Christmas Light Power Consumption Excel Spreadsheet

I spent 5 hours last night with John laying out maps, extension cords, controllers, security cameras, and power grids. I was going to use 3x5 index cards (one for each of the 64 channels). With Microsoft Excel 2007's new conditional formatting, a monkey could calculate power consumption. I still need to learn how to do Vlookup formulas. It's a breeze to move around strands of lights and instantly see how the total power is affected.



We have 4 controllers. The black grid is a screen shot of controller #4. All 16 of the channels are calculated and tallied automatically. The controller can handle a total of 15 amps. As of right now....

controller 1 - 14.91 amps used (.09 amps free)
controller 2 - 14.54 amps used (.46 amps free)
controller 3 - 14.88 amps used (.12 amps free)
controller 4 - 14.90 amps used (.10 amps free)

If we were to replace the 15 amp fuse in each of the 4 controllers, we would be able to draw 20 amps per controller. I'm not going to start messing with a circuit board though. Maybe next year.