Topic: Power Outage? (Read 5810 times)

Okay thanks for the response.

So it looks like I can only run one rig on each circuit...sucks
And only like 3 circuits are available to me.

The Amperage limit is on your breakers, usually in the garage.  You can't 'up the amperage' without doing some rewiring,

[/color]

I put the super-bold warning in, because it sounds like maybe you don't have much experience with power work.  Apologies if I misunderstood.

Anyhoo, as you say a good solution might be to run one of your mining rigs elsewhere, like in the garage or another room.

So is the only solution just to split up the load between circuits in my house? No one has answered if I can upp this amperage yet.

Desktop backups in series is a really bad idea.  Each one of them introduces another inefficiency, so you're drawing MORE power from the wall every time you add in another one.

I think you'll find that most units won't even WORK in series -- all the batteries are likely to start discharging at once.  Something about rectified square waves vs. sine waves, etc.  Not an engineer, don't even play one on TV.

Having thought about it, it is not good, but probably not as bad as it sounds. Batteries don't like very quick discharges or charges. You will probably degrade the batteries faster.

Otherwise, you would have them fail and recover in series. It would be a pain to get any power monitoring software to work correctly.

Sllightly offtopic, how bad an idea would be to set a few weaker UPS in series instead of using just a big one?

If you're running Linux, you can write a simple script that stops your miners when you have a power failure and your UPS kicks in. And even one that restarts them when the power comes back on.

I think this is a bad idea. If you are tripping the breaker, your are overheating the wiring. You really should wait at least 5 minutes before rearming the breaker.

IlbiStarz needs to put each machine on a separate circuit as far as I can tell. He/she already started the circuit mapping by tripping the breaker. IlbiStarz, you did write down what plugs and lights were on the breaker that tripped, right? For lights you can estimate the power draw by adding up the ratings on the bulbs.

PS: For running off of battery power for any length of time, you probably want your rig to draw less than 60W. I think it may be feasible for me to do some mining using solar power at 12watts. 12 Watts is 288 Watt-hours (1.04 MJ) per day. A 12V battery would need a capacity of at least 24 Amp-hours to supply that much load all day (6 amp-hours for a 48V battery). You will want to be able to fully charge the battery in full sun during the day. To do this, the solar panels must charge the battery within ~8 hours (preferably 6). That will take at least 36Watts (assuming 100% battery efficiency) + the 12Watts you are constantly drawing (48 Watts). Round up to a 60Watt panel. For a 60Watt load, you need to multiply all those numbers by 5 (30 amp-hour 48 Volt battery, 300 Watts of panels).

Why am I bringing this up? A UPS loosing power in the form of waste heat will make the breaker problem worse. Sure, you may be able to run for 5 minutes while the wire cools. But then, you will trip the breaker immediately because your 1600 Watt load will become 2000 Watts as you charge the UPS battery. Note: batteries take at least an hour to charge; if you don't want to degrade them over time.

PPS: power usage for computers is difficult to estimate without actually using a watt-meter. Most power supply calculators online over-estimate the power requirements to sell you a bigger power supply. Cheap power supplies can't even supply their rated power. In other words: if both rigs have approximately the same hardware, they should have approximately the same power draw, despite the power supply ratings.

PPPS: for ball-park, 30W for board + rated CPU wattage + Rated GPU wattages + 6W/ hard-disk).

Every circuit breaker in the breaker box will have an Amp rating.  Usually 10-20 if I remember correctly.  Go check out the breaker box and there should a b number on the breaker itself.

Wow expensive XD

Okay, so how do I see how many amps each of the circuits in my house can take? And is there any way to upgrade this? I've moved the 2nd computer for now, but my 3rd rig may give me trouble..

UPS stands for "Uninterruptible Power Supply".  It's basically a power strip that has a battery built into it so it can switch over to battery power if the main power drops.  Most office stores, department stores etc., will sell a few of them.  Big brands are APC and Cyberpower.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=72&name=UPS

Is UPS a power strip or something?

My power supples are a 80+ Gold NZXT 850w and Corsair TX950 watt, so they aren't crappy or anything.

UPS' are great and definitely should be a must have on any machine that you put more than a few hundred dollars into, but there's one problem.  You need some hefty UPS' to handle the big 850-950 watt PSU's.  I have a UPS that's rated for 1350 watts with a single 850 PSU rig plugged into it.  It's drawing 700-725 watts at max load.  UPS tells me it has a total of 4 minutes runtime when the power goes out.

Don't expect some 300 or 500 watt UPS to keeps your rigs running.  While it's probably better than a power strip for conditioning the power and protecting from spikes, it'll probably drop immediately if the power goes out.

A Line Conditioner as well as a UPS should fix minor load balancing issues.

Perhaps acquiring an UPS for your rigs would be profitable in the long term, keeping them mining while you go rearm the breaker?

Cut down your GPU overclocks, or upgrade your PSUs to 80 PLUS Gold certified PSUs.

The way homes are wired, each "circuit" goes to several different plugs. The assumption is that you won't put too much load on any of them. Where high-drain appliances are expected (like the kitchen), the top plug may be on a separate circuit from the bottom plug. At least in my house, those are still shared among 2 receptacles (found by breaker trip when both microwave and electric frying pan were on at the same time: fixed by using the second circuit).

I calculated in another thread that you can only draw about 960 Watts continuously from a 120V, 15amp circuit if your power supply has a poor power factor (of 0.67 (4 of 12 amps are wasted)). The kill-a-Watt (and similar meters I assume) will tell you the power factor of the load. What is actually important is current draw. If you have an old or cheap power supply, it will have an approximately capacitive load. That causes the current draw to lead to voltage. At the zero-crossing of the wave-form; you are heating the wires with current, but supplying no power (power=current x voltage).

The good news is that the power company does not charge small users for their power factor: only wattage consumed. The bad news is that if you have very bad power factor (anything below 0.9 is bad), you can't use as much power without overloading the circuit. Power supplies with Active Power Factor Correction should give you good power factor. I have also found vacuum cleaners employ power factor correction as well: probably in the form of a capacitor (capacitive load) in parallel with the motor (inductive load).

I think just about the only way to know which plugs and light fixtures are on what circuit is to systematically turn off the  (smaller) breakers one at a time to see where the power goes out. To be honest, I have not yet done that in my own home. It will likely inconvenience all of the other power users

Do you mean 15amp 120volt for each plug or each circuit? My computers were connected to different plugs so i think you mean circuit...
Any way to increase the max wattage then? Ill only be able to run 1 computer on each circuit then

Your average 15Amp 120 volt receptacle will spit out 1,800 watts maximum. It is only recommended to operate at 80% continuous load however, or 1,440.

I hope you are paying your parents at least $50/month for using so much electricity!

Check the fuse box, it might be labeled there. While you're at it, you could check the amperage of the fuse on your circuit, so you know if you're pushing it or not. And get your own power meter (http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU). All the kids in school will think you're cool if you have one. Not the mentioning the girls. You'll be chasing them away like flies.

If you want to impress your dad, ask dad to whip out the home wiring diagram. If he asks why, tell him you want to fight communism.