John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi,
I am now thinking about electricity and have a question:
how many amperes should a socket deliver ?
In house construction, It is 10A for light, 16A for usual sockets, 20A for washing machine and it goes up to 32A for an electric cooker.
I wonder for a all tube 400W Ampeg ? :+D

Thanks
Alex

The questions should probably be how much amperage will a particular CIRCUIT need and whether you have heavy enough wires and circuit breakers to accomplish it.

If you know that a single rooms outlets are the ONLY thing on a particular circuit ( or "home run") you can begin to know what you will need.
First figure out what gear you will be running. If you are running a 400 watt amp and 300 watts of computer and peripherals you can do a rough estimate by dividing the the total wattage draw by the voltage used.

For example your 400 watts plus 300 watts (700 watts) divided by 110 volts equals 6.34 amps of draw. so a 15 amp circuit would be fine. But if other things like lights and hairdryes and refigerators and the like are on the same circuit, you may be in trouble.

See what size circuit breaker is on the circuit you want to use as a jumping off place.

And remember, the figures I gave are for rough estimate only. I am not an certified electrician.

Tom

Alex, this is one example of why "bask country" doesn't quite work - if you really mean Spain, that would help us help you. Electrical standards are different for different countries, so until we know the voltage your electrical service supplies (I could get this if I knew for sure which country you're in, hint hint) we can't tell you how much current your gear will draw... Steve

Sure, I am not at all a nationalist so here you go, I am on the French side of the Basque Country.
I think I quite get it on how to calculate it however.
Thanks
Alex

Cool; I wasn't trying to be "snippy" in that last post, just tired and forgot the ... Steve

don't worry at all.