How do extension cables or power strips supply power for 3 plugs if they’re only plugged into 1 outlet?
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Typical residential circuits are wired for 15 amps. That’s a unit of current. Think of current in electricity as the same as water flow in a pipe.
The wiring is only designed to be safe for 15 amps. To prevent the wiring from getting too hot and burning your house down, each circuit is protected by a circuit breaker – which opens up (shutting off the electricity in that circuit) when it “sees” currents of more than 15 amps.
Most things you plug in don’t use 15 amps of “flow”. Typical electronics (that you would plug into a power strip) use only a fraction…or just a “trickle”. Your phone charger, your Xbox, your monitor, your laptop, etc….all use between 1/2 amp to 2 amps each.
You could easily plug six of these type items in and be fine. As long as you stay below 15 amps total, the circuit breaker won’t trip.
If you plugged a toaster (5 amps), microwave (8 amps), a kettle (2 amps), and a hair dryer (10 amps) into a power strip and turned them all on, you’d have a problem.
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