Lionel PH180 bricks power draw? (wall current at 120v)

All four bricks can be plugged into one power strip. The 180 brick amperage has nothing to do with the house outlet. Your 15 amp house breaker will be fine. 

A 15A residential circuit is good for around 1800 watts, figure 1500 watts to be safe.  The PH180 puts out 180 watts, and probably uses maybe 20-30 watts in the conversion.  That figured to be around 800 watts or so for four of them, so get four more and you'll still be able to use them.

Also, the 180 watts is only if they're fully loaded, the chances of all four of the transformers delivering maximum power at the same time is pretty remote.

It has been a long time, but I think:

200 watts (180W + 20W)/120V = about 1.7 amps

15amps/1.7amps = 8.8 or 8 PH180s per 15A circuit.

Using just watts like John did is easier.

I always figure about 2 amps per PH180 and that allows for lots  of headroom, as that would be plenty of wiggle-room even fully loaded. For a 15 amp circuit, 8 PH's easily, 10 practically.

I run a ZW-C with 4-180W bricks and 3 PW ZW's (for lights) on a single 15A circuit.It handles it fine. As it has been said 180Wx4 doesn't mean you are putting that much out any way. Nick 

Thank you all! 

Funny, I did a search for this and came up empty? Maybe I didn't type in the correct info for the search?

Joe, it's much easier to think in watts for transformers and add a 20% "fudge factor" for conversion efficiency.  Remember, 10 amps at 18 volts is NOT the same power as 10 amps at 120 volts.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Joe, it's much easier to think in watts for transformers and add a 20% "fudge factor" for conversion efficiency.  Remember, 10 amps at 18 volts is NOT the same power as 10 amps at 120 volts.

I thought that was the case. For some reason, I drew a blank on the formulas I learned in high school. That was a lonnnnnnnnng time ago!

Probably not as long as it has been for me, but I occasionally get to use some of the math I learned oh so long ago.

Design circuit, 120 volt AC,  is usually limited at 80%.   20 amp circuit ,16 amps.   15 amp circuit, 12 amps.  Design for stuff like this is 100% of rating, though in most cases, you would rarely get to 100% use.   IMO, Mike CT. 

Right Mike, but there's no practical way that all four (or eight) transformers would be pulling anything near the full 180 watts simultaneously.   I was just using the extreme case to illustrate the differences between 120VAC and 18VAC as far as power.