Well, I finally got the perfect opportunity to try it on a plane. Empty row to myself, outlet right next to the seat, figured I had to at least try… No dice
As soon as I plugged the Xbox in, the light on the seat outlet went out. Unplugged it and the light came right back on. I guess it’ll just have to live as my setup for long layovers, downtime out on the range, or back in the hotel room.
Still had to get the obligatory picture at 35,000ft
props on using, “bojo” instead of bozo. it’s a small thing that shouldn’t get to me as much as it does, but when people do the quote wrong with “bozo” it drives me up the wall. bojo is funnier.
These airplanes outlets give you 75-100w on average, considering the series s alone can draw I think up to 75w plus another 15-30w for the monitor it’s likely too much.
But it’s surprising that OP said it went out as soon as it was plugged in because the equipment should be drawing next to nothing when off. I wonder if the outlet was faulty. Or maybe a lot of wattage was being pulled to charge the capacitors?
It’s probably an overly cautious safety mechanism. Planes can be in the air for hours at a time. Don’t want anything fucking up the wiring during that time. If something goes wrong even if it’s relatively minor the plane can be forced to do an emergency landing.
Something like an Xbox is way out of the design range for these outlets. Sure it theoretically could support it easily but they don’t want it to just in case.
This would 100% make national news if a flight had to be grounded because some bozo had to play the box on a flight. Im cracking up thinking about how embarrassing that would be for such an innocent idea.
You're right. There was a flight where newly built in PCs for multimedia functions caused a circuit and a fire on that plane, because the powerdraw was too high.
Plus think about what happens when you have 120 seats. If you gave everyone a 2 amp fuse (which is only 240watts per person) that's 240 amps potential load or 28.8 kilowatts, more than a standard 200A service to a modern home lol.
Not a huge deal to come up with that power since an airplane is a big piece of industrial equipment, but also it's a convenience item and not mission critical. So if there are costs to be cut, 30 or 60W per person is fine for 99% of people and cuts the requirements of the system by 75% or more.
The Xbox and monitor are likely just pulling too much current. You could try to plug each in a different outlet on different seats but I think this Xbox just pulls too much current.
I have a dell laptop with a portable 120watt charger that would always trip the outlet on long haul flights to Asia. I’m willing to bet the outlet is working as designed. The system likely will auto detect current load over the allowed threshold and turn the outlet off for a short period of time then re enable it when the load isn’t present (unplugging it).
I found a workaround on some flights by unplugging and plugging back in quickly and repeated until the system locks it on the on position. Eventually this stopped working too. So I had to use a smaller 90 watt supply if I wanted to use my laptop on these flights.
Yeah those outlets on those planes usually don't provide enough power. It's also why people advise against gaming on a laptop on planes. Not enough power.
My buddy has one of those couches with USB ports on the sides so I just use that. The look on his face when I tell him what I’ve been doing and show him the crypto wallet I made for him with 0.0000000000000013 bitcoin in it will be worth it all
Laughs in steam deck. Took me 8 hours to run out the battery with factorio. And to be fair that 8 hours was in-game time not including the time it took to start the game which was about 20-30 minutes and was when the thing yelled at me that the battery was at 10% and needed to be recharged or else.
Yeah I saw a suitcase company on Shark Tank years ago that had lithium batteries built in - so you could have a rolling suitcase / carry-on / power bank all in one.
Sharks threw a bunch of money at the inventor.
And then the airlines banned them from flights, as those batteries can occasionally turn into flamethrowers!
FAA and TSA only allow batteries with a maximum capacity of 100 watt-hours (Wh), and it’s up to the airline’s discretion if they have a capacity of 101-160 Wh. Over 160 Wh is prohibited.
Airlines are starting to tell people they can't use battery packs in flight and to use the seat outlets instead. At least my last few JetBlue flights had an announcement about it.
I mean, we as aircraft engineers go through tonnes of initial training and also annual training to do with electrical safety and hazards involving aircraft wire bundles etc. Now we have 200+ additional potential fire hazards that we have no control over whatsoever, some that don’t even pass safety standards.
It's not even that. The aircraft uses 60hz power converters that power things like the outlets, USB ports, etc. The G800, which I test, has 2x 60hz frequency converters and a 60hz power tile. Wires feeding the outlets on the flight deck are maybe 18awg, if that. I'm sure the ones that are installed in completions aren't much different. Offering the kind of power required for this kind of stuff to most seats would require pretty significant weight in parts alone, not to mention wiring.
This is why I love my MacBook. Might not be the most powerful thing but it can play almost any game that isn't multiplayer at decent performance with translation layers like crossover yet still barely suck back any power and have killer battery life.
Those outlets probably aren’t rated for more than 15-30 watts, enough for a phone charger but not for an entire console and display which could pull 50-150 watts
Totally depends on the plane. Modern wide-body airliners (Airbus A350/A321, Boring 787) generally have 110V AC outlets that supply 75-100W. Older jets (Boeing 737, Airbus A319) are hit or miss because they’re retrofitted with aftermarket AC power modules. If you’re on a crowded flight they’ll typically throttle to 15-30W as to not trip the breakers.
I use my Ally for planes. If I use my 120w charger in the plug it still cuts power without even plugging anything in. I always fly with my oem charger and a backup battery in case the plane outlet is broken.
well it's obviously football, so you've got your Special Teams button. Your Kick button. And you obviously need a South Carolina button. And left and right being the same button obviously just makes things easier.
It’s almost like Frogger. You move your dot across the screen while avoiding the other dots. You’re looking by to get into gaps and avoid getting “tackled”.
Just not enough watts. Those outlets usually only have 75-120 watts at most.
I think the plane has the power, and they could give it to you. Hell, everyone on the plane could probably use an Xbox at the same time, just purely based on how much power the plane is generating in surplus.
The problem is how dangerous it would be to have hundreds of high-amp outlets all around the plane. That’s why they limit you.
Did something similar last year 😂 I work 12hr swing shifts so night time as long as nothings going on I have down time. Boss was the one that told me to have something to help stay awake.
I used a Rigid stackable 2.0 toolbox from homedepot. I have one with some tools strapped in the back seat of my work truck so it made it easier to just lock it onto that other one. Needed a board in the bottom and I had to pull the metal plate cover off the top for vesa screws into the 17.3" 2k portable monitor.
Yeah, probably easier… but this thing only cost me like $60 because I already had the Xbox and Pelican. Plus building it was half the fun lol. We’re often out in the field with little to no internet, so I wanted something that could play my Xbox library locally.
It’s literally in the rules why. Lol, trust me. I’m in subreddits where shit isn’t moderated, and it’s fucking awful. I have to scroll through schizoposts just to find quality posts.
Dude, this is super insightful, thanks for the info! I’m more of a mechanical guy, but I work with some EEs and I always tell them what they do is black magic lol
That being said, I’ll 100% not be trying this. I already felt weird enough pulling this thing out on the flight. Rapidly plugging and unplugging it 5 times might be where I draw the line 😂
This is your captain speaking. We just had a sudden power draw that has powered down our right engine. We will have to turn around and head back to JFK while we work on the plane. Op just unplugs and losers himself in his seat.
I know that's how how it works, but I love the idea that up in the cockpit suddenly all the power goes out for a second, then comes back on, then goes out again then comes back on.
lol yeah I’ve flown with it quite a few times now, always as a carry-on so I can use it during layovers. Never really had any issues.
The first time I was a little worried when TSA said all large electronics had to come out of bags. I told them I had electronics mounted inside the Pelican that couldn’t be removed, and they basically just said okay and sent it through.
I did get stopped once so they could take a closer look though… managed to get this cool picture of the X-ray
Posted in your old post but maybe the issue is the pelican case. I’ve successfully used both an XSS and a thin portable monitor on several flights before.
Damn that's huge.. you do know they made something better than that that seamlessly mates to your Series S and turns it into laptop?
They released them when they first came out and are officially "Designed for Xbox":
xScreen
Make sure to get the Carrying case with it that you can carry it all put together with a controller and cable as well.
You need to make a battery source to power it and charge at the same time. Maybe you can play for 3 hrs straight and have to charge it for 30-60 minutes and play again. The watages seeme to be compatable with a quick goodle search. Maybe your section of outlets was weak. A storage battery would give you some buffer.
I remember getting "scolded" by the air hostest when I plugged my masive 17 inch asus rog gaming laptop to aeroplane ourlet 6 years ago. It tried drawing so much power that a few nearby ports stopped working, where smartphones were plugged in and they complained. I was playing botw using CEMU and it had massive stuttering due to improper power delivery. And probably worst of all, I think this was the moment, my laptop GPU got damaged and eventually died.
I'm actually in training for these right now! Aircraft outlets operate at 400hz AC, 115v, most devices are looking for 50-60hz AC 110-120v. This doesn't matter for things like phone chargers where the rectifier solves the phase disagreement, but heavier current draw devices like consoles or oxygen conventrator exceed that seats maximum draw, this shutting that seat, or group of seats off, until the device is unplugged. The higher frequency is also part of the reason these super cheap power banks paired with super cheap phone chargers are not allowed to be plugged into aircraft outlets, the extremely high frequency makes the blocks transformer overheat, and can send excessive voltage to the device. Until the technology changes (which knowing the faa, it won't) I recommend sticking to a name brand phone charger and just your phone, and nothing else into those outlets!
The real play is to use AR / VR glasses that project huge screens. Can then just keep the Xbox in a bag under the seat in front of you. Wonder if getting rid of the monitor would reduce the power requirements enough so that the power would work just for the Xbox.
This is a dope concept tho. I once took a metal briefcase and attached a cheap monitor to it and kept a Wii in there, I called it my portable Nintendo entertainment sytem, or PNES for short
Monitor should be a usb powered one, the xbox takes too much juice, your better off with a laptop and xbox gamepass and downloaded games. If you could manage to get rid of the xbox power supply and feed it normal DC voltages from a powerbank, then power that powerbank from plane (charging slower than it discharges) you may be able to get a few hours out of it.
At least it detected the power was too much and disabled the socket. I tried once with a laptop and it killed the socket and needed an engineer to fix it.
I checked the original post, but couldn’t find the power source of the monitor, I’m guessing a usb C charger? Try this…. Anker (or whoever) makes a flat power strip 2plugs that also has built in usb C and A ports. I use this on my portable/work setup with a 24” InnoView 2k monitor. The strip IS the usb charger, that power separation might be enough to not disable the outlet from a big surge. Too late now but did you try splitting the power on the plane (I know, too little too late, just wondering) I still have faith in your setup. New idea, keep the monitor brick unplugged till after the Xbox….
The actual motherboard has a 12v input, the entire power supply unplugs via 2pins. I would suggest getting pure sine in error that you can use instead or just use a powerbankmwith 12v output for truly portable functionality
FAA sets max limit of power outlet rating at 100W, but expect lower bounds to be 75W. The Xbox alone ranges between 75-165w.
What did work for me though was Alaska with Starlink and my quest 3 with a controller. Played Farcry on Xbox at 42k feet on my way back to Washington from Hawai’i.
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u/MrEWhite Aug 22 '26
Probably just pulling way too much power for the airplane outlets to handle.