LAN Party and Electrics

Storm3y

Storm3y

Storm3y

Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2009
Posts
783
Location
Beijing
Hi,

We're having a LAN party at a house. There will be 20 computers and 20 monitors need to be plugged in.


Any sparky have any suggestions on the electrical requirements and how to do this? Obviously we'll need to buy extension leads etc. but can we plug them all in the same room or should it be plugged in different rooms across the house?


Cheers
 
You should be fine having them all plugged in to a single ring main. I would say use a 8-gang extension per socket, which will allow you plug 4 PC's + 4 monitors into a single socket. So 5 sockets in total for your 20 PC's. That way the load is nicely spread.
 
It's more the case of how many rings you have in your house. 99% of the time a ring is rated at 32amps so at 230v you could in theory have up to 7200w drawn from it.

This could be split over two floors if you have two ring mains (most houses have one up one down).

But average pc is what 500w? So 14 pcs to a ring excluding the monitor.

Do 10 pc/monitors on each ring and you should be absolutely fine.
 
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Assuming a total of 550w per PC with monitor, I'd expect about 11kw. I'm not sure a single ring main could handle this.
 
darael said:
Assuming a total of 550w per PC with monitor, I'd expect about 11kw. I'm not sure a single ring main could handle this.
Click to expand...

That works out at about 45 Amps at 240V.

EDIT : If he could spread the load across both the upstairs ring and the downstairs ring then he certainly will be fine.
 
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Mynight said:
80amps? How old is your house?

Just interested I've haven't come across anything that large before.
Click to expand...

I've just checked my Consumer unit. You're right. The 80A I was thinking of was the RCD trip. My actual ring mains are both rated at 32 A.
 
Arrgh must admit I was surprised. Biggest main fuse I've ever seen on a domestic property was 120amps.

Easy mistake though it's not something most people think about everyday.

Thanks for confirming :)
 
That much IT equipment might give you RCD trips from the leakage current, rough figure was to allow 3.5ma per workstation and RCD will probably go Approx 24ma minus existing house leakage so maybe 18ma of headroom most houses trip at.

Might be problematic.

Would be best to split across as many rings and RCDs as poss, depends on how house is wired / what type of cu you have etc.

ps. you could have as little as a 60a main fuse - so all those pcs + someone wants a shower etc, shoud run to 90a before going anways 1.5x etc
 
Good point about the smaller incoming fuse.

I guess if op could give his fuse board specs and a guesstimate at the average pc power coming we could give a more solid answer.
 
Please post CU spec, weather it's just MCB's, RCD'ed, RCBO's (split with both?) etc...

How many ring main's do you have at your CU? You need to also identify which sockets are on which ring main (if you have more then one).
 
Unless people are running SLI, etc. sustained gaming loads per system will be probably closer to 400watt on average.

In the past we've rented conference rooms at nearby hotels as they usually have the electrics specced well enough to handle ~20 people gaming.
 
Just dont all boot up at the same time and make sure you spread it around the house using long extensions if possible ?

20 is a lot for your average home though I suspect.. Ive been to a lot of LANs in church halls etc and had electrics go when 30+ are booting up..

Going to be a right laugh though if your house can handle it.. All chip in and get a stripper for the night, you can have a last man standing to decide who she strips for while the rest play with their mice :)
 
A bit of a hijack here.
If 10 users equiped with towers & monitors plugged in for a 12 hour session how much would it cost in electricity?

Just a little research for a friend who's son says it only costs about a £1.
 
Dimple said:
A bit of a hijack here.
If 10 users equiped with towers & monitors plugged in for a 12 hour session how much would it cost in electricity?

Just a little research for a friend who's son says it only costs about a £1.
Click to expand...

well a kWh is anywhere from 10-15p a hour per kw, so over 12 hours I guess your looking at about £5 at least maybe up to £8 for the 12 hours.
 
Dimple said:
A bit of a hijack here.
If 10 users equiped with towers & monitors plugged in for a 12 hour session how much would it cost in electricity?

Just a little research for a friend who's son says it only costs about a £1.
Click to expand...

mine uses about £1 if that 12 hours a day, have a crappy topup meter so know exactly what I use in each day.


uses around 1.5-2 quid for the whole flat each day.


btw retarded posts because I'm babysitting for friend and their laptop sucks!
if I try t correct any errors it overwrites instead of pushing the text along lol ..... makes correcting even a slight error a whole post rewrite so ARGHHHHH!
 
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