I just don’t get it. Only a handful of devices would put you over the 15A limit right?
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So, there’s a hierarchy here.
At your circuit breaker (which is typically 100 amp, newer houses or larger houses have 200), this means that it supports up to 100 amp load (realistically it shouldnt go over 80 amp)
From there, each circuit (the switches on the breaker) correspond usually to specific rooms, or parts of a room. High load things like laundry, fridge, kitchen, might have a larger circuit, 20-50 amps. Most rooms are 15 amps.
15 amps circuit x 120 volts socket = 1800 watts max (again, realistically 1440w). When a circuit hits that 80% mark, typically that’s when the breaker pops and you have to go reset it. It’s usually pretty hard to hit that, because not a lot of things draw their rated power.
Easy example though… Kitchens. Eletric kettle. Microwave. Coffee Machine. All of these are resistive heaters that basically just run full steam of ~700-1000w. Run two of those at once and you trip the breaker.
Most desktop devices don’t pull a lot of power. Speakers, lights, usb devices, phones, printers.. They just don’t pull a lot of power. Even while gaming, we’re talking… half of what a kettle will pull. Maybe.
This is also (one of) the reasons they recommend not to daisy chain surge protectors, and they are often limited to ~6-8 ports. The less stuff you plug in, the less chance that it trips. But if you chain 2-3 and plug in 20 devices, especially if several are computers with a lot of other stuff, you might actually bump up against that limit.
It’s also the reason at the new house we’re working on, we’re using a 200 amp breaker with 20 amp fuses so that we can actually run multiple things at once.
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