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January 5th, 2004 |
Author: |
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LAN Party Guides : Power Primer Power Budgeting Now that you know what breakers control each outlet, you can begin to see how much power you have in each section. After finding out where the power is, and figuring out where your guests will be, it is time to divide the guests up by circuit. It is really important that they plug into the outlets you want them to. If you do not tell each person on their way in the rules of what to plug into, they will plug where you don’t want them to. It is a simple thing to do, and the fact of the matter is, if they plug in the wrong outlet without you telling them not to, they will blame you. So, now that the guests know not to all plug into the same circuit, you’re one step closer to a good LAN.
Now as far as power requirements go, you should be able to expect each computer to draw in the range of 3 amps. So if you have a 20 Amp breaker, we take 20 divide by 3 and get 6.67. With that number 6 computers should be fine, 7 might be pushing it. It really all depends on what the computers are drawing, if there are speakers, and the monitors they have. It is always better to have fewer people on each circuit, with more circuits being used, than a lot of people on a few circuits. This will be limited to the number of circuits available, as well as the amount of extension cords and strips you have.
Conclusion
This article should have given you the basics on power distribution, budgeting, and safety. For the most part when setting up a LAN party, this will be all you’ll need. For larger LAN parties there are other things to consider, and those will be covered in a later article. With a little planning, and some obedient guests, you should not have many problems with power. There will still be the occasional outage, and you guests will have to accept that, but if you act quickly and know what you’re doing to reset it, they’ll thank you later.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this review, please visit this thread in our forums.
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