Electrical Buck-a-roo

[BigSteve_G]

Its another long boring day at work for me so I thought I'd share.... a little game we've got going here.

Its kinda like Buck-a-roo but with electrics.

We're currently in a tempory office & are running stuff off electrical extensions that all trace back to just 1 plug (with 13amp (I presume) fuse) - the game? what will it take to overload the plug & trip the electrics?

So far from 1 socket we are running;
3 PCS
3 Monitors (2 CRT type & 1 LCD)
Laser printer
2 Scanners
2 Cordeless phone chargers
1 Mobile phone charger
1 Floor stand fan
1 Photocopier

[xenopeek]

I guess if you have all PCs active on a heavy task, all monitors on at full brightness, and are printing, scanning and photocopying at the same time it might go? I think these devices and chargers don't need much juice in standby

[BigSteve_G]

3 PCS - running for 8hrs
3 Monitors (2 CRT type & 1 LCD) - left on 24/7
Laser printer - left on 24/7 gets about 7hrs very heavy usage
2 Scanners - 1 heavy(ish) use - the other used now & then
2 Cordeless phone chargers - on 24/7
1 Mobile phone charger - left in 24/7
1 Floor stand fan - Now & then
1 Photocopier - Heavy use now & then

Its getting warm in here so I'm thinking dragging an old air-con unit in - that should do it

[AlbertP]

It depends heavily on the hardware used in the PC's. I'd immediately throw away all Intel Pentium 4 computers and replace them with something that's either older or newer, or AMD-based. But probably you already use modern computers.

If you use a modern lower-end computer, so no quad core or high-end graphics card, it won't use over 200-300 W even when at full load (that is 1-2 ampère, when running on 230V). This means you can have at least seven of those computers running, if you don't count the monitors, air conditioning and others.

[BigSteve_G]

The workshop foreman's money is on taking the setup down with 3 24v battery recharges.

Failing that I might just cheat & run an extension cable out to the forklift truck recharging station