Today's Lesson

Before you start plugging things in at a venue, it’s good to know how much power you gear needs so you can use the available power appropriately and avoid overloading circuits when you turn everything on.

The power consumption for most devices is listed on the device itself, usually close to where the power cable is connected. If it isn’t on the device itself, it will be listed in the user manual or specification sheet.

For example, the K.2 series loudspeakers draw 2.2 amps of power from an outlet. The standard amperage from an electrical outlet differs from country to country but in the U.S., that standard is 15 amps. 

So, you can safely connect a total load of 15 amps to that outlet. There are outlets that can produce more than this, just be sure to be aware of the local limit in your region. 

At 2.2 amps, the K.2 is nowhere near that total limit for a single outlet. So, if we keep going, we can multiply the amps that each loudspeaker draws until we reach our limit, or as close as we can get without exceeding it.

On a 15 amp outlet, that gives us up to 6 K.2 loudspeakers that can be connected at once. 2.2 amps multiplied by 6 gives us 13.2 amps. 

If we were to add one more we’d end up with 15.4 amps and now we’ve exceeded what the outlet can handle. 

Of course this can be applied to any piece of equipment.

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