4.30Keeping the Lights On: Basic Electrical Management

Whenever you’re using equipment in a practical location, there is always a concern about power consumption. Especially with today’s technology and sensitive computer equipment, one blown breaker can mean a major hassle for the location owner and a black mark for you.

Understanding how to keep the lights on is not hard. It requires a basic understanding of electricity and just a little math (but I’ll make it as simple as possible).

There are four main components of electricity: watts, volts, amps, and ohms.

To better understand their relationship and what they represent, I use the analogy of a bucket of water. If we have a large bucket filled with water and we have a spigot at the bottom of ...

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