I Need More Power, Scottie!

Now here's a problem I've never run into before... until now, that is.

I mentioned a while back that I had picked up a boat anchor of an amplifier/receiver a month or two ago. It's an amazing piece of electronics from Pioneer, and I'm still learning all that it can do.

Well, one thing that I have learned is that it can devour electricity. It's a power-hog pulling about 650 watts per hour. And of course, I'm using it with a DLP television, which has some pretty impressive power demands of its own.

And then I have all that in the same room as a Tektronix Phaser 860 DP. That's a solid-ink printer that pulls about 1100 watts when it goes into the warmup phase. Add a few other things on the same circuit breaker, and you begin to run into some real problems if multiple things start clicking on at the same time. I've heard some battery backup units complaining in their irritating beep-beep manner. And I figure that can't be good...

Tomorrow, I need to buy some longer cables--USB and ethernet--and see about moving the printer into the other downstairs room, where it'll be on another circuit breaker. I think that's a much better solution than having to decide whether to watch a movie or listen to a movie, but not both...