You can turn systems on\off as needed, and the main equipment, TVs, Stereos, ect, are always on. Just make sure you have a heavy duity cable running to the boxes if you need an extension cable, don't buy it from walmart. That's where you run into issues.

Honestly, video game systems are not going to draw that much power to worry about. Your biggest worry would be shorts in cables.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

I got the same issue now, I got about 17 systems or so around my TV, a small HDMI flatscreen for the PS4, and if I wanna play a particular system I'm always climbing behind the tv to plug it in and hook it up. I really need an efficient way to just switch from one system to the next without sucking up lotsa electricity.

[Ed Oscuro]

Daisy chaining strips is a kinda touchy issue because historically it's been people thinking they could run a bunch of high current draw appliances off the same strip, at the same time. That's a bad idea, but it's also probably a more severe case of playing with fire than you have in mind here. If you're only doing one or two devices at a time it might not be much - but it depends on what you're using, and whether in aggregate they do have high phantom power draw. A Kill-A-Watt could be handy here. Likewise, flipping the switch or unplugging the main strip when not in use is a sure-fire way to stop that problem (I prefer unplugging the main strips, as that affords a much better - basically perfect - protection from power spikes, lightning, and so on).

If you do run a wire or two, make sure that it's a beefy model with a decent amperage rating. A tiny, thin line will heat up more readily as current draw increases, and I see you've got a couple CRTs there.

Personally, I'd rather box things up and keep them out of the dust and dirt when they're not being used. There's not a lot of physical wear problems with classic power warts / plugs.

[mercuryshadow09]

So I'm okay to daisy chain (for purposes of space) as long as the ones (power strips) I'm not using are off, correct? Again, I apologize for my ignorance of electricity.

I don't really see the issue, if you are using power strips most made now have a breaker built in and most likely will not start a fire, anything that does drain phantom power for time or standby light is not going to drain much electricity so you and your wallet should be fine but change the batteries in your smoke detector anyway!

[sfchakan]

I've typically ended up daisy chaining a couple of power strips any time I've had a number of consoles hooked up to one TV at a time. I just shut off the strips I'm not using. No bad experiences yet in my ~28 years of gaming.

[Ozzy_98]

They're a bit much, but http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ATVPDKIKX0DER is a nice item to have if you have the room for it (Ok, not THIS model, this one looks like junk).

For video, you would want a high end switcher like from Extron. The one I have is for RGBHV, so not only can it handle RGB, you can use the RGB plugs for composite and S-Video (Need a splitter for SVideo plugs). They're matrix outputs so you can send input 1 to two tvs, and input 2 to a third if you wanted. Nice if you have a two TV setup, you can play any system on one TV, and friends can play on the secondary. Or on systems with linkup abilities (Playstation for example), you can route the second psx to the backup TV.

[ProjectCamaro]

I have several power strips hooked up together for my retro gaming TV. Whenever I'm not playing games I turn off the main one which stops power from flowing to ANY of them thus saving on energy and helping keeping them safe as well. It's worked really well for me thus far.

[bb_hood]

It's worked really well for me thus far.

Knock on wood, right? Thats the problem, when something goes wrong you might wish you had not had 20 different game consoles hooked up.
Im not saying its likely, but linking power strips together could cause issues.
I have many systems set up and Ive realized that most I use rather infrequently so I just keep them unplugged.
Also having one of those sega trio power adapters is amazing. Its smaller than a regular genesis ac adapter alone.

[Nz17]

Courtesy of Room of Doom member "Gaming the Systems," this is what you need to do:

http://www.digitpress.com/room-of-do..._itemId=412868

That's 44 consoles all ready to go.

For a nice video tour of how it is set up, check out this YouTube video he made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jybepTJHjcI

[Ozzy_98]

That room of doom uses server\dj grade rack mountable power strips like I said, so that's two votes :P Dislike his video switches though, but honestly, it's smaller than my switch and most likely has the same number of button presses.

[Rickstilwell1]

I have several power strips hooked up together for my retro gaming TV. Whenever I'm not playing games I turn off the main one which stops power from flowing to ANY of them thus saving on energy and helping keeping them safe as well. It's worked really well for me thus far.

Just don't plug your Saturn into one of the power strips that gets turned off or your save battery will die faster.

[Nz17]

Just don't plug your Saturn into one of the power strips that gets turned off or your save battery will die faster.

True, and true for any console that uses an internal battery (e.g. SEGA CD and Dreamcast). Though they might not all rely on a battery to keep their save files alive, having them disconnected from some electrical flow will instead use their internal batteries to track the time on their internal clocks... and of course, to keep alive the save files on those which use volatile storage.