The Ingredients - the power

Just a short posting to describe what I intend to do for power in my arcade cabinet. The arcade cabinet will contain:

• PC powered by an ATX power supply.
• 19" monitor
• Speakers
• Strip light for arcade cabinet marquee.

The ideal would be that there would be one button to turn the arcade cabinet on and off, remembering that the PC needs to be shutdown properly. So to do all this I found the Tricklestar PowerStrip on eBay.

This power strip has 1 control socket, 3 switched sockets and an always-on socket. The idea is that I will plug the PC into the the control socket and the speakers, monitor and strip light into the switched sockets.

The PC power switch will be moved onto the control panel of the arcade cabinet. When pressed the PC will either power on or be configred to shut down. When the PC is turned on, the power strip detects that the control socket is drawing current and it turns the switched sockets on. Similarly, when  the PC is shutdown, it stops drawing (that much) current. Again the power strip detects this and turns off the switched sockets. This particular power strip has a variable control where you can set the cut-off point.

Just one minor issue I've noticed. When you initially turn on the power strip, maybe becasue the PC power spikes or something, but the switched sockets briefly turn on and off again. This is not a huge problem as I imagine that the arcade cabinet (and therefore the power strip) will be switched on normally and the arcade cabinet will be turned on and off via the power switch on the control panel.