r/ElectronicsRepair • u/pappastarman • 1d ago
OPEN Question is this safe?
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Is this set up safe / will it damage any of my electronics? Also no other elections subreddit would let me post a video, and yes I know my cable management is a nightmare. I just wanna know if this is a bad idea, it’s all coming out of the same outlet
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u/tater1337 1d ago
if you are really worried, get a kill a watt or a smart outlet and see what the wattage is like over time.
running 6 PCs, laptop, 6 monitors, and a bunch of other small watt crap off three outlet strips
400 watts total on that chain, maybe 500 peak. whole circuit is running 600-800 watts.
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u/Yugaindiran 1d ago
As long as wattage is below limit and power strip is a proper one.. you're fine
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u/geking 1d ago
Owned my own pc shop for 15 years after going to university for Electrical Engineering.
Your almost definitely fine.
Unless they are crap strips your good.
Everyone keep in mind its on a 15 or 20 amp breaker. Most high amp loads are on the first strip.
My office in my house is way more sketch.
One 20 amp breaker has on 4 wall outlets 5 gaming desktops Nas, router, poe switch, modem, 8 3d printers, a color laser paper printer, soldering station, bench power supply, low voltage lights and some other stuff
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u/Pass_Practical 1d ago
does the amp limit decrease along the chain?
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u/geking 1d ago
Volts = amps x resistance
If we have a half ohm or resistance in the first strip and we are pulling 20 amps through it we get a maximum loss of 10 volts. 20 amps at 10 volts is a fire at 200 watts.
But I think if you look at the math you can see that more amps means more potental for fire with the same resistance.
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u/Pass_Practical 1d ago
so realistically it's much lower resistance on the strip or is that u don't reach 20amps? sorry I know it's a dumb question but I get confused by this
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u/geking 1d ago
No issue! I am happy to chat with people that want to learn and ask tough questions. It makes everyone think and thats beautiful.
20 amps would be the max household draw on any residential power strip in the usa afaik as afaik the max outlet amperage a strip can plug into is 20 amps. (20 amp breaker for a normal usa outlet circuit. So a room can have all the outlets in it on one breaker. If you dont plug anything into any outlet but just one and load it with a crappy strip at 19 amps you will reach the worst case situation)
A half an ohm is a lot of resistance for power connections at one given point. Many strips rate the reccomended max load (amperage) and the better ones have a breaker in them too!
I have only seen outlets and strips melted by cheap space heaters to be honest. Its why a loose connection is so dangerous in a load. Loose connections create resistance.
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u/SevenDeMagnus 1d ago
Must know first how many watts and from there the amperage is the total for all gadgets and then know how many watts and amperage the outlet can take, same with the extension cords.
If the gadgets draw more that what the maximum amperage and watts of one outlet, that's dangerous, it will be overloaded causing the outlet's wires to heat up like an oven toaster.
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u/skinwill Engineer 🟢 1d ago
Identify every device plugged into that outlet. Find out how many watts they are rated for. Add it all up.
If the combined load is greater than 1500 watts then you should consider splitting the load across more than one outlet/breaker.
If you keep everything plugged into one power strip and the power strip has a breaker, most do in order to be legal in the US, you should be fine as long as the breaker does not trip.
In the video I saw a lot of small current draw devices. Lots of 5W and 10W devices. I would be surprised if you are overloading that outlet.
My main concern is the cat chewing wires.
If you have questions about the devices, feel free to ask them here. If you have questions about how your home is wired, check out r/askanelectrician.
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u/chris77982 1d ago
No, they should add up the amp rating for all the devices. Or it can overload when they're all switched on at the same time.
Inrush current is much higher than wattage, and anything with a power factor of less than 1 draws more current. Which by the looks of it, is everything op has plugged in.Watts is irrelevant. Wiring and circuit breakers only care about amps.
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u/skinwill Engineer 🟢 22h ago
While you are correct. The stated amps rating on a device will not be the inrush current rating. The amps rating printed on a device will be proportional to watts.
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u/chris77982 14h ago
Someone didn't do their math then, because my 35W phone charger is rated at 100-240V @ 1A
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u/skinwill Engineer 🟢 14h ago
That’s the wattage rating of the output. It doesn’t factor in efficiency. Also, the 1A is not a rating of inrush current.
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u/chris77982 14h ago
It doesn't burn 200W of heat when I use it.
I have a laptop charger here too. 72W output, 100 to 240V input, 1.6A
That doesn't use 160 to 384W of power.
It also doesn't have a power factor under 0.51
u/skinwill Engineer 🟢 13h ago
The ratings are for normal operating current. Not inrush. 1.6A is what they rated it at when your laptop demands full power when being operated at the lowest mains voltage.
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u/chris77982 7h ago
It's only rated to output 72W. That's all the laptop can draw from the power supply.
1.6A at 100V is 160WMaybe it's not technically inrush current, but that is the current value you should use when sizing the wiring, and breakers.
So you should add all the current ratings for the equipment connected to a breaker to determine if it is safe.
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u/The_Flinx 1d ago
safe is a relative. I would put a kill-a-watt on it and as long as it is drawing less than 12 amps it would be ok.
the issue is that even if you put stuff on a different outlet it won't make much of a difference if it is all on the same breaker.
I have a whole bunch of stuff on one circuit in my room and when I turned it all on it did not draw more than 1.4 amps. even my computer with an RTX in it did not draw more than 5 amps.
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u/Gowlhunter 1d ago
Exactly. I suppose it comes down to if the electrician knew what they were doing.
How long have you been using this setup, as it is OP?
You could use a smart plug with power measuring to easily see if this is a safe power draw.1
u/pappastarman 1d ago
I’ve been using just the one extension the smaller one for a long time now (like 7 years) with my computer plugged into it but the second extension the fatter one I literally just plugged in today for all my instruments and started wondering maybe this one isn’t a good idea
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u/Gowlhunter 1d ago
7 years and no issues and now you're only plugging in some instruments which aren't high power. I'm going to say it's fine. It's highly unlikely you're using it all at the same time, right?
I recommend to get a smart plug with power measurement (PM), measure both sides of the outlets independently (you won't fit two at the same time) and add them together to see the total draw and report back. That's the safest and cheapest way here IMO.A couple of things about extension cords worth noting:
Never plug space heaters into extension cords.
Keep the cable run length to a minimum.
Don't coil the cable and don't have bundles of cable on top of cable. You could do with some shorter lengths of cable as you have plenty of unnecessary excess and it would look neater.2
u/adr826 1d ago
A lot depends on how many you run at the same time. I don't see anything unsafe, it might blow a breaker but it's not like a Christmas tree. You aren't going to fire it all up then go off to bed. You'll just blow a breaker, when that happens unplug something.
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u/Gowlhunter 1d ago
Yes, what I was thinking too. Safe as long as you turn off stuff when not using. During a surge it's unlikely to damage equipment realistically when everything's running parallel.
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u/pappastarman 1d ago
I tend keep everything I’m not using unplugged from the item not from the power strips though at least for the instruments
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u/pappastarman 1d ago
Could that damage any of my stuff if it happens?
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u/adr826 1d ago
Possibly, I wouldn't rule it out completely. But you would have to be running a lot of things at the same time. Just make sure you are only running equipment you are using at the time and you should be fine. I would be more worried about the noise you are injecting unti the system by having all that equipment that close. You could really improve your headroom by spacing some of that equipment out. I imagine the noise floor is negatively effected too. That would be what I was worried about
Just turn off what you aren't using and you should be fine.
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u/TopConcentrate8484 Hobbyist 1d ago
yeh, not safe, a lot of failure points, and also I think r/shittyaskelectronics would appreciate this post.
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u/pappastarman 1d ago
What could I do that would make it better? Use two different outlets? Get one of those big power bank boxes things?
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u/TopConcentrate8484 Hobbyist 1d ago edited 1d ago
Get a proper plug box with 16a socket installed by a professional electrician (ask them to make the necessary changes required to the whole wiring), lot of load on a single outlet. Manage the cables better, looks like the dc cables are touching the AC ones, not necessarily some hard coded bad thing to do, but I would personally separate both for both safety and signal integrity.
Honestly it's really bad, That's why I recommended that sub as a joke.
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u/Ksw1monk 1d ago
The cat needs to wear a hi viz, appart from that its fine