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Blowing Breakers During Gig

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  • October 9, 2015 at 9:36 pm #2269831
    DJ Wyld1
    Participant

    There’s a lot of potential problems any time you plug into power at a venue not “designed” with having a sound system in mind. You could have been on the same circuit as the microwave and every time the kitchen used the microwave – poof… or maybe the fridge, condenser cycle kicks on – poof … I’ve heard of rain water getting into parts of the electrical and causing issues. The potential problems of a venue not having enough power are really endless.

    Here’s a few things you didn’t mention that might help trouble shoot…

    1) Are you on 120V power? 240?

    2) How many Amps was the outlet you were plugging your power strip into rated for?

    3) Are you using a Walmart special power strip or are you using a professional grade power conditioner?

    You may want to consider investing in something like: http://www.furmansound.com/product.php?div=01&id=PL-PRODMC

    It will tell you the power provided by the wall outlet (volts & amps) you plug into as well as the draw (amps) from your system.

    Never trust a “Walmart power strip” to plug your equipment into – EVER!!

    October 10, 2015 at 2:00 am #2269871
    bob6397
    Participant

    Which country are you in?

    Generally, If something keeps tripping in one venue but setup exactly the same in other venues it doesn’t trip, it means that it’s the Venue’s electrical supply that has issues not yours – or it could be a lower rated breaker than you are used to.

    I would generally recommend plugging into multiple ring-mains if at all possible at any venue, especially when running a large sound rig and a large light rig at the same time (although lighting uses a lot less power now that it’s almost all LED.. Suddenly those 500W PAR cans are drawing 20W from the mains.. One install I work at a lot uses a 100A breaker just for the lighting rig! Which maxed out would be 23000W of lighting.. That would blow any ring main..)..

    bob6397

    October 17, 2015 at 3:54 pm #2277771
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    It pays to have good solid (pro-grade) extension cords, power strips and all that.

    Trying to find an unused group helps, but is not always feasible.

    Personally I check in advance if the venue has a 380V (understand this is 400+V in the US) 3-phase connection. Usually that is not in use and I have a block that will give me 6 groups with their own breakers, supplying plenty of “clean” power and no worries about fridges, microwaves or coffee machines.

    December 6, 2015 at 6:45 pm #2309961
    DJ KR3DiT
    Participant

    Thank you everyone who all posted and helped me on this. Sorry for not reposting sooner, but life has been busy and hectic. I have up graded my power equipment and so far so good. Have a big gig coming up this week that’ll really test everything out so we’ll see. Thanks again for the inputs and valuable information, I appreciate it very much.

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