Are arcades viable given the cost of energy?
- Thread starter chubsta
- Start date
Retroman839
Senior Member
Yeh coal fire also
It goes all through the winter
As I’m a carpenter perks of the job is waste wood.
Keeps us warm all winter
It goes all through the winter
As I’m a carpenter perks of the job is waste wood.
Keeps us warm all winter
RaveN said:
Thats really interesting, I bought Panasonic 32" LCD TV few years back, basic model but it's cheap to run as it's something like 45w max, my old LG ones are around 150W
not had a CRT TV for years I'd forgot what they used to use power wise, you would of thought alot to power the CRT 96w isn't that bad. obviously the TV's are much bigger now but older LCD and Plasma are hardly then the Planet Friendly Option and yeah the higher the spec TV's you but the more CPUs they have running the more power they use
I looked at replacing Flu Tubes in machines for LED, firstly they would cost a bit before, the tubes are 8w and if you have LEDs there probably 3w so your going to save 5w maybe? so 30 machines are over 3kw and you'd save 150w and at home not on much not much saving at all
Best Option for Retro Arcades would be disconnect the Marquee and Coin Door lights on them all, that would save some money at least, not same unlit but not essential, if that saves over 10w a machine that's 1kw over 100 cabs
Problem is, LED lights don't last as long as they claim, most times its not the LED that fails, its the components that reduce the voltage, strip light is probably more reliable and last longer, problem with everything now it's made in China
The Retro Arcades will be affected just the same as every other business thats not Essential for peoples lives, fast food places, restaurants, Pubs are all in same boat, high Gas and Electric usage and there will be fewer customers as people can't afford to go out
SUPERSPRINT
Active member
It must be a worry for the arcade owners for sure, however, if you have a large business like arcade club you can invest in Solar PV and batteries and offset that against profits, which is what I would be doing if I owned a large or even a smaller arcade.
Vamino said:
I see what you meant about how deep the Rabbit hole goes, it's never ending
Been learning alot in the last year and you were right about the Tell-Lie-Vision, wow it really was best advice ever was stop watching that Evil Contraption. I only use it now as reference
Other day some woman on with a Pub, says she's now £1000 behind with enery bills, thats before the price increase, she says I don't know what Im going to do. Well surely if you takings don't cover the Electric and Gas then you have no Business left?
There's been a few that seem to prop up the business with savings, once they run out its over, but how can that be a business if it's not making money. have to agree, I've wouldn't have a business myself unless living at the place and I wouldn't want to rent, I would buying it and paying off the mortage pronto, if you have no rent, no mortage you only have bills to pay you in a stronger position
The Arcade Barn, Its great to put Dreams into Practice, but I couldn't understand why you would pay out £1000 a month to rent a Barn to put the machines in, wouldn't it have made far more sense to have bought a House with a big Building and Ive seen some on Homes Under The Hammer down that way, or something with Land you can have building on, plough your money into you own property not someone elses, I'm sure I said to him about it but he said he couldn't afford to buy a bigger place, but you were paying out dead money to a farmer renting
No, I could never do that, put money into something you own
Attack is on the Middle Class and Small/Medium business this time, the huge ones will be fine and swallow up more.
Suppose it depends on how long it lasts to who survive, I try not to let it affect what I do, I will be turning off things now instead of leaving on standby or plugged in, Glad I was working on fitting my solar heat boxes as well, if we get as much Sun through winter that will help me out, I try not to have gas boiler on much in winter anyway, just because I don't like giving them loads of money but I'm working most of the day so I don't have heating on as I keep warm working and not because I can't afford it on
My job won't be there for many more years, I'm hoping to see it out till it ends and I get redundancy, they have accelerated the banks closing and another 21 added for closure for just this year so won't be long now before non left but main BIG city as even Chesterfield Loosing them
SUPERSPRINT said:
Is solar and wind all it's cracked up to be though. I love the technology personally and would love to have all my house powered with it, Solar panels loose efficiency over time and through winter there not very good. I've got a 50w panel which can't power a 2.9w fan and a small controller pcb on a dull day
All the Solar and Wind stuff comes from China too
Retroman839
Senior Member
Bods said:
Yes and our costs aside
Real issue is environmental damage.
China and India are the worst
We produce 1 percent of the carbon dioxide
For the world but
All we are disussing is the cost financial..
When do we realise the cost environmentally ?
Gov shanagiains aside
Maybe this is a kick in the pants for the better so we start to really embrace
The changes that are required for us ( uk ) to become a tribe that is conscious about energy consumption
And we begin to initiate truly sustainable sources of economical energy
Keeping the stream alive
One world Retroman8392022-08-28 12:55:49
SUPERSPRINT
Active member
Solar panels are about 66% efficient so a 3.6 kw rated system will make about 2.4kw at absolute peak sun hours 12pm. Take 400w off that to run the inverter so your making around 2KWH, during the course of a day 12-14KWh on a sunny day. My panels on the roof have essentially given me free hot water via immersion and smart switch (myenergi) give or take a day here and there due to dark clouds, most of the summer. On average this spring/summer I’ve not used hardly any gas and have had 2/3 of my electricity consumption paid for by the sun. So when set up correctly, yes PV is a big help.
I’ve also sent a bit to grid (and got sod all for it) so if I had put that into batteries I would have saved more, albeit having to spend for the batteries. More than ever though those investments will pay for themselves quicker.
I’ve also sent a bit to grid (and got sod all for it) so if I had put that into batteries I would have saved more, albeit having to spend for the batteries. More than ever though those investments will pay for themselves quicker.
In current conditions I could only see a small retro arcade being viable if it was part of a much larger complex, a sideshow if you like. Footfall is something that's very important and hard for just one attraction to guarantee. Maybe an amusement/entertainment centre maybe based on the old style shopping arcades with all their different sections.
Retroman839
Senior Member
Maybe a traveling one man band
That travels on a horse
Cost of hay x the availability of water.
I’m living in the first county of uk that ran out of water this year
Thames water got there vans blockaded by residents for sake of babies needing water.
Water co. Privatised for profit. Water do you expect
Retroman8392022-08-28 13:20:46
That travels on a horse
Cost of hay x the availability of water.
I’m living in the first county of uk that ran out of water this year
Thames water got there vans blockaded by residents for sake of babies needing water.
Water co. Privatised for profit. Water do you expect
Retroman8392022-08-28 13:20:46
SUPERSPRINT said:
Ah, interesting, that sounds pretty good to me
I was looking at cost of batteries
What I'd like is get rid of my Gas supply, I only have Boiler on it and only use it for the Nov, Dec, jan Feb at most, so it's something I would like to look into, powering immersion would be great, if you preheated water also with sun that would help again. if I can power alternate source of heat, would love to get rid of boiler and the damn standing charges i pay all spring/summer its unused
the Solar heat boxes I've had working pretty good in garden under test last winter, 43c output going down to 30c after 1 hour running while outside temp was 6/7c, only when decent Sun obviously, having measured a 1kw heater output at 36c and 2kw at 46c i was quite happy, trouble is soon as its on my house it doesn't work as well, found out it's because of neighbors house and it's like a wind tunnel between them which cools it down, they should work better now and in spring I fitted 2 more on house and 1 on my shed roof to keep that warmer and damp free. so I will be testing those out this autumn/winter to see how well they perform
Certainly lots more can be done to cut costs which are going to get more important and will be at top of my list of projects, arcade machines and cars will have to take a back seat.
Bods said:Vamino said:
I see what you meant about how deep the Rabbit hole goes, it's never ending
Been learning alot in the last year and you were right about the Tell-Lie-Vision, wow it really was best advice ever was stop watching that Evil Contraption. I only use it now as reference
Other day some woman on with a Pub, says she's now £1000 behind with enery bills, thats before the price increase, she says I don't know what Im going to do. Well surely if you takings don't cover the Electric and Gas then you have no Business left?
There's been a few that seem to prop up the business with savings, once they run out its over, but how can that be a business if it's not making money. have to agree, I've wouldn't have a business myself unless living at the place and I wouldn't want to rent, I would buying it and paying off the mortage pronto, if you have no rent, no mortage you only have bills to pay you in a stronger position
The Arcade Barn, Its great to put Dreams into Practice, but I couldn't understand why you would pay out £1000 a month to rent a Barn to put the machines in, wouldn't it have made far more sense to have bought a House with a big Building and Ive seen some on Homes Under The Hammer down that way, or something with Land you can have building on, plough your money into you own property not someone elses, I'm sure I said to him about it but he said he couldn't afford to buy a bigger place, but you were paying out dead money to a farmer renting
No, I could never do that, put money into something you own
Attack is on the Middle Class and Small/Medium business this time, the huge ones will be fine and swallow up more.
Suppose it depends on how long it lasts to who survive, I try not to let it affect what I do, I will be turning off things now instead of leaving on standby or plugged in, Glad I was working on fitting my solar heat boxes as well, if we get as much Sun through winter that will help me out, I try not to have gas boiler on much in winter anyway, just because I don't like giving them loads of money but I'm working most of the day so I don't have heating on as I keep warm working and not because I can't afford it on
My job won't be there for many more years, I'm hoping to see it out till it ends and I get redundancy, they have accelerated the banks closing and another 21 added for closure for just this year so won't be long now before non left but main BIG city as even Chesterfield Loosing them
I almost made myself sick taking on the burden of history's conspiracies mate. It's not a subject to be taken lightly imo, as people who truly care about the welfare of other people can become the most entangled in it all. Worrying or being fearful about something too much can make people physically sick, and there always seems to be a pill or potion to help with that.
The media tries to portray people who have critical thinking to be wackos, if people don't put their faith in the man on the telly but instead try to use some common sense, the man on the telly suggests there's something wrong with them and tries to guilt shame people into compliance.
The working class is being trolled to the highest degree with the current energy price situation imo. It's easy to blame everything on whoever the current bogeyman is. I've seen the man on the telly submit multiple bogeymen over the years who I'm supposed to hate. Fringe sites suggest their own bogeymen too, it's not just a one sided thing.
I really don't take sides as it's not about this side or that side imo, that's the good old divide and conquer tactic. The first question I always ask is, Cui bono, who benefits. After weighing up the evidence, my conclusion is that it's not the taxpayer.
Thankfully my mortgage is nearly paid off now, once that's paid off then I'll be getting some much needed renovations which will probably also include solar panels. When I first moved into this house I was living in one room to keep energy costs down as I chose to put all of my funds into overpaying on my mortgage, it's looking like that heat one one room system will be making a comeback. There'll be no walking around the house in T-shirts this winter!
bones said:
Yeah, I agree. Supermarkets have shown that a successful model is to have multiple shops/brands in one place. I've seen Cinnabon, Macdonalds, Timpsons and Eggfree cake shops in Asda........Lloyds chemist, Argos and Habitat in Sainsburys....it goes on and on.....I do wonder if Banks will start to appear in them too.
John Bennett
Senior Member
'Bogeyman'? The primary drive for increasing gas prices is because Putin has invaded Ukraine and created the biggest war in Europe since WW2.
Granted, there's other lesser factors, but the above IS the primary reason, and I'm not sure why retroman was berated as being 'political' for mentioning it on page 1. And being hit with unbelievably high energy costs is horrible, but I take some small comfort in we're not the ones being hit daily with rockets (and lets hope we're never are, as the ones that can hit us are civilization-ending).
John Bennett2022-08-28 20:38:53
Granted, there's other lesser factors, but the above IS the primary reason, and I'm not sure why retroman was berated as being 'political' for mentioning it on page 1. And being hit with unbelievably high energy costs is horrible, but I take some small comfort in we're not the ones being hit daily with rockets (and lets hope we're never are, as the ones that can hit us are civilization-ending).
John Bennett2022-08-28 20:38:53
John Bennett
Senior Member
Yes, there are other factors and I realise energy suppliers were going to the wall at the start of the year, post-pandemic, but it's accelerated away in the last 6 months (so it's heading towards 4x what it was last year).
Look at the graph here:
Why are energy prices so high? Ofgem reveals 80% price cap rise | This is Money
John Bennett2022-08-28 20:38:32
Look at the graph here:
Why are energy prices so high? Ofgem reveals 80% price cap rise | This is Money
John Bennett2022-08-28 20:38:32
It's a complicated subject for sure mate.
I believe that this whole energy situation is not because of a pandemic or because of a single person ordering the illegal invasion of another country.
Energy cartels have have an oligopoly in place which has us by the balls and they can charge whatever they like. Energy prices have a profound effect at an economic scale and economies can crash and prosper at the drop of a hat. I don't really want to open a can of worms mentioning how they got to that position, but you can easily see the patterns by looking at the reasoning behind various wars, EG Iran in WWII, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya et all.
So for me, I'm reluctant to blame Putin for how much retro Arcades and the rest of us have to pay for energy. I really feel for the people of Ukraine, just as I feel for the people of any other countries that were illegally invaded.
I believe that this whole energy situation is not because of a pandemic or because of a single person ordering the illegal invasion of another country.
Energy cartels have have an oligopoly in place which has us by the balls and they can charge whatever they like. Energy prices have a profound effect at an economic scale and economies can crash and prosper at the drop of a hat. I don't really want to open a can of worms mentioning how they got to that position, but you can easily see the patterns by looking at the reasoning behind various wars, EG Iran in WWII, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya et all.
So for me, I'm reluctant to blame Putin for how much retro Arcades and the rest of us have to pay for energy. I really feel for the people of Ukraine, just as I feel for the people of any other countries that were illegally invaded.
John Bennett
Senior Member
I think this might be where we agree to disagree.
Arcade machines are good though, aren't they?
Arcade machines are good though, aren't they?
It's all good mate.
Yeah, arcade games are ace!
Although to be honest I have been playing Spider-man on PC over the past couple of days. I haven't played a newly released game for ages as I mainly play arcade games, the graphics on Spider man have blown me away. Heaven knows how much it's cost me in electricity.....RTX on FTW!
Yeah, arcade games are ace!
Although to be honest I have been playing Spider-man on PC over the past couple of days. I haven't played a newly released game for ages as I mainly play arcade games, the graphics on Spider man have blown me away. Heaven knows how much it's cost me in electricity.....RTX on FTW!