lastknight Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 It's only a fire hazard if someone has defeated the safety measures inherent in A/C wiring. Do you have any idea how many cell phone chargers you could safely run from a 15 am circuit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Sorry if drum corps members want to do something funner with their off time then hitting a wooden wheel with a stick. I'm not sure if they are still around, but back in my day we had these things called books. I could spend hours with them on the road. Didn't have to charge them. Didn't take batteries. Never got stolen, and everyone would trade them around when they finished. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaplac Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) Why would a corps post a picture of something otherwise, then? If they do have a rule for this, that's a +1 for DCI for actually being proactive about something! I don't know about other corps but when I marched we were told that it was a DCI rule because housing sites have reported blown fuses and such. I don't know if this is a DCI rule for sure so it would be wise to double check before jumping to conclusions. As for enforcement, DCI has confidence in it's member corps. There are many rules that aren't directly monitored by DCI but are maintained by the corps management. Edited July 23, 2011 by kaplac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralTsoChicken Posted July 23, 2011 Author Share Posted July 23, 2011 It's only a fire hazard if someone has defeated the safety measures inherent in A/C wiring. Do you have any idea how many cell phone chargers you could safely run from a 15 am circuit? The firecode of many places I've been explicitly states "6 plugs per outlet" and there is no reference to measure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootofthechord Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 (edited) From what I can tell, everybody's going about this the wrong way. It shouldn't matter how many devices are plugged into a single outlet. A circuit overloads when there is too much amperage (current) going through it. Since voltage (V) * amperage (I) = power, we can look at a typical 120-volt, 15-amp outlet and calculate that the maximum load on an outlet is 1800 watts. Here are some typical chargers one might see in a drum corps and their required input wattage: Game Boy Advance - 4 W iPhone - 5 W iPad - 10 W Nintendo DS - 12 W LG Octane (not a smartphone) - 24 W HP laptop (generally rare in drum corps settings) - 65 W Notice that you'd need to have 27 laptops (which very few people bring on tour), 75 LG Octanes, 180 iPads, or 360 iPhones to overload the circuit. Keep also in mind that people don't charge their electronic devices every day, so you won't have 150 people charging their things at once. (The most I ever saw was 53 chargers with a 120-person corps, less than 0.5 devices per person.) It is possible for a corps to overload a circuit, but only in a perfect storm of circumstances. Edited July 25, 2011 by rootofthechord 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adub Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 All the old people are just mad because they didn't have gameboys and ipods when they marched. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corpsband Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 From what I can tell, everybody's going about this the wrong way. It shouldn't matter how many devices are plugged into a single outlet. A circuit overloads when there is too much amperage (current) going through it. Since voltage (V) * amperage (I) = power, we can look at a typical 120-volt, 15-amp outlet and calculate that the maximum load on an outlet is 1800 watts. .... Realistically, the risk of an overload is (no pun intended) way overblown. Additionally the use of powerstrips with circuit breakers actually lowers the risk of a mishap as these breakers will be triggered before the actual circuit breakers on the outlet. The OP is well-intentioned but.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wcmello09 Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 i had 1 charger and a strip. on buses we watched movies and slept. at night i would charge my iphone 3g keep it in the most efficient settings (lowest brightness all the time, no wifi, no push notifications) i could sometimes go 2-3 days without it going below half charge and that was with the occasional trip to dcp and using it as an mp3 player. the only time outlets were ever an issue was in the finals housing site in 09. somehow half the gym's outlets went out and it was most likely from multiple blowdryers being used and it blew the circuit breaker, not cell phones/gameboys. usually there were plenty of outlets available wherever we were. sometimes you see a lot of strips coming from one strip because some members have taped their charger to their strip so there might be multiple strips with just 1 item on the strip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sobe Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 I'm not sure if they are still around, but back in my day we had these things called books. I could spend hours with them on the road. Didn't have to charge them. Didn't take batteries. Never got stolen, and everyone would trade them around when they finished. And you would also do your homework by candle light, on a piece of driftwood that would happen to float on by earlier in the day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liahona Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 (edited) A lot of it. I've asked around today (via text, ironically enough) to a bunch of people still marching. They say that people are averaging 3-4 chargeable devices per person. Many kids have chargeable: 1. Laptops. 2. Phones. 3. MP3 Players. 4. DVD Players. 5. Bed pumps. One person in particular has 6 chargeable devices on tour. We'll be super conservative and say each person only has 2 chargeable devices a piece... That's 300 plugs! Sometimes in tiny gyms. That's just unbelievable...If I only had it that good when I marched.... I had only a small alarm clock than ran on a single battery and used the pay phone on laundry day to call home...I guess times have changed Edited July 25, 2011 by Liahona Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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